God's Amazing Answer
A. J. APPASAMY
very little time for prayer.
But now I am trying to "catch up arrears" in prayer.
I devote half my time to duties in the home, looking after my people.
The other half I devote to prayer.'
In one of our churches thirty-five women came together once a week to pray.
In another church some keen people studied the teaching of the Bible about prayer, using Bishop Pakenham-Walsh's little book.
In another congregation the church was kept open every morning and some people came and prayed for Revival.
In another church every Wednesday there was an address about Indian Christian leaders like Sadhu Sundar Singh, Pandita Ramabai and N. V. Tilak.
The address was followed by a season of prayer.
In many churches Revival songs were sung frequently.
Lies
GOD'S AMAZING ANSWER
God answered amazingly.
He sent evangelists from the ends of the earth to help us in our need.
Widely different in temperament and in method, they were faithful in their devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ and God blessed their ministry abundantly.
A missioner who helped us often was Mr N. Daniel.
He was a man of much prayer and Bible study, spending hours each day at his devotions.
One of his hosts told us that he and his wife were heard praying in the room next to hers until two in the morning.
In 1935, just as he was going to be made the Headmaster of a Baptist Mission High School, he felt the call of God to work as an evangelist on his own. He resigned from Mission
Service and went with his wife to live in Madras, not knowing what the future held for him.
By faith they lived and worked, depending entirely upon God for all their needs.
During all these years their faith has been strengthened by the wonderful way in which God has cared for them, not always giving them ease and comfort, but never failing them.
Mr and Mrs Daniel, together with their eldest son and daughter, work as a team.
May Collins, one of our missionaries, wrote about Muthusammy in the London Mission Chronicle of September 1956.
Here is a digest of her article about this convert in one of Daniel's meetings.
GOD'S AMAZING ANSWER
Muthusammy is a village farmer who lives in a small. Christian settlement about fifteen miles from Salem.
For many years he was a great problem and a real thorn in the flesh of pastors and district missionaries.
I can remember one day walking down the long drive to our bungalow in Salem.
As I approached the house 1 heard loud and angry voices and a great uproar coming from the front room.
A consultation was being held over the disposal of some mission land among the Christians, and Muthusammy's voice was louder than the rest.
Everyone wanted the largest share, and none was satisfied with the proposed distribution. As I listened, the commotion increased, and I remember wondering whether it might ever be possible for such men to be changed.
Within six months I saw the Holy Spirit work a miracle.
Muthusammy came to Salem to attend a series of evangelistic meetings led by Mr N. Daniel.
During these meetings Muthusammy came face to face with the Lord Himself.
Muthusammy left before the meetings were finished and went straight back to his village.
He called six of his friends together, and also his wife, gave them bus fares to Salem, and asked them to go to the meetings and stay until the end.
On Sunday morning Muthusammy went to the small village church, and at the end of the service he stood up and spoke to the congregation.
Taking a bundle of rupee notes out of his pocket he handed varying sums from ten to twenty or thirty rupees, to various men in the congregation, including his own brother.
'This is the money' he said, 'that I took from you as commissions for all kinds of transactions-which were wrong and not according to the law of Christ.
I want to return this money and to say that if I owe money to anyone else I will repay it.
This week in Salem I met the Lord Jesus Christ, and henceforth my life belongs to Him.'
Muthusammy bought a Bible and carried it with him wherever he went.
He could not read it, but he prayed that God would help him to learn.
In the bus or in the train, on the platform or at the bus stop, he opens his Bible, or his reading primer, and asks anyone who can read to help him, And everywhere he witnesses to the saving grace of his Lord.
He is not able to speak his own language correctly and when he prays his sentences are rough and unfinished, and yet such is the radiant joy shining on his face and the overwhelming sense of the presence of the
A. J. APPASAMY
Lord in which he lives and moves, that everywhere he goes men and women are brought to the saving power of Christ.
Muthusammy's home has been completely changed in the course of a few months.
His wife looks happy and contented; the old, tired, haggard expression has gone from her face. -Muthusammy tells you with a smile that now he is able to go out into the fields and work with his men on the land all day long, whereas before he could not manage the use of a spade at all.
Perhaps a detailed account of one of the congregations (Alambady) will give a clear picture of what was happening in some of our villages as a result of the Revival.
I went to a Service in a school in this village at 5.30 a.m.
It was still dark in the room.
In the dim light of the hurricane lanterns on the table, I could see that men and women of all ages
(including many children) had come.
There were about sixty people.
I was told that this congregation was meeting every day for worship like this.
The lay preacher in charge of the congregation informed me that he had been teaching the people to begin the day's work with a time of worship, 'They were extremely poor and most of them, both men and women, worked on the road as coolies.
After the Revival meetings led by Mr N. Daniel there was a real change in the congregation.
Formerly the lay preacher had to go from house to house urging the people to come even once a week to the Sunday Service.
Now they were assembling every day for morning worship.
When I asked the lay preacher whether they had been converted and whether their lives had been changed, he paused for a moment and then said: 'Yes, I am sure many of the women here have been really converted.'
The lay preacher, S. Ponniah, had himself passed through a striking spiritual experience.
Though he was in charge of that congregation he was seeking to evade God even when he saw many members of his own congregation bearing their testimony.
His excuse was that a family man could not live the dedicated life which Jesus required.
He was a gifted singer and was drawn to secular dramas.
His songs were appreciated and his interest in secular plays made him worldly and distracted him from a life
GOD'S AMAZING ANSWER
of devotion to Christ.
Mr Daniel's meetings in Kangayam produced a remarkable effect on him.
He wept for his sins and confessed them.
The Lord forgave him and assured him of his salvation through Isaiah 43:1, 'Oh, Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.'
In their service, after a hymn, the people of Alambady were treading a chapter of the Bible.
They had finished the whole of the New Testament, reading it chapter by chapter.
Then they had read through the Psalms and were now reading the book of Isaiah.
The lay preacher said that they were thus seeking to read through all the most valuable parts of the Bible.
These were certainly the cream of the Bible!
Some of the young people in the congregation attended the District Board High School in the neighbourhood.
It was these high school students, both boys and girls, who were asked to read the lesson from the Bible.
They took this responsibility seriously and read the chapter in advance, sometimes going over it even seven or eight times.
I was impressed by the clear and distinct way in which the lesson (Isaiah Chapter 41) was read in the Service which I attended.
This was followed by two earnest prayers offered by women, asking for God's help to live that day according to His will.
If there were sick people in the congregation prayers were offered in these morning services.
In the evenings ten or twelve of the people, along with the lay preacher, went to the sick man's house and prayed for him.
I was living in the travellers' bungalow when the doors and windows were being painted.
One of the men who was doing the painting told me how he had been healed in response to the prayers of this congregation.
He was a mechanic working on a steam roller and had been badly hurt in an accident.
His body was swollen; he could not breathe properly; and he was nearly dying.
The Alambady congregation prayed for him and he told me that he was perfectly well now and was able to do normal work.
Dr Joe Church and Mr William Nagenda visited the Coimbatore Diocese more than once and held many evangelistic meetings. Their first visit was on May 7, 1952, when they spoke to our men in a summer school at Wellington.
Dr Joe Church is an Englishman, a C.M.S. missionary doctor, who is working in Ruanda.
He has been used by God as a
A. J. APPASAMY
powerful instrument in beginning a new spiritual movement in Africa..
When he came to Wellington, he was in his fifties.
His African companion, Mr William Nagenda, was short of stature and looked quite young.
But he told us that he had six children; so we thought he must be at least forty years of age. As he spoke
I observed his dark skin, his curly hair, and his perfect teeth, white and shining.
The men in our Summer School were deeply interested in this African Christian, who had flown several thousand miles to share with us and others in India his rich and rare Christian experience.
The two evangelists gave their testimony in a soft, quiet voice and related how they had come to serve the Lord.
Joe Church told us that though he was the son of a parson he was converted only during his college days.
When he went to Africa to work as a missionary, he had strong racial prejudice and tended to look upon himself as being superior to the African.
The Lord redeemed him from his sins, including his racial prejudice, and made him a new man.
William Nagenda related how before his conversion he had been in Government Service and had been dishonest.
When he surrendered himself to Christ, he had to make restitution, though this was most difficult and risky and he might have found himself in prison.
Joe Church and William Nagenda were modest and unassuming men.
They were no spell-binders.
There was no eloquence in their speech.
They did not know the tricks of rhetoric.
They told in plain and simple language what the Lord had wrought in their lives and such personal testimony was convincing and effective for the salvation of souls.
During their visit to Salem, the Rev. D. P. Collins, one of our senior missionaries, experienced a remarkable change of heart.
Here is his testimony.
That night I could not get to sleep.
I was restless and unhappy.
Then suddenly things began to take shape in my mind.
I realised that God was confronting me with something in my own life, something which he had been seeking to show me before but which I had never been willing to face up to.
I began to recall vividly similar situations in the past in which I had played a leading part, situations in which I had acted ruthlessly, blindly and without grace.
GOD'S AMAZING ANSWER
I saw how by my hard unloving attitude and my pride of race I had brought sorrow and injury into the lives of others.
Above all I began to see what a disappointment I had been to the Lord, in whose name I had been trying to serve.
I could see now so clearly why there had been such barrenness and dryness in my ministry.
It was as if I lay under sentence of death.
It was then that I became aware of the Cross as a present reality in a far deeper way than I had ever experienced before.
It was as if Christ was hanging upon the Cross then and there for my sin.
There was no other way out for me but to repent and accept the atonement which He had wrought for me.
I did so, and immediately all the frustration and the fear was gone and a great peace and joy came flooding in, filling my heart with praise.
I knew that I was in personal touch with Jesus.
It was He who had come into my heart and His still small voice was telling me clearly the next step that I should take.
The Rev. C. R. Thomson was the Madras Director of the Youth for Christ organization. He took a great deal of interest in the Coimbatore Diocese, visiting it often and helping us in many ways.
Youth for Christ is an active Christian organisation in the West and aims to win young people for Christ, especially in the large cities, by holding Saturday night rallies.
Young people are attracted to various forms of worldly enjoyment on Saturday nights.
This organization attracts them by providing wholesome music with a serious Christian appeal.
Many young people become the disciples of Jesus and set out to win others.
They also send their representatives to different parts of the world to help other young people.
So we had young men from the United States, from Canada, from England, from Australia and from New Zealand coming and holding Youth Rallies which were made attractive with popular music.
Their ministry in our midst for many years was a great blessing.