Tengyung, Paoshan and Mottled Hill were my destinations, plain boiled rice my staple diet and high mountains my challenge almost every day. I slept in rat-infested huts, sludged through mud and tried to understand a foreign language. My companion was the famous missionary, James O Fraser, lover of the Lisu people from southwest China.
For me, to read a missionary story is like going on a holiday. It refreshes me. Not only do I get to "see" the world, but I learn valuable lessons about the Christian life.
James O Fraser's life is described in detail through letters that he wrote home to his mom who was his main prayer partner. As time passed and disappointments grew, the talented twenty-two year old realized that his battle for the souls of the demon-worshipping tribe was serious. He asked for eight or so more praying volunteers and "rolled the burden of his soul" for the tribe's salvation over to them. He instructed them how to pray: ask for specific things that you know God wants to do, wait for answers, ask God what He wants and be careful of asking for things that are so big that you cannot handle it.
When God answered these prayers over the following years, thousands of Lisu came to know the Lord. A young American girl, Isobel Kuhn, heard Fraser speak at a missionary congress and decided to go to China as well. In her first book, By Searching, she tells her story.
But that is another story for another holiday...
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