Missions

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Uninspired Christians Need Only Talk to or Learn About a few Missionaries

By Dan Blankenship
© 2006 Dan Blankenship



Is your faith stagnant? Have you reached a stretch of the narrow road where you think the path has become uninspiring? There is a quick way to energize the excitement and passion in your step: Read about, watch videos, or actually talk to people from the mission fields. Nothing can jump-start a Jesus-first attitude faster than hearing or seeing the amazing missionary work being accomplished around the globe.

In the Dominican Republic, missionaries Nelson and Rennae de Freitas are reaching out to children. If their blog and its stories about the human suffering in that country don’t stimulate your “people need Jesus” juices, nothing will! Don’t believe me? See for yourself, after reading the rest of my column, of course: http://www.defreitasfamily.blogspot.com/

Now picture a man and his wife bringing the Gospel to a nation with the highest ratio of people infected with AIDS. Chuck and Janet Wilson are there, in Botswana, near South Africa, telling people about Jesus. These two amazing missionaries are taking hope and love to a distant land that is as far away from comfort as one can possibly go. Such warriors for Christ should be an inspiration to anyone who becomes familiar with their efforts!

Have you heard the remarkable story of sacrifices made by David and Svea Flood back in 1921? The Swedish couple traveled to the Belgian Congo (today it is called Zaire) and made an effort to take the gospel to a remote region of that country. Their efforts were rebuffed. Yet, the couple decided to build their own mud huts not far from the natives they were trying to minister to.

Svea was only able to reach one person with the Good News, a young boy who delivered chickens and eggs to her twice a week. It must have been devastating to travel so far and reach such an impasse. Then tragedy struck! Svea gave birth to a girl, but the delivery left Svea’s immune system severely depleted, and she passed on from this world to the next.

David Flood became so discouraged that he buried his wife near the mud hut, gave his daughter to another missionary couple in the Belgian Congo, and returned to Sweden. He was furious with God. His life took a dramatic downfall year after year. But he didn’t know that the young boy who delivered the chickens and eggs had become a soul winner. The Floods’ had planted a seed they never got to see take hold.

Eventually, David’s daughter, Aggie, now living in the United States, tracked her father down. He told her how he was angry at God for allowing his missionary work go to waste, for taking his wife away from him, and everything else that had not gone the way David thought it should have. He apologized for leaving her in Zaire.

Aggie, having heard from others that Christianity had indeed flowered from the village where her parents visited, told her father about the young boy from the village. She told him that he had led hundreds of others to Christ. She told him that his and Svea’s work had not been in vain; souls were saved, lives were changed.

The two became close, and David came back to God. And not long after that, he was reunited with his wife.

A few years after that, Aggie got the chance to meet the superintendent of the national church of Zaire, a man representing more than 110,000 baptized believers. He had been giving a speech in England.

Afterward, she approached him and hesitantly asked him a question she was sure would be answered with a “no”. “Have you ever heard of David or Svea Flood?”

The man told her, “It was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born.”

Not too long after that, Aggie got to visit her mother’s gravesite in Zaire. The villagers cheered her arrival and told her how famous her mother was in their nation.

If stories like this don’t inspire you to have less of you and more of Him in your life, nothing will. You can read the entire story at: http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/14168.htm or in the book “Aggie; a girl without a country” by Aggie Hurst, Access Pub, 1986. ISBN: B00072Z6KU





Sources: de Friatis, Nelson and Rennae. Serving and Loving the Dominican Republic. May 25, 2006, October 9, 2006. http://www.defreitasfamily.blogspot.com/

First Assembly of God, Prineville, OR. Charles and Janet Wilson, South Africa. Accessed October 9, 2006. http://www.faithwebsites.com/sysfiles/member/mission/mission_detail.cfm?memberid=162&missionid=387

David and Svea Flood: an amazing missionary story. John Mark Ministries. Accessed October 9, 2006.
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/14168.htm

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