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My Pilgrimage in Mission David Harley

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My Pilgrimage in Mission David Harley My Pilgrimage in Mission David Harley hen war broke out in 1939, my father, an ordained example and be ordained. I promptly announced to my parents WAnglican, was serving as a vicar in the East End of and brothers that I was going to become the archbishop of Can- London. Fearing for the safety of his family, he evacuated my terbury! They laughed and looked at me with the kind of disdain mother and two brothers to Buckinghamshire, where I was born that Joseph’s family showed to him. Unperturbed, I built a simple in 1941. Two years later he moved to a parish in Bristol. chapel in our garden and invited my brothers to come and hear The vicarage where we lived had a large garden with a ten- me preach. They refused to come, but a number of chickens came nis court and croquet lawn. I remember, aged seven, going out out of curiosity, so I had some sort of congregation. Sadly, their to this lawn on a moonlit night in December. As I gazed at the numbers were diminished as one by one they provided meals stars, I thought how great God must be if he had created such a for the family, and I learned the painful lesson that your church universe. I could think of no better way of spending my life than does not grow if you eat your congregation! serving such a God, so I knelt down on the grass and committed my life to him. Hudson Taylor and the Cambridge Seven About the same time I was wondering what job I would do when I grew up. I thought it would be exciting to become a fire- At the age of nineteen I had completed my schooling and was man or a policeman, but I finally decided to follow my father’s preparing to go to university. I had six months to spare and decided to teach in a small boarding school. When I discovered that two David Harley, an ordained Anglican and former of the staff met on a regular basis to pray for the boys, I asked if missionary in Ethiopia, has served as principal of All I could join them. I was not used to extempore prayer, but I was Nations Christian College and as general director of deeply impressed by the vitality of their faith and the depth of OMF International (formerly the China Inland Mis- their concern for the children at the school. One of them lent me sion). He is the author of Missionary Training: The The Calvary Road and We Would See Jesus, by Roy Hession, who History of All Nations Christian College and Its had personal experience of the East African revival. His books Predecessors (1911–1981) (Boekencentrum, 2000). gave me a clearer understanding of what Christ had achieved —[email protected] on the cross and what it meant to be his disciple. 108 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 2 During that summer I was invited to an international con- grammar school. Her experience together with her natural gifts ference organized by Youth for Christ in Bristol. I had never as a teacher proved to be a huge asset while we were serving in attended such a noisy gathering of Christians. There was much the London church. loud singing, hand clapping, and even a trombone solo. I found As our three years in London drew to a close, we began to this all rather strange, but I was struck by the way the speakers pray for direction about our future ministry. Should we serve the talked about their relationship with God. This left me confused, Jewish people or go to Africa? The preacher who had talked of for I was used to more formal and liturgical expressions of ministry among the Jewish people when I was a student was no Christianity rather than this noisy evangelical celebration. I was more encouraging now than he had been nine years before. Even unfamiliar with their pattern of worship but attracted by the way though I was now qualified, he said the society had no money to they spoke of Jesus as Savior and Lord. send out new workers. He suggested a job for my wife but did The next day I was invited to be a junior officer at a Christian not know what to do with me! Our dilemma was finally resolved camp organized for young teenagers. The aim of the camp was when we were invited to work among Jewish people living in to provide the youngsters with a great holiday in the beautiful Africa, the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia. It seemed to us that God Somerset countryside and to give them a series of talks explain- had provided a perfect resolution to our conflicting interests. ing what it meant to be a Christian. As I listened to those talks, I realized that I did trust in Christ as my Savior and Lord. I did The Falashas of Ethiopia not make any decision but rather felt that a decision had been made for me. As C. S. Lewis put it, I felt I had been decided Ethiopia is a fascinating country, and the Ethiopian church is upon. It was not a denial of my Anglican upbringing but rather one of the oldest churches in Africa, dating back to the fourth its endorsement. It clarified my thinking and gave me a strong century. The emperor required our mission to work closely with desire to find out as much as I could about the Christian faith the Orthodox Church, and all Falashas who wished to con- while I was at university. vert to Christianity had to be baptized by an Orthodox priest. My three years at Cambridge made a huge impact on my The Falashas, or House of Israel, as they prefer to call them- life. I read classics and then theology. I was impressed by the selves, suffered considerable discrimination, and the schools scholarship and humility of Charles Moule, Lady Margaret and clinics we provided went some way toward improving Professor of Divinity, who always required his class of students, their situation. usually numbering around two hundred, to stand for prayer Before leaving for Ethiopia in 1970 we had been able to do a before he began his lecture. I was equally impressed by the year’s cross-cultural preparation at a missionary training school number of deeply committed Christian men and women I met in the United Kingdom called All Nations Christian College. This at the university. I was privileged to listen to some of the ablest helped us to anticipate some of the challenges we would face as biblical expositors in the country and inherited from them a deep missionaries in Ethiopia. It prepared us for the inevitable shock love of the Scriptures. I learned a great deal about prayer from that comes from living in a totally different environment and for attending the daily prayer meeting organized by the Christian the inevitable suspicion that meets white people from a former Union in the hall named after Henry Martyn, the famous mis- colonial power working in Africa. Lectures on methodology based sionary to India. on Roland Allen’s classic Missionary Methods: St Paul’s or Ours? I began to read missionary biographies and was particularly warned us of the dangers of imposing our patterns of worship struck by the life of Hudson Taylor and the story of the seven and insisting on our style of leadership. A course on tropical Cambridge graduates who went out to China to serve under medicine made us aware of the practical precautions we needed his leadership. I became concerned for the plight of Christians to take, while courses on carpentry and car maintenance equipped in China and gathered a group of students to pray regularly for us to live more effectively in a remote area of Ethiopia. Most of that country. I felt an increasing conviction that God was calling me to serve him as a missionary but realized there was no way in the 1960s that someone from Britain could go as a missionary He told me in no uncertain to Communist China. I began to wonder where I should go. One Sunday I heard about an organization that had been founded terms that I lacked the in 1809 called the Church’s Ministry Among the Jews. I spoke necessary qualifications. to the preacher after the service but found him to be extremely discouraging. He told me in no uncertain terms that Jewish min- istry was highly sensitive and very difficult, and that I lacked all, courses on culture helped us to lose some of our feelings of the necessary qualifications and experience. national superiority and taught us to view other cultures with I was somewhat dismayed by his comments but not totally respect and appreciation. put off. I determined to gain the qualifications and experience he All this made it easier to cope with life and ministry in Africa, mentioned. I finished my degree, qualified as a teacher, attended yet there were still hard lessons we needed to learn. First of all, an Anglican theological college, and after being ordained in St. we learned the need for missionaries to be flexible. We had our Paul’s Cathedral in London, proceeded to work as an associate own fixed ideas of what we would like to do in Ethiopia, which pastor in North London. was to teach in a Bible school. We never fulfilled that ambition, In the same year, 1966, I married Rosemary.
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