Many of you, I know, are
deeply interested in the Mountain Mission field. I wish it were possible
to bring you a picture of the scenes we witness daily, scenes that have
deeply touched our hearts, and scenes that will perhaps live forever in
our memories. One of these I am going to try to describe. The things which
touch one's heart most cannot be written. Mere words can only feebly describe
the picture of a little child with outstretched arms, pleading for its
mother; or of a broken-hearted father and husband with the doctor's words
ringing in his ears, "Your wife cannot get well"; we can tell the story,
but the heartache and suffering cannot be put on paper.
Tonight my story is built
around a little mountain home where there is a group of children crying
for their mother—a home where there is a husband and father with stiff
and toil worn hands trying to console the children and care for the wife
and mother, who the doctor says cannot live. It is a home where the specialist
in a great southern city has sent the mother back to die—a home where God
has answered prayers. How wonderful, how truly wonderful to know that God
is with us; that He hears and answers our prayers!
Let us turn back the hands
of time a few weeks and visit in this home that was like so many other
homes we contact in the mountains daily. Just another home where there
are a father and mother and a large family of children, living without
God and with seemingly no love or thought for the Savior. They never attended
any churches services or Sunday School. None of them were saved. They would
eat their meals without even a word of thanks to the Great Provider!
This little home is located
upon the side of a hill. There is a footpath which leads up to the door;
there are many other different paths leading in different directions which
are worn smooth by the little bare feet running to and fro—one can hear
the children laughing and talking as they play through the house and out
on the hill side.
But one day all is quiet;
the little feet tiptoe softly through the house, there is no more playing,
there is no more laughing—mother is sick. The local doctors gravely shake
their heads as they diagnose her case, at last they advise a well known
hospital in a far off city where there is a specialist who might be able
to save her. As they were very poor people, this husband and father did
not have the money to get her in the hospital, nor any way to take her
there, but the serious condition of the mother and the sorrowing plight
of the family touched the heart of a kind neighbor who went with his car
as near the house as possible, and with gentle hands helped to carry her
to the car and took her all the way to this hospital, where the specialist
pronounced her ailment as cancer of the brain, and after an operation he
said she could not get well, so with sorrowing hearts they brought her
home to die.
A few days after she came
back I was in the vicinity going from house to house doing personal work.
Some one told me of this home, so I went to see them, following the foot
path around the side of the hill and up to the little cabin door. I went
in and sat down near where she was lying on the bed, part of her head was
badly discolored and her hair had been closely clipped when the operation
had been made. She turned her face toward me and smiled when I told her
of a Savior who lover her and had died for her. I knelt there by her bed
in prayer and did not leave until she made a definite confession of Christ.
A few days later Frances
(my wife) and another lady went to see this family. They read the Bible
and had prayer. They also had an opportunity to talk to the husband who
said he had lived all of his life for the devil, but was now going to live
for God. The oldest daughter said she was not saved until her mother was
stricken, but was now trusting God for her salvation.
Once again you can hear the
happy voices of the children singing and shouting as they run and play
through the house and out on the hillsides. God has heard and answered
prayers. Mother is saved and is up and doing the house work. Frances and
I were in the community recently. We did not get to visit this home, but
one of her neighbors told us she was living a sincere and true Christian
life.
Sometimes the ones we hold
most dear in this life have to be stricken or entirely taken away before
we will submit our stubborn, selfish hearts to Him from Whom all blessings
flow.
We earnestly request a great
interest in your prayers that we may be used to the utmost to lead the
lost to our dear Lord and Savior. |