Ida Scudder

IDA SCUDDER

1870-1960

Medical Missionary to India

Ida Sophia Scudder was born in India to John, Jr. and Sophia Scudder. Ida’s grandfather, John Scudder I was the first American medical missionary.  His seven sons all followed him to became medical missionaries in India.  When Ida was six, she had to help her family feed malnourished Indian children because of a famine. She never forgot that experience. As she left that country with its foul smells a year later, she vowed never to return.  After finishing a seminary for girls at the recommendation of Dwight L. Moody, Ida was summonsed by her father to come to India because her mother was ill and needed help.  Once there, she took over the responsibilities of her mother and oversaw the daily running of the boy’s’ boarding school her parents operated. Her father ran a medical clinic besides. 

The culture in India at the time forbade a male doctor to treat a female.  So Dr. Scudder was limited to treating the men in the Vellore area.  One night, three different men came to their home asking Ida to come help deliver a baby.  All three were difficult births and the men knew their wives would die if Ida didn’t come.  Ida implored the men to allow her father to help because she had no training, but they left with heavy hearts knowing a man could never treat their wives.  All three women died.  Her father told her, “If there’s nothing you can do to remedy a bad situation, the wisest thing to do is to forget about it.”   But that night, she realized there WAS something she could do about it!   She soon packed her bags and sailed back to America to attend medical school. She graduated from Cornell University Medical School the first year it was open to women.  

Ida returned to Vellore, South India and began practicing medicine.  She performed her first operation with no helper but the butler’s wife, yet in time she became noted as a surgeon. By 1906, the number of patients she treated annually had risen to 40,000.

Through the fifty-five years Dr. Ida Scudder served in India, she started a school of nursing for Indian women and then a medical school to train women to become doctors.  As ground was broken for the hospital, she realized it was a fulfillment of a prayer her grandfather had prayed many years before.  The first seventeen girls she trained as doctors all passed their tests with flying colors while men from other medical schools in India had a 20% success rate.  She soon had to increase the size of her hospital, added an orphanage because of the children abandoned because of superstition, and had many medical outposts where thousands were treated.  

During her lifetime she saw her medical center become one of the largest in all of Asia. The departments multiplied to include radiation-oncology under her niece and name sake, Dr. Ida Belle Scudder, thoracic surgery, nephrology, leprosy surgery and rehabilitation under Dr. Paul Brand, microbiology, rural work, mental health, ophthalmology, and many others — a list of “firsts” in India equal only to her abounding energy, indomitable will, and consecrated purpose. Ida traveled to America many times to raise funds for medical buildings or to recruit doctors and nurses.  On her last trip, she reached Cairo and flew in her first flight from there to India.  She said, “Now that is the way to travel.  I have finally found a mode of transportation that’s fast enough for me.”  

Ida died at the age of 90 in Vellore, India. The Scudder family devoted more than 1,100 combined years to Christian medical missions in South India by 42 members of at least five generations.

Ida’s work continues today. One hundred years since she built the first hospital, the hospital has a staff of 5000 and serves 80,000 people annually.  Her medical school is now known as the top college in India.  

William Booth

WILLIAM BOOTH

1829-1912

Founder of Salvation Army

As a 13-year-old boy, William was apprenticed as a pawn broker by his father who had lost the family money.  The next year, his father died.  William was struck by sadness over people pawning the tools of their trade to put food on the table for their families.  When he was 15, he heard Henry Carey say, “A soul dies every minute.”  These words penetrated his heart and he gave his life to Christ.  

William began preaching to the poor of London on street corners and finally convinced them to go to a progressive Methodist church.  But the church reacted by telling William he could not bring the poor people to the church.  As a result, William and his wife, Catherine, began their own ministry, East London Christian Mission.  They would preach to the poor, thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, chimney sweeps, char women of London in old buildings, tents, or street corners.  Eventually, military parades, including bands, flags, and singing, were included to attract attention.  William was consumed with helping the poor by any means possible—providing food, shelter, clothing and helping the downtrodden find work.  He was willing to do any ministry that worked.  People were angry that he tried to eliminate the class system and he had avid opponents—people would throw rotten food, rocks, and even dead cats at his army of evangelists.  

George Railton, William’s secretary, had written in the mission’s annual report, “The Christian mission, under the superintendence of the Rev. William Booth, is a volunteer army.”  William crossed out “volunteer” and wrote in “salvation.”  From that day on, the ministry became known as The Salvation Army and it took on a military structure beginning with William becoming General William Booth.  With the new military feel, people became even more resistant to his ministry—but the effects couldn’t be questioned.  Lives were being transformed.  People were being saved and lifted out of poverty.  

During his life, he elevated the position of women.  His wife, Catherine preached with him and alone.  Women became captains of their branch of the Salvation Army.  He challenged the government over trafficking young girls and he wrote a book denouncing poverty and gave solutions to raise people out of their poor circumstances.  He was later awarded an honorary doctorate and given many honors for his work before he died.  By the end of his life, his work was revered by many governments around the world.  He had established work in 58 countries and his converts were inestimable.  

At his funeral, people lined up for hours to attend but only the first 40,000 people were allowed to enter the cathedral.  Queen Mary attended his funeral while presidents and kings sent their condolences. When his will was read, he owned less than 500 pounds ($619.00) but had raised millions of pounds for his ministry.  

At the time of his death on August 20, 1912, the Salvation Army had become a family-run Christian empire, with seven of the Booths' eight children taking leadership positions. Today, following the pattern established by the first general, the Salvation Army marches on with over 25,000 officers in 91 countries.

John Williams

JOHN WILLIAMS

1796-1839

Missionary to Polynesian Islands

John Williams was a young man when he listened to Reverend Wilks talk about the London Missionary Society sending the first missionaries to the Pacific Islands twenty years earlier.  He was amazed with the idols Rev. Wilks had which once belonged to King Pomare II of Tahiti who had given his heart to Christ.  John began praying for Tahiti and God began showing him that he was to take the gospel to the islands.  

John and Mary set sail soon afterwards for Tahiti.  On the voyage, John, a blacksmith, studied how the ship was made while Mary got her sea legs.  Once they landed at Moorea, John set about building a ship and learning the language from the men who helped him.  He had a vision to reach all of the islands in his lifetime with the gospel and he would need a ship to do that. Upon learning the missionaries had a ship, the London Missionary Society instructed them to sell it.  John longed for the board to understand they needed a ship to get to the other islands.  He would make three ships (and sell two per instructions) before the board understood their need.  

What John discovered on the other islands were cannibals and chaos.  Many ships would land on these islands and cut trees for their countries in exchange for alcohol.  There was no rule of order on most islands.  John made friends with the chiefs and led many to Christ.  Then he taught them the Word and order began to come to the islands.  He published the first Bible in the Rarotongan language.  

John also had vision for the Polynesians to become missionaries to the other islands.  His plan was very successful and many missionaries were sent out. He and another missionary even created a school to train the new missionaries.  He found that it was much easier for the natives to reach the people than it was for a European to reach them.  

John traveled between the islands to encourage the missionaries and correct misunderstandings or wrong teachings. He never lost vision to reach all of the islands.  He landed at a new island,Futuna of New Hebrides, and was attacked and martyred by the men there.  Later, it was said they’d eaten him.  John’s son, John Jr., spent the rest of his life in the South Pacific finishing the work his father started.  His son, Samuel, became a Congregational minister in England and his youngest son, Billy, set up a publishing business there.  

Rejection

 

Pastors and their wives fight rejection.  I don’t know any pastor who thinks he’s perfect—he’s usually the first to admit he’s fallible.  And as much as a pastor speaks, he’s going to say something wrong.  Even Paul “corrected” himself in his later writings.  I believe he progressively came to see his complete humanity and then came to the conclusion that he was chief among sinners.  

There’s probably no person who is dissected more than a pastor.  As discontent reaches the pastor’s ears (because it always does), it’s hard not to examine every word he’s spoken and he can easily fall into despair.  

Here’s the thing...if the pastor has sinned, he needs to confess it and be the leader of repentance.  But if, after allowing the Holy Spirit to examine his heart, he’s spoken the truth and someone is offended by the truth, he needs to realize those people aren’t rejecting him but God.  At that point, he needs to be confident in truth.  

I don’t know about you, but when my pastor-husband is attacked, my flesh is activated.  I want to go confront someone!  But actually, it’s a good time to allow God to examine my own heart.  It’s a time to bless and pray for those who are attacking.  It’s a time for some holy transformation.  

God allows these things to grow us and mature us. (James 1).  Submit to what God is doing and resist the destruction the enemy wants to bring into your lives and the life of your church.  There’s no better time than this to offer a sacrifice of praise!  Praise is truly a sacrifice when you’re under fire.  

“But no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those in whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord.”

Isaiah 54:17. AMP

Releasing Your Adult Children

Your adult children get married and that first year may make you feel like you’re losing your kids. Holidays may even leave you in tears as your kids choose to go to the other parents or they even have to divide their time between more than two sets of parents.  I’ve seen many parents struggle.  I may have a solution which will help you.  You may not gravitate to it immediately, but give it a chance.   

We came to this choice because Andy & I were never able to have our own holidays with our children.  We always spent the holidays with our parents. Of course, we have great memories because we love the grandparents; but as our children got older, we would have loved having Christmas at home.  Even though our parents lived close to one another, we always felt like we were eating and quickly moving to the next set of grandparents.  

As a result of our experience, we gave each of our four kids an unusual wedding gift. We wrote them a note telling them we released them to celebrate the holidays any way they chose.  If they spent every holiday at their in-laws, we were fine with that.  If they wanted to go to the mountains or the coast, we blessed them to do that.  In fact, we told them if none of them came home for a holiday, their dad and I would go on a cruise!   

The key was...we meant it.  We graced them.  Over and over and over.  But the most amazing thing happened. They came home.  Not every time, but most of the time.  There have been times we’ve been invited to one of their homes for a holiday.  And this past Christmas?   Andy & I went on a cruise.  

I’ve seen friends restore relationships with their adult children by releasing and gracing them—and meaning it.  Before, their children avoided coming home.  I think the kids were resisting what felt like control or expectations.  Who wants to go somewhere when they’re feeling forced to be there?  And they won’t respond well to your disappointment or frustration—it becomes a noose.  But once they released their children, things changed.  One couple, after releasing their married kids and then finding out those kids were going to the in-laws, took their younger child on a special trip that first Christmas (not with the motive to manipulate), and it changed everything. The kids started visiting during holidays.  

Prepare yourself for what you’ll do if your kids don’t come home.  And choose to be happy—no matter their choice.  When you know you’re blessing your children and helping them build a strong family themselves by releasing them, it fills your heart with expansive love, contentment, and peace.   

Try it, if you haven’t already—but you have to mean it!  I can’t guarantee your kids will always come home, but isn’t “releasing” the heart of God?   He releases us to choose Him every single day.  

What I’ve Learned From Early Missionaries

It’s obvious I’ve been buying and reading the entire series by Janet & Geoff Benge, Christian Heroes: Then & Now. To say I’ve been moved is an understatement.  These books aren’t lengthy—they’re just a snack to whet your appetite. I can tell you that I’ve even closed many of the books at night with tears streaming down my face and barely controlling sobs so as not to wake my already sleeping husband—and I’m not particularly emotional.  These missionaries have challenged me. I’ve complained about being tired...but I’ve not been stoned or had my feet hung four feet off the floor in prison.  I’ve complained about feeling overworked...but I’ve not had to endure walking for miles for days just to get to the people to minister to them.   I’ve complained about food I’ve been served...but I’ve not become emaciated due to little food and dysentery.  I’ve complained about confrontations in the church...but I’ve not had to face kings, chiefs, or warlords to remain in a country or to give up my life.  I've complained about working in the nursery...but I've not had to fight for the lives of  twin babies and their mother just because twins were considered a curse.

These people were pioneers and endured hardships we’ll never have to endure.  To get to their country of ministry, it took a month of traveling by ship (and braving the reality of pirates) when we complain about a 15-hour flight.  Their physical strength to endure building hut after hut and cutting through jungles with machetes amazes me. Their emotional strength to face losing 2 wives in a row and 6 children and burying them in a foreign country is astounding.  Their mental strength to learn multiple languages and then to translate the Bible, sermons, and books into those languages inspires me. Their spiritual strength to do the work alone as a single woman impresses me.  

I encourage you to read about these early missionaries.  The articles I’ve written don’t do them justice.  Oh!  And the comforting thing I’ve learned is that they were very much human—just like you and me. God didn’t ask or expect them to be perfect. They were imperfect humans with personality flaws like us who said, “Yes” when He said, “Go!”  The amazing thing I've learned as I've read one book after another is how there's a holy thread tying these people together through the centuries!  Their lives intersected and influenced one another. That holy thread is still stitching God's great work today through you and me. It's there for us to see if  we'll only take a look.

Adoniram Judson

ADONIRAM JUDSON

1788-1850

Adoniram Judson was America’s first foreign missionary.  He and four other young men longed to be missionaries in the Far East (Adoniram particularly wanted to serve in Burma) and Adoniram was commissioned to go to London to ask the London Mission Society if they would support their work—since America had no work.  The LMS board reluctantly agreed but before the missionaries left for East Asia, a man left them $30,000 which enabled them to go under the newly formed American Mission Board.  

Judson was born into the home of a Congregationalist minister in Malden, Massachusetts on August 9th, 1788. As a young man, he evidenced a significant intelligence and ability to learn languages. By the time he was ten, he was reading in Latin and Greek. He was sent off to then Rhode Island College—now we call it Brown University—and he graduated as the valedictorian at Brown at the age of twenty.

It was while he was at Brown, however, that he drifted from his father’s religion and the Congregationalism that he grew up with to deism. From deism, he drifted into atheism. That’s his first journey, his journey to atheism.

One night as Adoniram was traveling, he came across an inn, and wanted lodging. So, he knocked on the door and went in and found the innkeeper, and the innkeeper informed him that there was only one room available, and the innkeeper thought, in the interest of full disclosure, that he should tell them that the room was next to a man that was very ill. Judson said, “I’ll take the room. Death has no terrors for me, you see, I’m an atheist.”

Well, it turned out to be a long night for Adoniram Judson. The man next to him groaned literally on the doorstep of death all night long, and in the morning, the man in fact died. When Judson inquired as to who the man was, it turned out it was his college friend, Jacob Eames, and Eames was the very one who influenced Judson to be a deist. This shook Judson to the very core of his being, and he realized that he was lost and that death was not something he would bravely take on. Remember, he had said, “Death has no terrors for me,” but he was literally scared to death of death. After that night at the inn, as he was traveling on the way, he stopped right at the side of the road, repented of his disbelief, and turned to God.

Three months later, he would write in his journal, “This day, I made a solemn dedication of my life to God,” and that’s what Judson did. He went on to seminary, and he would become a missionary. He was one of the pioneer missionaries to leave from America. He and his new wife, Ann, left for Calcutta with Samuel & Harriett Newell.  Four other missionaries went on another ship so if one capsized, all wouldn’t be lost.  As they sailed, Adoniram spent time studying the Bible in Greek & Hebrew.  As he studied, he began to question the Congregationalist’s method of baptizing babies.  He began to believe people should be baptized after salvation. When he arrived in Calcutta, he came under the influence of William Carey, who was careful not to influence Judson’s thinking on the matter.  But after careful consideration, Judson asked Carey to baptize him md Ann, who had come to the same conclusion.  Carey told Adoniram that his son lived in Burma but only because he’d married a Burmese woman.  To do mission work was punishable by death.  But Adoniram knew God had told him to go to Burma.  

It was in Burma where Judson would begin his own work as a missionary. He started, of course, with translating God’s Word into the language of the people. It was a bad time to be in Burma. There was a war between the British and the Burmese, and Judson was suspected to be a spy for the British. He was thrown into prison for seventeen months. The Burmese realized they needed him for his ability as a translator for treaty negotiations, and so they released him.

Adoniram Judson died aboard a ship on April 12, 1850, and he was buried at sea. He died at the age of sixty-one, and he spent thirty-seven of his sixty-one years on the mission field.

Betty Greene

When Betty was 16 years old (during the Great Depression), her uncle gave her and her twin brother, Bill, $100.  Bill saved his for college, but Betty used hers to take flying lessons.  She’d always had a love for flying and had looked up to people like Charles Lindbergh and Emilia Earhart. She had no idea how she’d ever combine her love for flying and her love for missions, but her friend, Mrs. Bowen asked her, “Do you think God might have given you both of these interests for a reason?  Perhaps you should think of combining them and use flying for some Christian Missions work.”  It was exactly what Betty needed to hear and she stayed focused on that goal from that day forward.  

World War II broke out and Betty wanted to use her gift of flying to help her nation.  She joined the Women’s Flying Training Detachment which was later to become known as  the WASPs.  The women flew military aircraft to different bases so the men would have them at their disposal and ready for battle missions.  Women were not allowed to fly in combat. The women were not enlisted and could leave at any time—but Betty stayed until the organization was disbanded.  The women were treated as if they were military, but in fact, they were required to pay for their own uniforms, goggles, parachutes, caps, jackets, and room and board.  Betty was one of the first people (much less, women) to be involved in the altitude experiments.  Pilots had never flown high enough to need oxygen and these experiments were to see the effects of flying at such an altitude.  

While Betty was enlisted in the WASPs, she wrote an article for a Christian magazine outlining how she’d like to use her gift of flying with mission work.  She had a dream of transporting missionaries in mountainous regions, saving them days of travel time. She received a letter from Jim Truxton saying that he was one of three men with the same vision.  Soon, the WASPs disbanded and Betty and the three men began a ministry of pilots helping missionaries, called Christian Airmen’s Missionary Fellowship (CAMF) which eventually became known as Missian Aviation Fellowship (MAF).  After a long start of raising money to buy planes, Betty became MAF’s first pilot to fly a plane—to Mexico.  Soon, their ministry expanded and pilots and planes were in many areas, living on the fields with the missionaries and making travel possible.  

From the late 1940s until the 1960s, Betty Greene ferried missionaries to some of Mexico's and South America's most out-of-the-way settlements. She also was the first woman to fly over the rugged Andes. Betty also flew throughout New Guinea and Africa, where the Sudanese Parliament had to make allowances for a woman to fly her Cessna 180 in the country. She said, “It took an act of Parliament to allow me to fly in Sudan!”  They called her `The Golden Voice of the Sudan' because she was a woman, and of course there weren't any women on the radio waves" between the airplane and the ground.

“These experiences were thrilling,” Betty once remarked humbly, “but in all honestly I did not have any ambition to achieve 'firsts' in flying. My mind was set on doing productive work and any achievements in flying came about incidentally as I carried out my assignments.”

Betty Greene died of Alzheimer's disease, April 10, 1997. A group of women from First Presbyterian Church made a roster and took turns caring for her until her death.  One day, with clarity, Betty raised from her bed and asked the woman caring for her, “Do you know God?”   Upon the woman’s “yes,” her face lit up and she said, “Isn’t it wonderful?”

William Cameron Townsend

WILLIAM CAMERON TOWNSEND

1896-1982

William Cameron “Cam” Townsend was born in California in 1896 to a poor farmer and his wife. Cam was not a good student in school, but after a near drowning incident, he decided to focus on his studies and did very well. After finishing college, Cam decided he wanted to be a missionary and headed to Guatemala, a country in Central America, to hand out Spanish Bibles.

When Cam was just 21, he felt called to take the Bible to the peoples of South America. But there he discovered something that shaped the rest of his life’s work: he’d brought Spanish Bibles to give to the people he met, but often they didn’t speak Spanish. Indeed, when he tried to give these Spanish Bibles to people who only spoke their own mother-tongue language they asked Cam something that really made him think – why didn’t God speak their language? Was he only the God of English and Spanish speakers?

Cam thought everyone should be able to read God’s word in their own language. So within a few years, he and his new wife, Elvira, were living with the Cakchiquel people of Guatemala, studying their complex language, creating an alphabet and helping them to translate the Bible so they could understand it.  Elvira seemed to be the perfect wife in every way, visiting the sick, playing the organ, teaching the women how to sew and sing.  But Cam was shocked to learn Elvira had a violent temper which could be set off by the slightest thing and she would throw objects as she ranted.  He eventually came to learn it was a mental illness for which they had no treatment.  

He became ill, and had to return to the US, but that didn’t stop him. In 1934, he had a vision to teach others how to understand and write the languages of the poor who’d never been taught and who had no written language.  He created and ran the first Wycliffe Summer School, a school named after John Wycliffe, the man who first translated the Bible into English. Camp Wycliffe trained missionaries in language learning, translation, and in rugged living, since most missionaries had to live without basic comforts. Within 10 years, this had become the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), one of Wycliffe’s key partners, and Wycliffe Bible Translators.

After Elvira’s death, “Uncle Cam” (as he came to be called) married Elaine Miekle, a missionary in Mexico who was 19 years his junior. They worked well together and traveled the globe instituting more Wycliffe work. Cam refused to be limited by any closed door. He’d learned in his very first mission to approach the mayor or chief of the region to gain their confidence in his plans.  It was because of this that Cam & Elaine we’re invited behind the Iron Curtain to do linguistic work.  

In all, Cam founded three ministries: Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (Camp Wycliffe became part of this), and the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service. He saw how missionaries in remote jungles needed an airplane to travel to what would take a week to walk.  He had amazing vision and incredible energy to accomplish his vision. These ministries are still making an impact today. Because of Cam’s efforts, and the work of the ministries he founded, the entire Bible has been translated into hundreds of native languages. Over 1,000 people groups have a New Testament in their own tongue, and translators are working in every region of the globe on nearly 2,000 language projects. By 2025 Wycliffe hopes to have started a translation project in every language group around the world.

Cam served for over sixty years in Latin America, working in many countries. He knew everyone, including more than 40 heads of state. He was invited to the White House by President Nixon, who supported his work. He received an honorary doctorate, was decorated by five Latin American governments and was declared ‘Benefactor of the Linguistically Isolated Populations of America’ by the Inter-American Indian Congress.