missionblog: Grace Like Rain

24^th September, 2006

John Wilson* was bishop of the Anglican cathedral when Singapore fell to the advance of the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War. During the fighting the Cathedral's nave was converted into a casualty station to care for the wounded, where Bishop Wilson helped to care for the wounded and dying - the fighting coming so close that in the cathedral yard was burnt out military vehicles. In March 1943 Bishop Wilson was arrested and made a prisoner-of-war. Along with around 3000 others he was imprisoned at the notorious Changi jail and brutally tortured during repeated interrogations. However he continued to love and pray for his captors and to serve his fellow prisoners - even taking beatings meant for inmates he considered too sick or weak to cope. At the end of the war he returned to lead the team at the cathedral. One day while conducting baptisms, Bishop Wilson recognised a Japanese officer among the candidates - one of the very men who had viciously flogged Wilson. The Japanese soldier told Wilson he had come to believe in Jesus through Wilson's witness. He asked for Bishop Wilson's forgiveness and then requested that the Bishop baptise him into the faith.

Today Chris Chia, our pastor, shared this story to remind us of the staggering power of the saving grace of Jesus as he led a service of baptism. The service was translated into Mandarin for the benefit of dozens of older relatives and friends specially attending. Today no less than eighty people declared their faith through baptism before around a thousand folk packing the school hall. Chris prayed powerfully and originally for each person. We sat and watched with tears in our eyes - the fruit of the unseen and forgotten workers who had given their lives in the past to make the Good News known to the Chinese was there before us. A grandmother was baptised together with her grandchildren. Parents and children baptised as a family. A knot of elderly Cantonese-speaking women, some too frail to stand on their own. Indonesian believers and a Japanese woman. What a privilege to witness the result of the faithfulness of those gone before us.

In March 1929, after conducting a careful survey and following a meeting of the C.I.M. Central Council, the then General Director issued a call for "some two hundred workers over two years" to meet the needs of the neglected in-land areas of China. It was an inauspicious time to do so - with the Great Depression taking hold worldwide and a massive upsurge of lawlessness in China itself. In September of the same year, C.I.M. missionary Douglas Pike was taken prisoner by bandits and executed, one of several to die that year. Two of his grown children, Walter and Allison offered and were accepted as members of the "two hundred" (eventually 207). Walter was Anna's grandfather.

Seventy-seven years later, Anna found herself a member of that same Council, listening to the results of a similar survey and debating its implications for OMF. The Council heard of the continuing needs of the Buddhist world, of the challenges and advances of Muslim outreach, of going the second mile in helping the burgeoning Chinese church to reach out in mission, of the need for workers to reach the hundreds of millions in the Asian Diaspora scattered across the world. Next week together with the General Director, we will work on the wording of a final statement and call for workers. Please pray specially for us. We have no interest in building the "kingdom of OMF". The desire of our hearts is to hear the voice of God, to glorify Him and to call others to join in God's mission to the world, to see grace fall like rain in our broken and hurting world.