Dear Church Family,
I received a missionary prayer card last week that was more than a little unusual. It did not come from a missionary that our church supports or asks that we support. Accompanying information stated it was at least 84 years old. It came from another denomination with a dated photo with three people that I recognized. Sure enough, the black-and white picture featured my grandparents and my mother who was probably three at the time.
What strikes me is that as they served faithfully in Columbia, South America, they would be there only a few more years as severe persecution beset them on almost a daily basis. A while after the picture was taken a man approached her in the town market and declared her to be “a child of the devil.” He then stuck his lit cigar into her ear. Shocked by what happened, people picked her up and raced her home. That incident provided a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel and many professed Christ as Savior that day. My mother left when she was six to go to school in Phoenix and lived safely with her paternal grandmother for two years.
Throughout her time in Columbia my grandmother suffered from various tropical diseases that would plague her for the rest of her life (though remarkably she lived to be almost 101!). As God worked through my grandfather to establish about 100 churches and a Bible institute that still exists, persecution came in various forms. While preaching he had bricks, rocks and even a lit stick of dynamite thrown at him. (He threw the dynamite back out the window into the street where the explosion left a two-foot deep hole.) Those opposed to the Gospel put a price on his head. He wrote, “There seems to be a direct ratio between God’s blessing and Satan’s interference.” Malaria, typhoid, bedbugs (treated with arsenic) and having ground glass put in flour that he ate brought the ten years of ministry in Columbia to an end. God led him to a fruitful pastorate in Quincy, Massachusetts for five years and then 30 years with the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington.
Did my grandparents and mother suffer? They sure did. My grandmothers once told me that though the physical and emotional pain was great, they knew God was working in and through them to accomplish His purposes. As hard as it was, they rejoiced in the pain they endured for the sake of the Gospel. We may feel the virus crisis has brought great suffering to us. Life seems to be a little rough right now, but compared to what I have just shared, I trust you will realize we have it pretty good.
God is at work during these times. 1 Peter 5:10 gives us hope, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” May we suffer with this hope.
With great hope,
Pastor Gillikin