GLOBAL WARMING THE FIRE OF PENTECOST IN WORLD EVANGELISM An anecdotal history of the work of Elim Missions (1919 – 1989) Peter Smith GLOBAL WARMING Copyright © 2006 Peter Smith B. Th. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-9556085-0-6 Published by the Elim Pentecostal Irish Churches Printed by Antrim Printers, Steeple Industrial Estate, Antrim, BT41 1AB Tel: 028 9442 8053 CONTENTS FOREWORD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION SECTION ONE - EUROPE 1.Albania 2.Armenia 3.Belgium 4.Elim Relief Association (ERA) 5.Europe (General) 6.Euroteams 7.Elim Women‟s Missionary Auxiliary (EWMA 8.France 9.Greece 10.Spain SECTION TWO - AFRICA 11. Botswana/Bechuanaland 12. Belgian Congo/Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo 13. Egypt 14. Ghana 15. Kenya 16. New Zealand (Zambia/Malawi) 17. Tanganyika/Tanzania 18. Transvaal/South Africa 19. Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) SECTION THREE - CENTRAL & SOUTHAMERICA 20. Brazil 21. Guyana 22. Honduras SECTION FOUR - INDIA & THE FAR EAST 23. China/Hong Kong 24. India 25. Japan 26. Malaysia 27. Mongolia/Formosa/Taiwan 28. Thailand 29. Conclusion FOREWORD By Pastor John Glass General Superintendent, Elim Pentecostal Church The Early Church was born amidst the flames of missionary zeal. In some cases, the fire generated had been first lit in an upper room on the day of Pentecost and blazed in as many combustible lives as would place themselves on the altar of service. On other occasions, the fire took the form of persecution as witnesses were thrust out to Regions that they would not normally have traversed had they not experienced the inferno fanned by ferocious enemies of the Gospel. As is so often the case, God causes the wrath of men to praise Him; and what was meant for evil turned out for good. No period of history, however dark the age or dry the land, has been without its witnesses and it is to a small seventy year section of it, 1919-1989, that Peter Smith draws our attention in the pages that follow. The author has „earned the right to speak‟ as he has given many years of his life in dedication to the cause of world mission via his involvement in strategic planning on councils and committees, as well as direct engagement by visiting the Fields himself - applying his wisdom and teaching gifts to the benefit of the local churches. You are about to read of lives propelled, not by the security net of financial guarantees but by a simple trust in a God who is bound to grant the means to sustain a call that He has placed upon the lives of His people. There will be countless others whose names are not recorded here but are indelibly printed in the pages of heaven‟s eternal audit. Over time, the form that mission takes inevitably changes – yet its heart still beats to the same rhythms of grace and a call of God that never drops a decibel in its volume or a syllable in its challenge to reach a lost world for Christ. Many mentioned here have already reached their reward. This text is not for them – they have no need of it. This book is for us. It transcends cold data and serves to inspire us to a higher level of commitment to the subject that is the nearest to God‟s heart and the purpose of the cross. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to Pastor John Glass and the NLT for their encouragement and permission to use the reports in the Elim Evangel as the basis for much of the content in this book. My thanks also to Pastor D. W. Cartwright, Elim‟s archivist and Mr. David Womersley of CAM for their help and input. I acknowledge, with grateful thanks, the willing co-operation and help of missionaries, both serving and retired, together with the children of some who have passed on to their reward, who all responded to my search for information. I have appreciated the unfailing support of my family who have put up with my long absences at the computer. Last, and most importantly, I acknowledge the God of all grace whose eternal love has provided us with a theme for such a publication and for whose glory all that has been recorded and written was undertaken. DEDICATION To Janet The love of my life and the mainstay of my ministry PREFACE GLOBAL WARMING - ecologically and environmentally a potential disaster, but spiritually, an absolute prerequisite to the return of Jesus Christ. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14) God has presented Himself to us as fire throughout Scripture. He spoke to Moses from the burning bush. A pillar of fire during the wilderness wanderings signified His presence among His people. John the Baptist declared of Jesus that He would “baptise with the Holy Ghost and fire.” (Matthew 3:11) The two disciples on the road to Emmaus testified - “Did not our hearts burn within us?” and, in more recent times, John Wesley‟s well-documented experience with God was that his “heart was strangely warmed”. It is interesting that, in the physical world, fire is sustained by a supply of flammable material and oxygen. So too, in the spiritual, the fire of evangelism rests on a supply of flammable material - willing, servant hearts, and the oxygen of the Divine Spirit. Edwin Orr, in his appraisal of the Second Evangelical Awakening,i finds an abundance of both. He makes the interesting observation that “every revival of religion in the homelands is felt within a decade in the foreign mission-fields”. He goes on to say that the revival of 1859 “helped to lay the foundations of the modern international and interdenominational missionary structure.” Indeed, the period around 1859 gave rise to some of the most noted names in missionary endeavour - David Livingstone, George Grenfell, Mary Slessor and many others. Shortly afterwards, and as a direct result of the awakenings of those times, James Chalmers went to his martyrdom in New Guinea and James Hudson Taylor opened up the work in China. Orr continues: “Only when the bulk of the foregoing material had been assembled was it possible to gain a comprehensive view of the Awakening and its relationship to the movement as of the fifty years following. It has been concluded that the fifty years following 1858 constituted a distinct and definite period of expansion of the Christian Church, in fact, a nineteenth century evangelical awakening comparable to its noted predecessor of the eighteenth century.” It is his opinion that the Awakening of 1858-59 created new organisations of a permanent character and increased the efforts of all Christians to fulfil the Great Commission and carry the Gospel to every creature, at home and abroad. The Welsh Revival of 1904 had also a remarkable impact on the work of spreading the Gospel overseas. Places as far removed as India, Madagascar and Patagonia responded to the Spirit‟s influences. Mainland Europe was not untouched. Africa, Asia and Australasia were all impacted by the revival. Eifion Evans reports that the Christian and Missionary Alliance recorded, with reference to India, “The revival has given a new body of native evangelists and most of our native preachers have experienced a baptism of the Holy Ghost which has completely transformed their spirit and work”. ii It is against this background and historical legacy that the Elim churches responded to the challenge of the Great Commission. The founder of the Elim Pentecostal Church, George Jeffreys, was born in February 1889. He was born again in 1904, during the period of the Welsh revival and, in 1910, received his baptism in the Holy Spirit. Others have traced his life story, so it is not fitting that this should be repeated, except to say that, in a very short time, he began to preach locally in Wales and that signs and wonders followed his ministry. At the age of 24, he responded to an invitation to preach in Ireland and, subsequently, the Elim Church came into being. E.C.W. Boulton‟s book, A Ministry of the Miraculous,iii traces his career through to 1928 and it is evident that he was a gifted evangelist, on fire for God and committed to winning souls for Christ. In his early years, George Jeffreys had a profound interest in overseas missions. His associations with the early Pentecostal pioneers of the twentieth century meant that he was open to developments in thinking relative to the evangelistic outreach of the churches with a Pentecostal ethos then in the process of being formed. Following on the principles adopted by Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, Alexander Boddy and Cecil Polhill set up the Pentecostal Missionary Union in 1909. William K. Kay in his book, Inside Story,iv traces the development of this movement in its early years. He notes that the founding of the Congo Evangelistic Mission by William Burton and James Salter in 1915 “had the unintentional result of deflecting missionary finance to that field and away from PMU workers in China, India and the Tibet areas.” George Jeffreys‟ early Bible training came about indirectly as a result of the formation of the PMU. This was because the PMU used the Bible School set up by Thomas Myerscough at Preston and George Jeffreys went there in 1912, remaining until the following year.