In this sermon, the speaker shares his personal experience of being called by God to spread the message of Jesus. He emphasizes the privilege and responsibility of being a "sent one" for God, regardless of geographical boundaries. The speaker also highlights the importance of compassion and love for souls, urging listeners to be stirred by the Lord to pray and reach out to people from all corners of the world. He shares a story of a young man named James who overcame obstacles to share the gospel, resulting in many individuals accepting Jesus as their savior and finding freedom from drug addiction.

And also listen to those missionary candidates just about to go out. That does something for you too when you've been out there and seen the need and just to see this grand crowd going out. And I must say particularly my heart goes out to our cucumber. I've lived next door for many years to a pilot and his wife with the Missionary Aviation Fellowship and I know a little bit of what it means the one who stays at home. When they have to, out there over the jungle forest, they have to phone back in every quarter of an hour and all the time he's up in the air, the wife sits to take in the radio call and I've been there with her when he didn't call in. I've seen her blanch, whiteness come, she doesn't flicker, she doesn't move, she just calls back quite calmly again the number of the plane and still no answer. And my heart's actually ached, I've longed to say something, you know you can't, you mustn't speak, they're on the air. And your whole heart burns for prayer with her and she waits. And that awful moment of waiting and then you find out he was actually reading a book and had forgotten a quarter of an hour was up. But it takes courage and they need our prayers and it is the one at home that often takes the biggest slice of the heart agony. Don't fail them in praying, they need it. Stir me to go. We've seen a lovely crowd tonight stirred to go and on the way and oh friends there's no greater privilege, there's nothing more wonderful than getting going. And when you get out there it just comes a bit more wonderful. I guess going back the second time takes a bit more spunk and I got to the picture when I came home this last time, quite honestly, I didn't want to go back. I just felt I couldn't face any more of it. Tensions, the trials, the anxieties, the uncertainties, the tension of being in and out of prisons under present government situations in Africa and I just felt I couldn't take it. I know the tremendous joy, it was actually only Monday of this week, on the plane going, well I was flying in the wrong direction, I wasn't flying here, I was actually flying down to Chicago for a meeting, but the sudden realisation that I was willing to go back and the sheer tremendous joy of knowing it was over, the blankness, the awfulness of feeling I couldn't face it and suddenly knowing you don't have to, he faces it, he goes with you, and it's all his, you never go out on your own charge, it's all his, and it's tremendous. Oh, any of you young folk who haven't yet got the call, no, well you won't get it, there isn't one, who don't yet know where he's sending you, just get in on the right wavelength. I wonder how many here, particularly Bible school students, how many could tell me by heart 2 Corinthians 5.17? Hands up, come on, come on, half of you, come on, there must be much more than that, your teachers will be looking too. Okay, now how many can give me 2 Corinthians 5.21? Oh, that's a bit better, good. Now then, how many can give me 18, 19 and 20 in between? Oh, and yet God constrained Paul to put them there. It's funny how we pick out one and two, at the beginning and the end we miss the middle, just because you all want to get called to be saved and you don't want to get sent to be served. Come on, let's look at 2 Corinthians 5.17 through. And just remember that God constrained the in-between verses to be put in between. Oh, I did promise to speak slower and I've already got back to my usual pace, so I'm making an awful effort to slow up, but it won't work. 2 Corinthians 5.17, that wonderful well-known verse that just reminds us that saved by the blood of Jesus, new creatures in Him, all of God's grace, all of His great, wonderful, sovereign will, He does it all and we just come to enter into this new creatures. Oh, the night I was converted, the unbelievable joy of knowing I was a new creature in Christ. I just couldn't contain it, I was like a cat on hot bricks. My friends all said, oh Helen, you must go religious, fine, but don't get fanatical. You know, it's tremendous. This verse was so real. If anyone's in Christ, He's a new creation. The old has passed away and behold, the new has come. And then, straight away, God constrained Paul to write verse 18. He did not jump to 21. And first of all, it reminds us that all through Him, all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled Himself and, little small conjunction in the middle of a verse, in my version, not even a comma, goes straight on. He tells you, OK, you're saved now, you've come to Him, you've received the call for salvation, and immediately, same verse, and gave us the ministry, the job, the service of reconciliation. And then in case you don't get the point, it says it all over again in verse 19. That is, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and, straight away, same verse, entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are, not will be, may be, might be, no perhapses, and He's speaking to those who are born again. He's speaking to those who are new creatures in Christ. So we are ambassadors for Christ. And what better definition of a missionary? An ambassador for Christ. One sent out, you know what it is? Canadian ambassadors overseas, they go to represent your government, they're not allowed to say what they think, or they hope, or they trust, or what might be, or perhaps, uh-uh. They may only say what they've been authorized to say. And if they get asked a question by the president of the country in which they're serving, and they don't know the answer, they must send back to Canada to find out the answer. Ambassadors, representatives of the one who sends them. And we go out as Christ's ambassadors, representatives of the one who sends us. And we're given our mandate. It's terribly simple. Answers have been given us. If you don't know the answer, you go to the mandate. It's all there for you. And God sends us out. Fantastic. Oh, yes, I've often questioned God. I really felt sometimes, well, I wouldn't dare say God was a fool. There had been moments I felt I could have arranged it better. Fancy leaving you and me with this job of worldwide evangelization. Fancy giving it to us to do this. Surely he could have found a better way. But this is the choice of our altogether sovereign God. He limited himself to you and me, through whom he was going to work. Mind you, it's he who works. But it's through folks like you and me. And it's this stirring up to go. I don't believe there is really a biblical basis, really and truthfully, for this thing called the missionary call. As I read scripture, the call is to be saved. We come unto him to be saved. And he doesn't want us all sticking around him, or there's no room for anybody else to come. So having come and got saved, he then wants to get rid of you. He sends you out to serve, that others may come in. And this has got to be repeated and repeated and repeated. Each one who comes in to get saved, trained, disciplined, discipled and sent out. And this is his pattern. And it's not if you get called. It's not if you get sent to serve. It's merely where are you sent to serve. And oh, the tragedy of the attitude of life. Well, I'm going to stay and teach in a school in Canada. Or I'm going to stay and work in a hospital in Canada or the United States. Because I haven't yet been sent overseas. But that's altogether wrong. You've got to be sent as much to the school in Canada or the hospital in America as you have to the tribes in South America. Wherever you go, you should know you're sent there. Every single one of us needs to know we are sent to the spot we're in. You'll never have peace otherwise. You'll never have power otherwise. We're sent out by him, every single one of us, given this ministry. Reconciliation. Sent out as his ambassadors. Sent ones. Where? Oh, friends, anywhere for Jesus. God is not interested in geography. That's a man-made limitation. God's interested in people all over the world. And today, perhaps much more so than the time when I was sent out. All right, when we were sent out to the mission field, we did go to a spot for life. But today, life moves so fast, you can't do that. You've got to be just available to him, all the time available to him for what he wants today. He may well send you to work in a country. The two who took over my work in Zaire, both doctors, Dr. Philip Wood, a surgeon from London, and his wife Nancy, a physician from Toronto. They've gone out there knowing that they've probably only got three years before they'll very probably be thrown out of the country. They don't mind. They're where God wants them now. God knows what he wants tomorrow. They're learning the language. They're getting right down to grips with culture. They're becoming one with the people. They love them. They're serving them. They're putting everything they've got into it. Never mind how short. That's God's affair. Being available to him every minute, to be sent wherever he wants, is immaterial of this business of geography. And just read again the next verse of the hymn we started yesterday. Stir me, O stir me, Lord, till all my heart is filled with strong compassion for these souls. Till thy compelling word drives me to pray, till thy constraining love reach to the poles far north and south in burning deep desire, till east and west are caught in love's great fire. The area for being sent to is so enormous. We passed last Sunday, we passed the official 4 billion people mark. 4,000 million people in the world last Sunday. Everlastingly going up. 200,000 births a day. Ever increasing. And three quarters at least of those never yet heard of Jesus Christ. Some people dare to say the missionary job's over. They must be, I don't know what they are. But anyway. We're just, we're not starting out, we're hardly scratching the surface. Oh that God would send us. You know this business of being a sent one for Jesus, sent out for him. Fairly recently, I was asked to do a long journey from the country of Zaire where I live, to take a missionary to an airport, and at that particular time no planes were flying out of our region of Zaire. So we set off at 4 a.m. from Nyankundi. We climbed the great central mountain range of Africa up to about 8,000 feet to cross over from Zaire to Uganda. We dropped down the escarpment the other side, across the source of the Nile, way across the plains of Uganda. We reached Kampala at 10 o'clock at night. I was dead tired, I'd been driving all day, bide a supper and dropped into bed. The missionary with me caught the midnight plane home to England. Next morning I set off early before dawn. I had responsibilities to the college where I teach. I was driving back alone, and as I left Kampala, driving a very good car, I found myself on a black-top freeway. Doesn't mean much to you folk, you live on them. But I happen to have lived 20 years in Zaire, and we live on mud, and after mud, more mud. And the sheer joy of a good car and a good road in a country which at that particular time in its history didn't have any speed limits. I didn't even have to argue with my conscience, and I was enjoying it. Well, I watched the dawn break over the eastern horizon, and then I suddenly realized I was getting very sleepy. I did the usual tricks to throw off sleep, but I couldn't. It doesn't really do to be traveling at 95 miles an hour and going to sleep anywhere in the world. So, I decided the safest thing was a coffee halt and there were some bushes ahead. There was nobody anywhere, I had the whole world to myself, no other cars, no people, just me and this spread out plains of Uganda. I stopped at these bushes, opened the door to get out, and there was an African. Well, I don't know where he sprang from, but at that particular minute I didn't want to see, be it black or white. And we went through the usual courtesies. He was speaking East African Swahili, I speak West African Swahili, but we could make ourselves understood. And then he should have gone away, they always do, but he didn't, he stood there. I said to him, well, what do you want? He said to me in Swahili, are you a sent one? I thought to myself, well, I guess that's what the word missionary means, so I said rather tentatively, well, yes, I'm a sent one, but depends. Sent by whom, for what? And he said to me, are you a sent one by the great God to tell me of the thing called Jesus? It's pretty overwhelming anywhere in the world. And I asked him if he could read. He said no. He was an illiterate herdsman. His job was looking after the family's cattle. I had in the car a copy of the wordless book. We got out together, we sat by the roadside in the early morning sunshine. We just went through it page by page. For those of you who don't know the wordless book, it's just all colors. I told them how God had made the world and all that's in the world and made us in order that we might love him. But how we'd chosen to love ourselves rather than God, and we'd made a pretty good mess of it. I didn't have to describe to him the mess. He knew what I meant. I said the Bible calls it sin. I made him repeat after me over and over again, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I said God didn't leave it there. God sought for a way to bring us back into relationship with himself. God sought for a way to bring us back into friendship and fellowship. I said God sought for a way to pay our redemption money. You might think that's a funny phrase to use in the middle of the jungle of Africa. Not really. He understood much better what I meant than you would. You see, in some of our inland churches still, sorry, in our inland shops, we don't necessarily always use money. You can go to a village shop and you want to buy something, no cash. You don't handle cash. So you get what you want, maybe a pound of salt, maybe a liter of kerosene, you take it to the shopkeeper. He takes a thorn and he scratches your name on the mud wall of his house. And he writes underneath it, pound of salt, or liter of kerosene, or whatever the thing is. And you go away. Next week you want something else and he comes and he adds it to your list. And when it comes to harvest time, you take in your basket of grain, be it of coffee, rice, peanuts, whatever it is. And he weighs out of your basket the equivalent value for each thing on your list. And he weighs, it goes down the list and he weighs out something for each thing. For each thing he weighs out something. And it's called, in their own language, the redemption money. He knew just what I meant. I said, God has sought to pay redemption money for each of our sins. I taught him in the blood of Jesus how it continually cleanses us from all sins. And how Jesus Christ, God's Son, had died on the cross. If I said it's not enough for that, you know, you may be illiterate. But when you go into that shop, you know at once, during the week, he's added something to your list that wasn't yours. It is something there today that wasn't there last week when you last came. And you say, but that's not mine, that's not mine. You don't know what it says, you can't read it, you just know it's not yours. And when you take your grain to him, have your grain weighed out, you John will see that every time he takes some grain, he crosses something off on the list. You don't let him take any grain from your basket, but something goes from that list. Until the list is finished. In the same way, individually and personally, we have to know that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, has washed me whiter than snow. I didn't say snow to him, he didn't know what it was, we're on the equator. Whiter than the cotton you grow in your garden. And the tremendous joy of just showing him that all you have to do to go from the black state of sin to the white state of purity as God meant us to be, was to invite the Lord Jesus Christ into our hearts. And to see him open up his heart and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ, right there at the roadside, joy flooded his face. Oh, it's tremendous. It's always tremendous, isn't it? Then I asked him, I said, what made you say to me, are you a sent one from the great God to tell me of the thing called Jesus? Well, he said, my brother is a school teacher, not a very good man, often drunk. He came home from school early the other day and we asked him why. Well, he said, the special teacher came to school. Oh, what did he come to teach? Well, he said, he told the children that he was a sent one from the great God to tell them of something called Jesus. Oh, what did he tell them? Oh, I don't know, I went out for a drink. He said, every day since then, as I've been watching the cattle out in the fields, I've kept on saying, a great one, a sent one from the great God to tell them of something called Jesus. He said, each time I've said this word Jesus, it's been sweet in my heart, until I've said, God, if there is a God, would you send me a sent one to tell me of this thing called Jesus? Isn't he unbelievable? I stopped again further up the road, not for a coffee halt. I was trembling. I stopped to thank God for his unbelievable goodness and love. Being a sent one for him, what a privilege, what unbelief. Do you know, God's economies are so different than ours. He sent me a 400-mile journey to a different country, a different tribe, a different language area, at a time when gas in our country costs about $2 a gallon. It bothered me going, it didn't seem to bother God. He made me sleepy at 6 a.m. I can understand 6 p.m. after a day's work, but 6 a.m. to stop me at one clump of bushes, to meet with one man, and he was an illiterate herdsman. A sent one, an ambassador, entirely at God's expense, out there to serve him. Where is he going to send you? Overseas, perhaps, God willing. I trust the majority. But not necessarily. Willing for whatever he wants for us. And we have it, of course, back there. It's already been quoted tonight in Acts 1.8. You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. I just want to think of those four points. I won't say briefly, because I'm told I'm never brief. But, Jerusalem, right there on your doorstep. I think of a student in our college, James. One day I'll get James' story written up, it's worth it. He's a very outstanding young man. James turned up, he got into our school, as we would say, by the back door. He had no right in the college. He came late, he didn't have any uniform, he didn't have his fees for the first semester, he didn't speak French, which was the language of the school, he didn't have the right grades, he'd never taken the entrance exam, let alone pass it. Everything was against him, except for one thing. He had a most outstanding testimony of his love for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he was admitted. And he had a tremendous job to do. We were giving a four-year course to become medical evangelists. And it was tough. Every student was having to work every moment they could if they were going to make their grades and get their diploma to be a medical evangelist. But on top of it all, James had to make up his grades. He had to go up at least three grades of general grade school from 7th through 8th, 9th, 10th, before he'd be allowed even to sit the final diploma exam as a medical evangelist. And he was having to work overtime. And he really was. He was putting his whole back into getting through those grades exams. Right. We came to the first Sunday of his last year at college. First Sunday of October. And there must have been a notice given out in the church by the pastor. I guess I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention to the notices. Probably, as usual, I was doubtless marking the school register to see if all my students were where they should be. Next morning, James met me outside the classroom at 6.30 in the morning. Doctor, what are we going to do about the vandals? I beg your pardon, James. What are we going to do about the vandals? James, I haven't a clue what you're talking about. It's time for school. We went into class. You don't put an African off like that. At the end of class, there was James. Same question. I said, James, you'd better explain yourself. Well, he said, it was given out at church yesterday. The pastor told us all to pray about the vandalism that was destroying the village. It was true. There was a gang of hooligans smashing windows in the church, breaking up benches in the primary school, etc. I said, James, that has nothing to do with us. That's a church affair. He looked at me. Aren't you a church member? A bit below the belt from a junior student to a senior missionary. I grudgingly said yes and fled up the hill to breakfast. Next Sunday, I paid more attention to the notices. You can imagine my, call it what you like, horror or surprise, when I heard the pastor read out the following notice. Tuesday evening at 7 o'clock in the new nurses' school auditorium, there will be a meeting for all vandals under the age of 15. I don't know what effect it would have here. How many vandals are there here? How many here under 15 would acknowledge they were vandals even if they were? And that's what our beautiful church thought too. And I found James, I said, James, did you have that notice given out? Well, yes, he said, but you had agreed. Such is the ease of agreement in Africa. Tuesday evening, I went down to unlock the hall and to put the lights on just in case a handful of hooligans turned up out of curiosity. I had to make my way through a sea of young people. By the time I got the doors open, long before the lights were in, they began pouring in. We have 120 seats in our hall. 180 kids poured in. They sat three to every two seats. And I tell you, they were the smelliest, scruffiest, dirtiest little gangsters you've ever met. And they were all chewing mangoes. In case you don't know a mango, the point is you spit out the sticky skins and you spit out the sticky stones and you wipe your sticky hands down my nicely whitewashed walls. Oh, dear, the noise. I said, James, what on earth are we going to do with them? I'm going to tell them about Jesus, he said. It was so simple, and he did. And James had that gang every single Tuesday evening through that college year. He turned that gang of hooligans into a youth club. All Christmas Day, he had them all up in front of the church singing carols, looking like little angels. I tell you, it was unbelievable. About the fourth week, there was a lot of noise outside during club. He said to me, would you mind looking after the kids while I go out and see what the noise is about? Well, I confess there was as much noise inside as outside when he left. I did not know how to control 180 kids. At the end of the meeting, he came up to me and said, Doctor, what are we going to do about the senior band? I said, James, enough, thanks. He said, but listen, when I got outside, there were a whole crowd of 18, 24-year-old young men saying, it's not fair. You're telling the kids about Jesus, why aren't you telling us? I said, James, stop it. You've no more time, I've no more time. You'll never get through finals if you give up any more time. I've got an absolutely packed time to... Doctor, are you really telling me you won't tell them about Jesus? So you won't be surprised when I tell you next Sunday it was given out in church. Thursday evening at 7 o'clock in the new nursery school auditorium, there will be a meeting for all vandals over the age of 15. You know, if you didn't expect anything from the juniors, I expected less from the seniors. But again, I went down because by now I was getting frightened of James. When he put his hand to something, things happened. And when I got down to the hall on Thursday evening, every seat was taken. They were the most pathetic crowd I've ever had to minister to. 120 young men between the ages of 15 to 30. They were dirty. They were smelly. They'd all got a chip on their shoulders. Most of them were smoking, and you don't ask in our part of Africa what they're smoking. Many had been drinking too heavily before they came. We found out later that about 40% were on drugs. Their language was so obscene, I simply did not know what was going on. It was the most dreadful to me crowd. I looked at James and I said, James, what will we do with them? He turned to me. He said, you will tell them about Jesus. And that's what we did. Week after week, they came. We gave them 20 minutes on current events. They all had little transistor radios and listened in. They didn't know what it meant, so we had a huge map up. We explained what they were listening to on their radios. We gave them 20 minutes of hygiene, and they sure needed it. And then we gave them the rest of the time an hour of Bible stories. Do you know, before the end of that college year, 80 of those young men had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. Many had been through baptismal classes. They're now church members of local church groups. Practically everyone is now off drugs. Why? Because one boy, a 19-year-old, working flat out for finals, absolutely up to his eyes in work, obeyed God and went. Where? To his own school hall. He didn't have to go any further. His church was only three quarters of a mile down the road. But he obeyed. He went for Jesus. Part of the anywhere. Anywhere for Jesus. Jerusalem. Judea. I think of another young man. He's been, I suppose, my closest friend for the last 20 years. John Mangadema. Those of you who know anything about me know also about John. John's been a very precious friend to me. We worked together. John just came as a tribe's boy out of 6th grade primary school. Stood on my veranda one day and looked at me and said, You're a Christian? I said, Yes. He said, So am I. Then he said, You're a doctor? I said, Yes. We said, I'm not and I want to be. Will you please make me into one? Well, that was the beginning of 20 years' relationship that became very precious. He became a very precious brother in the Lord to me. I guess I've learned more about the love of Jesus through John than really anyhow else. We were close friends. He's the one to whom I handed over the hospital when I was taken captive in the rebellion. John took over and kept it going. His wisdom was unbelievable, what he did to keep that place going despite rebel captivities and everything else that went on through two years. When we got back after the rebellion, the government asked us to start a new training college, more upgraded, a better grade school to train these medical auxiliaries, a school which James came to. And John asked me could he come back to school again to get this better diploma so that he would be able to maintain his position as medical director of our hospital in the forest. We agreed and John went with me to Nyankundi. We started the new school together. In fact, quite honestly, I don't know how that new school would have gone without John's help and cooperation as my assistant director. He was coming up to his finals and other doctors in the group where we worked, this lovely central hospital where five evangelical missionary societies have got together, that's been a victory, I tell you. And God manoeuvred it and God won through and we have this lovely hospital with a lovely spirit where we've all learned to work together and to love each other and trust each other. And they sent for John and they offered him a job on the staff. When you've qualified, we would like you to join the medical staff here. You'll become assistant director of the school. Probably mean in about six years' time he would have been director of the school. One of our surgeons, an American surgeon, offered to train him as a surgeon and that was John's great love. He knew this would mean he'd have a lovely brick-built house, running water, electric light, be part of a team, continue his education, a very good secondary school right next door where his own kids could be trained and get on with good schooling. Everything made, a good salary, name would be known in the government, the salary would go up regularly and the government would probably pay it. I sent for him a few days later. John, I said, I hear you've had an offer made to you by the staff here. I've got a different offer for you. I guess John knew what was coming. He didn't look at me. He sat there looking out of the window down across the valley. He said, John, you and I don't belong up here on the mountains. We come from the jungle forest land, 350 miles away, like we were told just now. That's 28 hours hard driving in a four-wheel drive vehicle. Praise God, it's only an hour and a quarter and the plane flips over the top nowadays. That's your place, John, down there. In our region, down in the jungle forest land, we have one and a half million people now in our region and no doctor, no medical service. John, I said, you came here to train in order to serve them. You asked to come here to train that you might serve them. Those are our people. That's where you and I belong. I said, God wants you back there. He went away and prayed with his wife. He knew that back there he'd have a modern thatch home and what's more, he'd have to build it first. He'd have a modern thatch hospital. He'd have to build that too. A few hours had been destroyed by the rebels during the rebellion. No electricity, no running water, no team, no other companions, no good salary. He'd get whatever the church could afford to pay him and they were a very poor church. It would be tough going. There's going to be a lot in it that wouldn't be easy. He knew as well as I knew that he wasn't really going to be welcomed by some because they're tremendously suspicious of anybody who spent long with white people. He'd have to win it all, all down the line there. Everything was against him. He went away and he prayed about it with his wife. He came back in about three days. He said, Doctor, it's not a fair choice. Well, I guess you'd agree. I agreed. He said, listen, Doctor. He said, it all depends on the salary. If I say God has called me to go back to Nebobongo, everybody will say, isn't he wonderful? He's gone without the salary. If I say God has called me to stay here at Nyankundi, nobody will believe me. They'll say he couldn't resist the cash. Fairly clear thinking for a forest boy. He said, OK, John. As far as God enables me, I promise you that whether you go or stay, I will see that your salary is the same. He went off, prayed about it. At the end of the week, he and his wife came to me and we said we'll go back. Two months later, I went down to see John and his wife and four children and all their goods off. All piled up in the school's two-ton truck, setting off on the very long, difficult journey home back down into forest land. Had prayer with them about four o'clock in the morning. John clambered up into the cab. I stretched up to shake hands with him and he pressed a note into my hand. After I said goodbye and they left, I read the note. Thank you, doctor, for everything. But please, you don't need to tell the others we don't want the salary. A young fellow, willing to trust God all the way down the line, whatever it was going to cost. He didn't want a shortcut. God honored him. God honored him unbelievably. He had a very difficult three years. For three years, they just wouldn't recognize him. For three years, he just didn't win his spurs. And he battled on. He knew he was where God wanted him. He built that hospital. They've now got a cement block hospital. Glass windows, permanent roofs, cement floors. And John has been behind the whole of putting that up. And he's really a slave for them. And meanwhile, one of the surgeons on the team with me at Nyankundi was so mad with me for sending John back to the jungle that he, at his own expense, flew out in our missionary aviation plane one week in five and trained John as a surgeon. And John today is our medical director doing unbelievable things. I went up to say goodbye to him just before I came home. And actually, when I flew in, he was in the operating room. I moved into his office and was taking down some notes in his office to bring home with me. John came in, peeling off his gloves. Hi, doctor, what are you doing in here? Oh, I'm just writing down some notes, John, to tell them back home. He looked over my shoulder. I'd just written down that in 1972 he'd done 372 major operations with a less than 5% mortality. Oh, doctor, he said, don't bother to tell them things like that. Just tell them that over 200 found Christ as their Savior during 72. A young fellow who's gone through for Jesus. Right in his own tribe. He hadn't gone farther than Judea. That's where God called him. But he sent. And he knows it. Some are going to be asked to go further. What about Samaria? The next door tribe. I'm pretty powerfully opposed to us at that. I remember a story. When I first got out there to Africa, I suppose I shouldn't say it like that because it sounds like it's not true today. I was going to say, I used to argue with God an awful lot. I think God would say I still do. And there were times when I got very browned off that God didn't give me a chance, really, of being a doctor. That all the time I was doing other jobs. I was a builder, a plumber, an electrician, a mother of 84 orphaned kids, a shopper at the market. Oh, don't ask me what I wasn't. I was a car mechanic. I rather enjoyed auto mechanics. We asked God. I always blame God for everything that always goes wrong. He's convenient. We asked God for a vehicle. And he sent us in an old three quarter ton Chevrolet pickup. And after a very short time, it died. So, we asked him for another. He sent us another, just like the first, except it happened to be an international. And very surely, it died. So, we stripped down the Chevrolet, we stripped down the international, we made a new vehicle without a name, and it went. So, but I used to get annoyed with God. I said, I came out here to be a doctor for them. I came out here to minister to them. Well, then you see, all of a sudden, God listened to me. At a most unexpected moment, when I wasn't prepared for it, I'd done a long journey down south, about a 500 mile circle, stopping every 50 miles to have a clinic. They knew by the talking drums when I was coming, and everybody was ready and waiting for me. And I got to the last stop on the journey before going home, about 90 miles south of our village. And between us and this village at the south, there's a great gold mine mountain range. And this separated two very, very different tribal areas. And to the south, where I was visiting then, the Wabari tribe, a very wild, warlike tribe of cannibals. At the center of the leopard cult, very hard people. And this particular region, between the Ituri River and the mountain range, we'd worked there for years, with very, very little results at all. And in one of the bigger villages, about 180 to 200 people, we had one Christian couple, the evangelist and his wife. And that was all. There was absolutely no fruit to show for years of service. It was getting very discouraging. These people were just uninterested in a God of love. At the clinic that day, there were two interesting ladies turned up. One was the wife of the evangelist, Rebecca. She had had four babies down there in the forest, and every baby had died at childbirth. She was expecting her fifth child. And the evangelist brought Rebecca to me and asked me would I take her back north of the mountain range to help her to have a living baby. I agreed. They brought with them, from the same village where they lived, a pagan girl, an 18-year-old, with an enormous goiter, right from chin to chest, very unsightly. And they wanted me to take her north and to operate on her. Well, I examined her very carefully and decided that she stood a much better chance of living with the goiter than if I took it out. So I said, no, I wouldn't do it. I'm not a surgeon. I do not have experience. I only operate on absolute emergencies that would die if I didn't operate. And I don't get too much blame when they die if I do operate. But she would live with hers. Well, they argued and they argued. In the end, I said, listen, if you want, I'll take her up north and then way on up north of us again to a government hospital. And if they wish to operate, they can, but I will not operate on her. So this was the arrangement. And I drove north those 90 miles across the Goldmine Mountains with these two passengers, each with their helpers. A few days later, I drove on further north again to take this pagan girl with her mother on to the government hospital and left them there. Three weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, I was in Sunday school. I was called out. They said there was a car outside my home. I went across. When I got there, the car had gone, but lying on a mat on the gravel drive outside my home was the dead body of that 18-year-old girl. She had an enormous incision on her neck and on both arms. I could see at once what had happened during the operation. Heavy hemorrhage. Tried to put up blood drips. Failed to do it. Had a dead body. But I knew that was not the way the Africans were going to look at it. And my heart lurched. I thought, God, why on earth? Surely you knew I'd... I felt I'd done him a good turn. I mean, here was I providing him with the perfect way of breaking into that tribe, bringing two Wabaris up north of the mountains. They'd never come before. This was the most dramatic moment. This could have been the whole breakthrough for that tribe and God didn't seem to understand. And I started talking like this. And even as I was saying this to God, I heard the talking drums start. And the talking drums were beating out the message. It goes about eight miles. Another village picks it up. It goes on and on and on like the waves of the sea. And in very short time it would be down at her village. She's dead. My heart lurched. The evangelist came up to me and said, You'll take her back. I said, What? Take her back? Go back over that dreadful mountain and arrange for a dead body? No, I said. She must be buried here. Never, he said. You must take her back. Doctor, he said, if you don't take her back, we'll have tribal warfare. It's easy said here. When you hear that in the heart of Africa, you think twice. We drove her back. All through the night. It was very dangerous. They knew already. They were waiting for us. By God's great grace, we were not killed. We had spears. We had arrows dug in the woodwork on the back of the van as we drove away. And my heart was very heavy. I could not understand God. I felt this had been such a perfect opportunity to bring the gospel to those people. And it just seemed as though God had thrown it away. I got back on Monday. Tuesday morning, head midwife from our maternity came across and said, We're very sorry, Doctor. We've just finished the antenatal clinic. And we've got to report to you that Rebecca cannot possibly have a living child normally. I said, What? No. I went across to the maternity. I examined her. There's no doubt about it being true. I did all I could to turn the baby. The baby was lying across the mother's stomach. And there was nothing we could do to turn it. I wrote her up for a cesarean for Thursday morning. And again, my heart was heavy. Again, I'm desperately conscious that I am not a surgeon. I had no training. I flinched from anything to do with surgery. I said, God, why her? Why couldn't it have been anybody else? But why the one Mubari who loves the Lord? Why did you have to do this, God? And I went into that operation on Thursday morning with that type of mind. I tried terribly to get peace. I knew it was urgently necessary I had peace before I operated. And I couldn't. I was mad with God. And then, once or twice this has happened to me. It's very, very moving when it does happen. I had a great consciousness throughout the operation. I almost stood back and watched him operate with my hands. It's a very moving sensation to know that he takes over. And I just knew he operated. And it was very simple. Everything went absolutely as it should have gone. It couldn't have gone better. And there she was, delivered of a lovely baby boy and mother and baby did well. Lovely, nice story. Nine weeks later, mother and her husband and the baby set out to walk for 90 miles back down to Mubari land across those mountain ranges carrying this newborn baby. Again, the talking drums had sent the message. The village knew they were coming. About a three weeks walk. Then they got there somewhere around midday. Very fearful, very scared what their reception would be. They're the only Christians. And they're scared. Twelve weeks before I had taken to the same village the dead body, the other girl. As they came into the village the villagers gathered round them in a great circle. Silent, glum, sullen, resentful. The headman stepped forward. You've had a baby. Yes. Is your baby living? Yes. Show us your baby. She passed the baby to the headman. It was passed slowly all round the circle and then handed back to the husband. You had an operation. Yes. Show us the scar. Typical African fashion. She undid her skirt and showed the scar. And then God stepped in. Just like that. Nothing more. Nothing else was said. By the end of that week every single person in that village had been personally dealt with and every single one had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. What on earth had God done and how had he done it? I tell you I did not operate on that woman to bring a village to the Lord. I operated on that woman feeling very mad with God that I had to do it. And wondering why on earth God had made such an awful boss shot. I just felt God hadn't understood the point. You see the amazing thing was God wasn't only thinking black which I have never really yet succeeded in. More than thinking black He was actually thinking in that tribalism. And God knew that the Wabaris think in parallelism which is not natural to the culture over here. And what did they see? Pagan girl went to pagan hospital had an operation died. Christian woman went to Christian hospital had to have an operation to make it parallel and lived. And just like that God did it. And that became a centre of light that village. They sent three couples up to the Bible school to be trained since then. They have Sunday schools all over the area. The whole area has opened up to God. Isn't it unbelievable? That's to the next door tribe. That's part of the Samaria work. When you move out not knowing how not knowing why fearful unwanted resented and God has his own plan ready. Don't get scared of it. I guess those northern regions come in there don't they? Tough hard resentful drunk He's in charge. He knows what he's doing. And once he goes and does it by such fantastic means just when you least expect it and you're just getting the picture tearing your hair out with God why on earth doesn't he move? Suddenly he finds he's already moved. He got there first. Oh he's terrific. And then that last bit he went out to all the ends of the earth. Well of course one could go on forever on that. I just think one brief one Philip Wood a London surgeon brilliant boy brought up in a lovely Christian home just south of London Guilford Baptist Church brought up to know and love the Lord and then went into med school trained in one of our biggest hospitals in London the most outstanding student for three years in succession the only student I believe who's ever done it he received the first prize in both surgery and medicine absolutely unbelievable records went through his full surgical training was so brilliant so exceptional Philip was offered to join the open heart surgery team in our country in England tremendous honour but God had already called Philip to the mission field Philip trained and he and his wife Nancy a Toronto physician flew to Africa in July of 1973 they did a short spell down in the capital city of Kinshasa doing their necessary registration as they call it there to get papers for practicing medicine in Africa and they flew up to us at Bunia right in the interior over a thousand miles from the sea in both directions way up there in the interior jungle lands and I wanted to give Philip and Nancy a thorough taste of all they were in for before I left and handed over to them we had just six weeks of overlap together during which I gruelled them through language study they tell me I'm a very hard taskmaster and I wanted them to really sense what Africa was like so we drove by truck instead of flying by air from Nyankundi to Neba Bongo I wanted them to realise that when they sent for a patient to come in that's how the patient came and they'd get some idea of what the orphanless was we had a fairly good journey going it wasn't too bad we had a wonderful ten days at my old hospital of Neba Bongo where we officially handed over to John Mangadima the leadership there had a tremendous reunion we had a time of spiritual refreshment and also a medical course of refreshment they gave a terrific welcome to their two new young doctors and they gave me a very precious and lovely farewell then we set out to drive the journey back to Nyankundi where Philip and Nancy were taking over the leadership of the college for training national medical auxiliaries we were doing very well the journey had gone very well it was just coming up to dusk we'd only got four hours journey to go it was unbelievable we'd done it in record time the roads were absolutely dried out it was dry season it was most exciting I thought we're going to be back in another four hours it's almost over and then we hit it we met a mud hole the only thing I can say is from all my experience in Africa it was the king of mud holes it was just unbelievable there was four hundred yards four times the length of a football field of nothing but an absolute sea of mud churned up into a state you've just never conceived it by the time we arrived there were already twelve great big eight, ten, twelve, sixteen ton trucks on our side what we couldn't see in the dusk round the bend of the road over a little hill there were many on the other side and right down in the middle of the mud hole there was one truck in the middle one truck on this side one truck on that it was chaos and darkness was just falling and oh how the Africans loved it and oh the noise the screaming, the shouting, the yelling the pushing, the pulling and everything else and the truck that was stuck right in the middle had a load of one hundred amongst other things of one hundred very live pigs and we unloaded the pigs they were the only people who enjoyed the night really in the mud by the time we'd managed to push the truck out we then had to regather the pigs and reload the pigs and so the night went on and it was a fantastic thing actually we unloaded our truck almost completely we couldn't quite unload everything but we unloaded all we could and because we were the smallest truck rule of the road smallest goes first and I and my African chauffeur were in it everybody else was out walking and we had a very devastating experience I've never had it before and very upsetting to me the sea of mud is about waist deep and you can't see what's down below and so Africans stand on the ridges of the road down in the mud and they feel it with their feet and so they stand about six of them on this ridge and six of them on this ridge and as they move backwards into the night you're following them trying to keep on the ridges because if I went down at the ditch I'd have had it I was much too low a vehicle I got to ride the ridges as we say well we missed it and the truck turned over and as the truck went over the cab went down into the sea of mud it's a very terrifying experience as the light slowly blots out the light coming from the headlights of everybody else's truck and you find yourself in pitch dark upside down in the mud oh you've learnt the rules you know you mustn't panic you mustn't talk sit in silence cross-legged on the roof of the cab and you can pray but don't do anything else sounds good it didn't work for me and we sang a few choruses we recited scriptures my chauffeur who's a very very fine Christian man just put his hand on mine and said doctor just stop panicking and he prayed for me and slowly we tried to find peace it took them two and a half hours to get us out and it was to me terrifying by the time they got us out about ten o'clock at night I just couldn't take any more we were still on the wrong side of the mud hole this was the very beginning of our 400 yards and I got out of the mud hole and I had all I could take I said to Nancy some of the others come on let's move on we'll leave Philip down here and we moved off we walked about two miles we came to a village we found a fire there we sat by the fire and we dried the mud off and began to de-cake me and then about 3.30 in the morning five hours later Philip arrived with the truck Philip was a sight he was mud from the top to the bottom thick cake mud and by now I was feeling very ashamed Philip had no language he'd just arrived he'd never been out there he didn't know the people or anything he was a London surgeon he was the top chosen surgeon in our country beautiful hands that had been preserved all his life for surgery I felt very small I went up to Philip and I apologized I'm sorry he said whatever for? I said for deserting you for walking out on you for leaving you down there the only white person down there I didn't stay with you oh shut up girl he said this has been the most exciting night of my life that's it that's it he'd thrown away all for Jesus he's out there doing 40 operations a week for Africans who'll never sing his praise he'll never get written up in journals he'll never have time for research work he'll never have time to write articles which is the only way you get written up in things he's out there buried in the heart of Africa just where God wanted him leading souls to Jesus working in a team thrilled to bits to be there he didn't bother to count the cost because he knew that what he got from God was a hundred times more than ever he gave to God praise the Lord for you Canada Africa Muslim world oh the needy needy Muslim world are you ready? hard tough are you ready to go anywhere for Jesus? stir me oh stir me Lord till all my heart is filled with strong compassion for these souls till thy compelling word drives me to pray till I constraining love reach to the poles far north and south in burning deep desire till east and west are caught in love's great fire you've been listening to one of a four-part series of Helen Roseveare sermons entitled Stir Me stir me stir me to give stir me to go stir me to pray and you can find the rest of these sermons at path2prayer.com again that's PATH P-A-T-H the numeral 2 P-R-A-Y-E-R path2prayer.com