Mary Reed: Missionary to Lepers

[00:00:00] Martyrs and Missionaries is a production of Revived Studios.

[00:00:07] You're listening to Martyrs and Missionaries.

[00:00:09] I'm Elise, and in every episode I'll bring you a new Martyr and or Missionary, the

[00:00:12] called and the brave.

[00:00:14] In this episode we're talking about Mary Reed, Missionary to Leppers in India.

[00:00:30] I hope that you all had a happy new year and a Merry Christmas.

[00:00:42] And on the last episode that we did where I paired up with the Revived Thoughts crew,

[00:00:46] I had a simple Christmas wish.

[00:00:49] And that was to reach 100 reviews on Apple podcasts.

[00:00:53] And you guys came through.

[00:00:54] We made 100 reviews.

[00:00:56] And that's incredible.

[00:00:57] And we also have 125 stars on Spotify, which is so awesome.

[00:01:01] I just found that out this week.

[00:01:04] And we also have a lot of reviews on Spotify, which some of them I knew about others I

[00:01:08] didn't and I have been combing through those and was like, oh my goodness, there's so

[00:01:12] many I haven't read yet.

[00:01:14] And I want to share two of them with you one from Apple, one from Spotify because I realized

[00:01:20] that you guys probably want to hear some of the things that other people are saying,

[00:01:24] because it's certainly encouraging for me and I hope it is encouraging for you guys.

[00:01:29] This one is on Apple, and it is from the other pastor Stanley.

[00:01:33] And he says when I first discovered this podcast, I was listening to the rise and fall of Mars

[00:01:38] Hill.

[00:01:39] I'm a former pastor in between my own negative experiences and all the stories of pastors

[00:01:43] and churches abusing their congregations.

[00:01:45] It became easy to begin questioning how much good the church has actually done.

[00:01:49] I knew there were stories of Christians and churches doing incredible good in the world.

[00:01:53] So I looked for a podcast telling those stories and I found this podcast.

[00:01:57] Thank you so much for telling these amazing stories of how Christians have done so much

[00:02:00] good around the world and actually lived out the faith that they claimed.

[00:02:05] I love this review because it is so easy to find negative stories about the church in

[00:02:09] our culture, and there are negative stories but there's so many amazing ones.

[00:02:14] And so I think it's awesome and very commendable that the other pastor Stanley decided to

[00:02:19] find those stories and then he found this podcast.

[00:02:22] And so thank you for that review.

[00:02:24] And this one is from Spotify, it's a little bit older from the Hudson Taylor episodes.

[00:02:28] This girl says I love this episode.

[00:02:30] I am 11 years old and I have felt the calling on my life to be a missionary to China.

[00:02:35] This episode is such an inspiration to me.

[00:02:37] I'll pray for you every day.

[00:02:39] I know that's awesome and inspiring and I will pray for you every day that you can become

[00:02:44] a missionary to China because that would be just amazing.

[00:02:48] All right, in this episode we're going to be talking about Mary Reid who was not only

[00:02:52] a missionary to Leopard's but was also a leopard herself and I'm going to work very hard

[00:02:57] not to say leopard accidentally.

[00:02:59] It's so easy.

[00:03:00] You'd be amazed how easy it is but I stumbled across Mary Reid's name in a list of

[00:03:04] missionaries and I wanted to learn more.

[00:03:06] She was just one name in a huge list and I was looking through looking at some of the

[00:03:10] names I wasn't familiar with and there aren't that many resources about her life but there

[00:03:16] is one short book called Mary Reid Missionary to Leopard's.

[00:03:19] It's written in 1900, it's about eight years into her ministry but she actually lives

[00:03:24] in India until her death in 1943 when she's 89 years old so I wish we had more about

[00:03:30] her ministry.

[00:03:31] It's not ideal but it's not necessarily an uncommon problem especially when you're looking

[00:03:35] at these people who are not super well known like a Hudson Taylor or an Amy Carmichael.

[00:03:41] I was able to find some other sources but most of the quotes and information for this episode

[00:03:45] will come from that book.

[00:03:48] So Mary Reid is born in Lowell Ohio in 1854 and if you're a Matt person like me who

[00:03:53] is wondering where Lowell is, Lowell is a hop-skip and a jump away from the West Virginia

[00:03:58] border.

[00:03:59] She is the oldest girl in a family of four boys and four girls.

[00:04:03] It looks like Mary became a Christian when she was about 16 years old and then she was

[00:04:07] a school teacher for the next 10 years and we really don't get any insight as to how

[00:04:12] or why she felt called to missions or why to India specifically but she reached out

[00:04:17] to the Women's Foreign Missionary Society which was connected to the Methodist Episcopal

[00:04:22] Church and then she offered her services to work with the Zanana missions of India.

[00:04:27] Zanana missions were really popular in India at this time and Zanana literally means

[00:04:31] of the women and it refers to the inner ruins of a house that were reserved solely for

[00:04:35] the women and these Zanana were necessary because of the practice of Prada that was practiced

[00:04:41] among Hindus and Muslims and it was actually brought over during the spread of Islam to

[00:04:46] India.

[00:04:47] So many women who practiced Prada were isolated completely from the outside world and only

[00:04:52] allowed to see other women or their male relatives but if they happened to go outside

[00:04:57] they needed to be hidden away from their by their clothing and being entirely covered

[00:05:01] from head to toe and then shielded from even looking outside during a carriage ride

[00:05:06] to visit other women or wherever it was they needed to go.

[00:05:10] And Prada is not really practiced in India anymore among Hindus but it is practiced by Muslims

[00:05:15] around the world to wild be varying degrees it depends on your family on your region but

[00:05:20] as you can imagine it would be very difficult for missionaries to access these women with

[00:05:24] the gospel and so therefore these Zanana missions were set up where women missionaries

[00:05:29] often trained for medical missions could access these women and provide oftentimes much

[00:05:34] needed medical care as these women's medical services were often neglected due to their

[00:05:39] isolation and then also be able to share the gospel with them in a way that traditional

[00:05:44] mission work and male missionaries were not able to do.

[00:05:49] So Mary leaves home to serve at the end of 1884 when she is 30 years old and she is going

[00:05:55] to serve in one of these missions in the city of Kampur.

[00:05:59] Kampur was infamous at least during this time for the Kampur massacre which had happened

[00:06:03] about 30 years before during some of the Sapoi uprisings and it is a brutal story that

[00:06:08] would make it even more difficult I feel like to go to this city as a European or American

[00:06:16] missionary in this case.

[00:06:18] But she actually wasn't in Kampur for very long before she got sick and had to travel

[00:06:21] further up north toward the Himalayas to recover and while she is there she focuses on language

[00:06:26] studies and also she watched the construction began on a beautiful homestead facility

[00:06:31] for lepers which unbeknownst to her was to be her home for most of her life.

[00:06:37] After she recovers she goes back to Kampur to work with the Sinanam missions and then

[00:06:41] she works for a year in Gonda which is a city about 130 miles north east and since she

[00:06:47] got into India she struggled with her health but it was in Gonda that she deteriorated enough

[00:06:51] that she was actually forced to go back to America to recover and while she's at home

[00:06:56] in America she undergoes at least one surgery and then some kind of treatment course but

[00:07:01] what they thought she had I'm not really sure.

[00:07:04] One of her symptoms was a constant tingling pain in her right forefinger and then a strange

[00:07:09] spot on her cheek up near her ear and she took to reading medical books to see if she could

[00:07:13] discover the cause and then she settles on leprosy.

[00:07:17] So she goes to a doctor in Cincinnati who then tentatively confirms her suspicions but

[00:07:23] then sends her to a specialist in New York to make sure and then he also confirms her

[00:07:28] suspicions that it is in fact leprosy.

[00:07:32] And I want to talk a little bit about what it would be like to hear those words in 1890

[00:07:37] up until the 1940s contracting leprosy was a death sentence because there was no cure.

[00:07:43] Leprosy is a bacteria that attacks the body and affects your nerves causing excruciating

[00:07:47] pain and impacts your mucus membranes, your eyes, your hearing.

[00:07:51] It causes body sores and disfigurement.

[00:07:53] And because it attacks the nerves and causes nerve damage many leprosy patients injure

[00:07:58] themselves due to lack of sensitivity which then leads to an infection and oftentimes leads

[00:08:03] to them having to have parts of their body amputated especially fingers and toes.

[00:08:09] People who contracted leprosy became outcasts of society which is a pretty well known fact

[00:08:13] but leprosy colonies far away from civilization even exist today with one of the largest

[00:08:19] ones being in the Philippines.

[00:08:21] India still has about 700 leprosy colonies and leprosy which is also called Hansen's

[00:08:27] disease, I didn't know that until recently but it was thought to be highly contagious

[00:08:31] and often the afflicted were stigmatized as being sexually promiscuous or as having committed

[00:08:37] some other grave sin.

[00:08:39] There were no modern advancements towards a cure until the 1940s and then it wasn't until

[00:08:43] 1995 that the multi drug treatment which cures leprosy today and totally cures it with

[00:08:50] ease was provided free of charge worldwide.

[00:08:53] It doesn't reverse any damage already caused by the leprosy but it stops it and makes

[00:08:58] it go away so that's awesome.

[00:09:00] But there is still about 200,000 leprosy cases each year with the vast majority being in

[00:09:05] India, Brazil and Indonesia.

[00:09:08] India accounts for almost 60% of all leprosy cases and interestingly enough 95% of the world's

[00:09:15] population actually has a natural immunity to leprosy.

[00:09:20] But contracting leprosy in 1890 meant total societal erasure, Mary Reid was an American

[00:09:26] and in America there were three places that existed four leprosy, one of which was in

[00:09:31] Louisiana, one in Massachusetts and one in Hawaii and the one you most wanted to be sent

[00:09:36] to was the one in Hawaii, the one you really didn't want to be sent to was in Louisiana.

[00:09:42] In Hawaii you could actually marry and have children but then any children you had would

[00:09:46] be taken by the state to keep them from contracting leprosy but in Louisiana conditions were much

[00:09:53] more prison-esque with men and women being kept separate by a tall fence and in all these

[00:09:57] facilities you weren't allowed to leave, you weren't allowed to work, you couldn't see

[00:10:01] family and friends, you couldn't vote and in many cases you were told to even erase your

[00:10:06] very identity choosing a different name to help your family on the outside escape the shame

[00:10:11] of your existence.

[00:10:14] And in India it was even worse as a leprer you were subjected to a number of discriminatory

[00:10:18] laws, lepros were forbidden from running in local elections, obtaining a driver's license

[00:10:24] in the 1930s not in the 1890s but you were forbidden from traveling by train and then having

[00:10:30] leprosy was considered grounds for divorce in India until 2019.

[00:10:35] And here's something kind of wild to consider, we pretty much all grew up hearing the

[00:10:39] multiple stories about lepros in the Bible and from an early age most kids raised in a

[00:10:43] Christian home know what leprosy is and there were some missionaries over the years who

[00:10:47] served among lepros notably Father Damien and Hawaii earlier in the 1800s however it wasn't

[00:10:54] until 1874 the first mission to leprosy was established by Wellesley and Alice Bailey who

[00:11:01] were visiting their missionary friends in India and saw leprosy for the first time and

[00:11:06] they immediately went back to England to raise money to build a care facility in the city

[00:11:10] of Almora which is in northern India and it was an extension of that facility that Mary

[00:11:15] Reed saw being built 20 years later.

[00:11:18] So going back to Mary she's given the official diagnosis of leprosy with no idea how

[00:11:23] she contracted it because she didn't work among lepers but she keeps her diagnosis to herself

[00:11:29] prayerfully working towards her next moves when she feels her mind drawn to the new mission

[00:11:33] to leprosy facility in India and she decides to go back to India and ask special permission

[00:11:39] to become their first missionary a role that she was now perfect for.

[00:11:44] And then quoting from her biography here, Desiring to spare her family the pain the sad knowledge

[00:11:49] must have brought to them and denying herself the motherly sympathy for which she must

[00:11:53] have yearned she kept them with a single exception of her sister Reena in ignorance about what

[00:11:57] had been fallen her.

[00:11:59] If you will let me go without a special goodbye as though I were returning tomorrow it'll

[00:12:03] be much easier for me she said.

[00:12:05] And so self the barred from even a farewell kiss she went forth from that happy home circle

[00:12:10] to become the center in head of one of the saddest of all the families of suffering humanity.

[00:12:15] It's impossible for us to imagine the strength that it would have taken

[00:12:19] to leave your family as if nothing was wrong and you aren't even able to touch them knowing

[00:12:24] that you intended to die in India and then never see them again.

[00:12:28] And then imagine again the anguish her family would have felt when they learned the truth

[00:12:33] long after Mary was gone.

[00:12:36] In September of 1891 Mary's mission organization approached the leper mission about the possibility

[00:12:42] of Mary becoming the superintendent of the leper asylum in Pathora way up in northern India

[00:12:47] near the Nepal border and that asylum was called Chandog.

[00:12:51] When newspapers learned of this American missionary afflicted with leprosy having gone back to

[00:12:55] India to live among lepers she became something of a missionary celebrity and so love and support

[00:13:01] poured in from both America and Europe and she found godly friendship among the other missionaries

[00:13:06] who were also serving in northern India.

[00:13:09] Writing about the scenery of her new home Mary says,

[00:13:12] a way to the north seemingly only one or two days journey are the eternal snows whose

[00:13:16] grandeur and sublimity are indescribable. They are so pure and bright and peaceful.

[00:13:22] At sunset and sunrise it is easy to imagine the invisible foundations of the eternal city.

[00:13:27] They are lighted up with such a halo of glory but it is of the mountains among which I live that

[00:13:31] I want to tell you. They enclose a lovely valley called shore like a massive and exquisitely

[00:13:37] beautiful frame around a magnificent picture. My home is on the crest of the range which forms

[00:13:41] the western boundary of the valley and the picture. A rich and beautiful valley containing about

[00:13:47] six square miles lies more than one thousand feet below my lofty and lovely retreat

[00:13:52] and is dotted with numerous villages which are surrounded by clumps of trees and tariff

[00:13:56] garden fields of rice, wheat and other grains and through this valley a little river and its

[00:14:01] tributaries wind in and out. And a ridge of low hills divides it while almost at its center

[00:14:07] situated on the prominent immanences are the mission buildings of our Methodist Episcopal Church.

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[00:14:59] She was warmly welcomed by the other lepers at Chandog and she took her role as their

[00:15:06] tear caretaker very seriously not allowing herself to waddle in self-pity but I imagine

[00:15:12] would threaten to consume you if you didn't stay busy and then also bade them prayer.

[00:15:16] And she was routinely found in the hospital binding wounds and administering medicines

[00:15:20] although she herself actually took no medicines or treatments for the least the first eight years

[00:15:25] or so of her affliction. I found other sources that said that later in her life she did

[00:15:31] and she was taking injections and other medicines as medical advancements in leprosy were being made.

[00:15:38] For the first six months she was at Chandog she said that the disease made decided progress.

[00:15:43] She was in constant agony from the nerve pain and what had just been tingling in her index finger

[00:15:48] progressed to a wound that burst open no less than 20 times. Most of the personal knowledge that we

[00:15:55] have about Mary Reid comes from her letters to Wellas Lee and Alice Bailey who were the founders

[00:16:01] of the mission to lepers which still exists today but has changed its name to the leprosy mission.

[00:16:08] Writing of her struggle she tells the bailies, I am sure his love, his wisdom and his power are at work.

[00:16:14] Words are empty to tell of a love like his. He has enabled me to say not with a sigh but with a song

[00:16:20] that will be done. The end may come and that tomorrow when he is wrought his will in me.

[00:16:26] She also includes a bit of prose from John Ruskin whom we may remember from our

[00:16:30] Lillius Trotter episode because he was the guy who really wanted to marry Lillius

[00:16:34] and then here's a fun tidbit for you. Lillius is pin pals with Amy Carmichael who was serving

[00:16:40] in India at the same time as Mary Reid although she was far in the south and Mary's way up north

[00:16:45] and there doesn't seem to be any evidence they ever crossed paths but it's still cool to think about.

[00:16:51] The quoting from Ruskin here she continues,

[00:16:53] in our whole life melody the music is broken off here and there by rests. We foolishly think we

[00:16:59] have come to the end of the tune God sends a time of forced leisure, a time of sickness and

[00:17:05] disappointed plans and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives and we lament that

[00:17:10] our voices must be silent and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the

[00:17:16] creator. Not without design does God write the music of our lives, be it hours to learn the tune

[00:17:22] and not be dismayed at the rests if we look up God will beat the time for us.

[00:17:28] When Mary first moves to Chondog the surrounding scenery was breathtaking as she documented

[00:17:34] but the living conditions were mostly a collection of mud huts and stables where 37-ish people were

[00:17:40] housed. A pithera which is where Chondog was located had the most cases of leprosy in all of India

[00:17:47] disproportionate to its population for no particular reason I could find but that's the statistics.

[00:17:53] She makes it her goal to beautify and expand Chondog in order to make it able to house more people

[00:17:58] who needed help and also to make it a pleasant place to live. So in time Mary purchases additional

[00:18:04] land and then builds two large buildings accommodating 60 men and boys and then three smaller ones for

[00:18:11] women and children, two hospitals one of which was an isolation hospital for extreme cases that had

[00:18:16] a dispensary attached to it. She builds two chapels and then two other buildings one of which was the

[00:18:22] little bungalow that was fitted up for her to use which she had named Sunny Crest Cottage.

[00:18:28] One generous friend purchased her an organ that she loved to play and then she had this

[00:18:33] gallery of pictures all over her wall and she was really proud of her little house.

[00:18:38] Before Mary arrived everyone at Chondog got their water supply from the river which flowed

[00:18:43] into the city below and Mary thought that probably wasn't the best idea and so she worked to find

[00:18:50] an alternative source of water. It took a while but eventually they were able to find a suitable

[00:18:56] place to build a well which secured their private water source and then some people had sent seeds

[00:19:02] from the US and she used them to fill the mountainside with beautiful flowers. There was a vegetable

[00:19:07] garden and a small chicken yard that helped the food supply although during World War I and a few

[00:19:13] famines that happened every now and again they did find it difficult to procure staples like rice

[00:19:17] and grain at reasonable costs. For the longest time Mary was something of a one woman show because

[00:19:23] she was the housekeeper, the head nurse, the chaplain, the secretary and the bookkeeper and then

[00:19:29] with some assistance she looked after the diet and simple medical treatment of her patients,

[00:19:33] taught them to read and help chapel services, prayer groups and classes and if you're thinking oh my

[00:19:39] goodness that's a lot of things I'm not even done because she was also the district missionary for

[00:19:44] her organization. She supervised six village schools, three Sunday schools, she directed a group of

[00:19:50] women that went around teaching the Bible and taught students in their homes and her village circuit

[00:19:56] to complete all of this was 40 miles start to finish but the good news is that Mary's ministry

[00:20:04] among those at Chondog was especially fruitful within five years 64 out of 82 patients had become

[00:20:11] Christians and she didn't take their professions lightly she grilled them to make sure they understood

[00:20:16] the gospel fully understood it. They studied various catechisms and she would ask them difficult

[00:20:22] questions to ensure they truly understood and didn't just memorize the correct answers and then

[00:20:27] only then what she present them for baptism. And there were many lepers in the district who refused

[00:20:33] to come to Chondog purely because they knew it was a Christian institution and they didn't want

[00:20:38] to come under any Christian influence. Instead they roamed around in colonies sleeping outside

[00:20:43] and scrounging for food and there were some who came seemingly only to cause discord among the

[00:20:49] community. There was one woman who took two of the younger people a girl a boy and a girl

[00:20:54] under her wing and poisoned them against Chondog until they left and Mary took that especially hard

[00:21:00] because she had been discipling this girl but thankfully it wasn't too long before both she and the

[00:21:06] boy came back to Chondog having seen the alternative on the outside. But even among the Christians

[00:21:13] at the mission there were obstacles to overcome. There's this story from the book one of the newly

[00:21:19] baptized women had her first test almost immediately after baptism another woman is very ill

[00:21:25] and required someone to sit up with her all night. The sick woman was originally low cast while

[00:21:31] this woman who had just been baptized was originally high cast Mary asked the newly baptized woman if

[00:21:36] she was set up with the sick woman and look after her. At first she hung her head in the not

[00:21:41] seem willing but on Mary putting it to her that she was now a Christian all these ideas had to go

[00:21:47] she can send it without any more ado and so her first stand and fight are over and she has been given

[00:21:53] the victory. By 1898 Mary was suffering even more from the disease with a new symptom which was

[00:22:01] agonizing throat pain which is a common symptom apparently that can render some sufferers of

[00:22:06] leprosy completely mute and she decided that she could no longer divide her time between Chondog

[00:22:11] and her duties to the missions organization which she had served for 14 years so then she respectfully

[00:22:18] resigned no one was upset it was an understandable reason and then she was able to focus solely on her

[00:22:24] work at the mission but the following year her health had improved so dramatically with no outward

[00:22:30] signs or sores that she was pronounced healthy enough to attend the North India conference of

[00:22:35] her former mission. And so for the first time in nine years she was welcomed into regular society

[00:22:41] and everyone was eager to see her she was asked to get out and give a speech to the waiting audience

[00:22:47] she was so overcome with emotion and praise that all she could say was let us sing

[00:22:52] and she led the group in a Hindustani translation of oh four thousand tongues sing. Her health had

[00:22:58] recovered so miraculously that some people began to doubt that she ever had leprosy at all

[00:23:03] and these medical missionaries came forward to tell her their opinion that she had been misdiagnosed.

[00:23:09] Their opinions went out to newspapers and created a great deal of confusion for all of these people

[00:23:13] who had been praying for Mary and her leprosy and it caused a great deal of grief for Mary who

[00:23:18] had had her case handled by several doctors with preeminent expertise in leprosy. In a letter addressing

[00:23:25] this kerfuffle she says he gives me wondrous health and strength far far beyond what could be

[00:23:30] expected from a purely human standpoint. My general health has never been so good as it has been

[00:23:35] now for nearly a year some of my friends have the impression from my my appearance and from the fact

[00:23:41] that Dr. Kondon himself stated some months ago that he considered me practically healed but I

[00:23:46] have been made whole but I know that a seal to the work of my master's appointing here at

[00:23:51] Chandog Heights has become so plainly visible at times that no one could doubt that the disease

[00:23:58] still lingers in my system though my finger does not now burst open as it did more than a score

[00:24:02] of times before 1898 who can fail to recognize the hand of God staying in the malady and answer to

[00:24:10] prayer of a multitude of Christian hearts bound by the blessed tie of Christian love. Most humbly

[00:24:15] do I praise and thank God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, the fountain of life

[00:24:20] and health and peace for marvelously improved health. He has heard the voice of my of our

[00:24:25] supplications my heart trusted in him and I am helped therefore my heart greatly rejoiced

[00:24:31] and with my song I will praise him. In 1906 she was in such good health that she was able to return

[00:24:38] to the US to visit her family her identity remained a secret to the public at large and she was

[00:24:44] able to travel without scandal or impediment. She was able to visit the Bailey's Liverpool

[00:24:49] and this was the second and seemingly last time that she saw her longtime pin pals. Doctors in

[00:24:54] London marveled that it seemed as though her illness had come to a standstill and she was even

[00:24:59] able to tour the Holy Land before returning to Chandog to continue her ministry and after that

[00:25:04] she didn't leave Chandog again except for in 1924 when she was 70 for an emergency dental procedure.

[00:25:11] One of her sisters wrote asking if she would not like to return to spend the remainder of her life

[00:25:15] in the old home but her reply was no my work and duty here are not yet finished how long to see

[00:25:22] you dear ones but the meeting will be in the heavenly home. In 1932 her leprosy came back but she

[00:25:30] still continued to supervise Chandog until 1938 and then even still she continued to minister from her

[00:25:36] home there. This resurgence of leprosy had affected her eyesight and when she was walking down the

[00:25:42] steps of her home she fell and was an immense pain for 24 days before she died of heart failure

[00:25:48] on April 8th 1943 when she was almost 90 years old. Her funeral was attended by 200 people,

[00:25:56] both Christians and non-bleapers alike. She was buried on a grassy slope in front of the Chandog

[00:26:01] chapel. She had served in India for 58 years in total. 52 of those at Chandog faithfully serving

[00:26:08] in the unique mission field where the Lord had brought her. I shared some of the letters she wrote

[00:26:13] during the misdiagnosis debacle and I wanted to share her closing thoughts in that letter because

[00:26:18] I think it gives us a great insight into her character and is also a great reminder for us today.

[00:26:24] Please pray for the salvation of the thousands of unsaved souls who have heard the call to come

[00:26:30] to Jesus and be saved. There are many all about us here who have heard the message of salvation but

[00:26:35] are halting between two opinions. Please pray for them every time you think about us here in this

[00:26:40] little outpost. As we pray and wait for the Lord we come more and more to see with His eyes and

[00:26:46] think His thoughts. The flame of love burns more brightly and we become missionary-hearted with a

[00:26:52] heart somewhat akin to that of the first great missionary who came such a long, long journey

[00:26:57] to this lost and ruined world. But whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting

[00:27:03] light. May God help us all to assist in carrying the gospel to these perishing souls.

[00:27:08] May the Lord himself teach us and help us to be faithful in the ministry of intercession

[00:27:12] that his kingdom may come and as well may be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[00:27:17] As always, thank you for listening to Mara's Emissionaries. I'm Elise.

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