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Base Camp ele my beautiful baby to a Leprosy Colony to live? Oh!
Is it safe?" Such may not have been Hazel Carlson's reaction when she learned that they were to go and live with Dr. and Mrs. Richard Buker of McKean Leprosy Colony, but it would most certainly have been the reaction of most of us
American mothers. It was the O.M.F.'s first experience of the generous, big-hearted hospitality of the Bukers, that they should throw open their own home to our first missionaries, and lend us every help in getting established. But they lived in the Leprosy Colony.
Now I do not know how you picture such a colony! My own private mental picture had been that of a kind of stockade in a desert filled with emaciated human beings, who came to an appointed Lodge at the gate to receive injections from untainted doctors and nurses!
How Dr. Buker hoots at my old conception! "Leprosy is not transmitted so easily as some people think. It can't leap through the air and seize on you. Nor would you be likely to get it even if you sat next to a leper patient on the train— you probably have done so in Thailand and not known it!
We think it is contracted only by close contact over a long period."
And a more beautiful place than the Presbyterians have built at McKean Leprosy Colony it would be difficult to imagine.
In the middle of Maeping River (which divides the old city of Chiengmai), to the south of the town, is an island.
The Colony has been planted here. There is a short, covered bridge with closed gates, which is the entrance. Two leprosy patients are usually doorkeepers, but they are not deformed people, and they open to the honk of your car with a smile of welcome.
As you slip past them and on to the island, you are faced
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with well-kept roads. The one to the right, leading through trees and flowering shrubs, will take you to the houses of the well children (themselves in perfect health, but whose parents are patients).
The circle-road, directly in front of you, will lead you up to the doctor's residence. It is a large, stone, two-story residence, American style, gracefully shaded by beautiful trees and shrubs, and has a neatly trimmed lawn in front.
The road to the left is an avenue of tall straight palms and tropical growth. You traverse it quite far before you come to where the patients are. And the first building you see is an ornate entertainment pavilion. Past that stands a still more beautiful open-air chapel. Beyond both, nearer to the other bank of the river, are the neat little separate homes of the leprosy patients. Littke Mary Sue was quite safe!
The whole island is full of wonderful banyan trees in whose great spreading branches the patients cultivate the insects which make stick-lac (used in making sealing wax, dyes, varnishes, and lacquers), for Dr. Buker is striving to make the Colony self-supporting.
So it was to their own béautiful home and warmhearted hospitality that Dr. and Mrs. Buker took the Carlson family, strangers in a strange land. While studying the language,
Mr. and Mrs. Carlson were also able to do some house-hunting and eventually secured an old unused place belonging to the A.P.M. After some three months with the Bukers, it was necessary for the Carlsons to move here and establish
Base Camp, for other workers were arriving.
Now for a glimpse of Chiengmai city—once the capital of the old kingdom of Laos. Let us go back to the railway station and see it from the newcomers' point of view. The end of the Royal Railway Line is a lovely modern station, with landscaped garden plots. Leaving its tall clock-tower behind, you turn left and find yourself speeding between stores of the new business section. Maeping River divides the old and new markets and there are three Christian missions on each side. On this side are the Presbyterians, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the American Baptists. On the other side, at time of writing, are the Seventh-Day Adventists,
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the Roman Catholics, and the Overseas Missionary Fellowship of the China Inland Mission. Out of sight, to your left, is McKean Leprosy Colony. Towering to the west is Chiengmai Mountain, locally called Doi-Su-Thep. It is a dramatic bumper for monsoon clouds! Chiengmai is photogenic.
The impulsive, generous hospitality of the Bukers has really had far-reaching results. (Or was it "impulsive"? Did that clever doctor foresee what might be gained?) It gave
Dr. Buker, ever an enthusiast in leprosy, his own speciality, the opportunity to lay the burden of Thailand's thousands upon the hearts of the O.M.F. But of that, more anon.
In 1951 Orville and Hazel Carlson found themselves living in the oldest bungalow of the Presbyterian Mission in Thailand. It was built by Dr. MacGillvary, who came to Chiengmai in 1867, and some of the teak floor boards measure about eighteen inches across. It is difficult to get teak as large as that now. When we speak of our former Base Camp, we will mean this beautiful old place. But in 1954 we had to move, as the A.P.M. needed that house for their own people.
We combed the city for a place large enough to accommodate the O.M.F.'s swelling needs, and yet stay within the rent ceiling our headquarters had given us! There did not seem to be a place anywhere that would answer both together.
"The Lord must have some special place for us. Let's ask Him for it,'' suggested one of our number. And prayer was made that way. The answer came, but not through any of us!
Allan Crane, who lived at Hweiphai, happened to come into Chiengmai on business. When in the market he accidentally ran into a relative of someone he knew in Hweiphai.
"Oh, Nai Crane!" smiled the young man. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, at the moment I was looking or inquiring for a house that has several bedrooms—a house big enough for our Mission to use. Know of any?" Allan laughed back, on the chance.
"T know of one that is not on the market yet," said the man astutely. "If you promise not to tell it was I who put you on to it—it's the house of my boss!"
'Where is it?"' said Allan.
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"A bit far out. You go down the road the British Consulate is on, pass the Roman Catholic's Montford College compounds, right on to the city limits, and just beyond is a tall white gateway. 'Garden of Peace' it is called. Hop into a samlo and I will tell the driver where to take you. But don't tell on me!"
And so Allan found just what we needed. It is a Thai house, with eight possible bedrooms. It is quiet, for it is set in the midst of a lumyai orchard, and the grounds extend to the river so that we have our own "'swimming hole" and river sand-bank for picnics!
The Government Revenue Officer and his lady own it. Their children were grown up and they were thinking of building a smaller place just opposite
—a modern bungalow. But who had told us the thoughts of their minds? It was the Lord who had done it, we were sure, for the amount asked was just under our rent ceiling. And the size was stretchable! In fact, just while I am writing to you, a letter has come from Garden of Peace with this laughing word in it: "The British Consul's wife calls this "The Elastic
House' and gasps at every new deluge of people that fills it!
Suffice it to say that we are many (nineteen at last count).
But tomorrow the exodus will start."
What do we do at Base Camp?
The superintendent of O.M.F. work in North Thailand has to live here. He is the man we will call on in emergencies.
One morning, two Karen runners came in with news that Don Rulison was seriously ill with a high and unknown fever, four days' journey into the bush. You may be sure it was not long before John was off to the rescue.
The American Consul walked in one morning. We thought it a casual visit from one whom we much admire, but it turned out to be very serious indeed. A guest, staying at the O.M.F. (though not of our Mission) had been overzealous in exhorting a Buddhist priest, and a great to-do was being stirred up by the Buddhists. It was headed for the newspapers and feared that it might be reported to Washington, D.C.
—and that would go hard with all missionaries in Chiengmai!
Immediate, tactful handling of the situation, and, you may be sure, much prayer, caused it to fade out of public light.
Our Consul received high commendation from Ambassador
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Donavan for quick and wise action, and Base Camp heaved a sigh of thanksgiving to the Lord. We never know what is going to happen, and Base Camp usually has to find the solution for it.
Base Camp is the place where new workers study the Thai language. If you come in any morning, you would see on our veranda young heads bent over language study books with a Thai teacher. New workers stay here until they have passed their required Thai language examinations. Basic things are taken care of at Base Camp.
Watch that ancient red jeep whirling off to the railway station! Who is it now?
An Ethnological Conference was held here in 1952...
The O.M.F. Medical Survey Team was received and helped onward.
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Christian Literature Survey came through. ...A Visual Aid Team. . .. Gospel Recordings Team came and captured language after language in our mountains.
We continually use the result of their work. .
. Distinguished World Tour of Mission travellers come our way, every now and again. We have welcomed Dr. Harry Stam, Mr. Norman
Grubb, Mr. Gordon Welch, and Dr. Frank Torrey. . .
. Then Chiengmai has two really cold months of the year in which to welcome and "'vacationate'' tired missionaries from Central
Thailand. Our tribal workers do not take holidays then, as it is the best time of the year for mountain travel. But this journeying often gives an opportunity to let the guests go along for a peek at one of our Advance Camps or even Summit Camps.
So behold, very early in the morning, the jeep loaded to its eyelids! Human beings tucked in between huge baskets of supplies for Summit Camps. Or it may be an exploration trip is under way. We, who are being left behind, usually gather for the final handshakes and sing, as the jeep pulls out:
My Lord knows the way through the wilderness, All I have to do is to follow. ...
Strength for today is mine alway, And all that I need for tomorrow.
My Lord knows the way through the wilderness, All I have to do is to follow.
Once, when a jeep-load was pulling out on a not-tooimportant trip, we did not sing. But little three-year-old
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Danny Heimbach was alarmed. Pulling my skirt he said, 'Auntie! You did not sing My Lord Knows the Way!"
Truly we have needed that He know the way for us, as the pages that follow will abundantly prove. And Danny was right—no trip is unimportant. One morning we waved off
Leon Gold. Leon was going with Mr. Vanbenschoten, merely to bring Van's jeep back, after Van and his party had reached the hopping-off place for the Karen hills. Leon was to be back for lunch. But it was the next evening before he walked in!
Search parties were out looking for him! The road was so corrugated and broken that, as he was coming back alone in the wilds, the jeep stuck on an incline so steep and jagged that the petrol all ran out of the tank! Leon had to walk back. ...
Yes, little Danny. Ours is wilderness work. No journey is too sure not to claim that the Lord knows the way for us.
Often the young workers look up from their books to see the old red jeep snorting his way out the gate on less thrilling matters. A mailbag has just come in. It requests us please to purchase the following groceries for them, up in the mountains.
And would we register this letter at the post office, please?
And there are films to be developed. And if you are near the hospital, will you kindly ask one of the doctors how to treat a case like this—(followed by a list of strange symptoms in a poor tribal body). Perhaps someone writes in that they need a blackboard made! Or they have had a gift and would like to purchase a reed chair with a back to it—sitting on boxes gets wearisome. And so this matter of procuring supplies keeps us on the run, especially as our Summit Camps increase in number.
And always if you buy for a person, you must render an account of the money spent. So the keeping of accounts is no small part of Base Gamp's busy life.
At Chiengmai only can we get in touch with our consuls.
This is important to Britishers getting married! A church wedding is not legal here, for Britishers. They must be married at the British Consulate—always reckoned temporarily as English ground. Yes, twice over, Base Camp has had romantic heartbeats! Wedding bells rang twice. This is great fun, of course. Imagine the excitement of the bridegroom's arrival for the event. Coming from the mountains he cannot tell the hour of his arrival, so when a hoarse bus-honk is heard, everyone
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piles out of the house to haul him off and express his joy. No one ever gets off a bus after a trip without being well coated with dust, and grimy with the heat and cramped quarters. After shaking everybody's hand (especially somebody's, if she happened to get to Chiengmai first!), he suddenly realizes that he and the shower have need of a date together. He disappears into the bathroom loaded with his clean clothes and his pack. Oh, how good it is to get clean and cool again and see one's hair return to its natural shade!
The wedding safely over, Romeo and Juliet departed for their honeymoon. It was only after they were gone that the superintendent happened to discover Romeo's shaving gear lying forgotten in the bathroom. And they were to be gone where you could not borrow! Gone for two weeks to a nice cabin high up in Chiengmai Mountain. You can imagine the family's hilarity; jokes about Juliet's dismay when her nicely groomed bridegroom arrives at the breakfast table with a bristly chin; and the speed with which bristles grow during two weeks! Suffice it to say, it was once more a case of—family to the rescue!
It is never hard to find someone to go and visit newlyweds, not even when it means a mountain climb. So the shaving gear was sent up and—Juliet's face was saved.
Cheer up, Romeo! Forgetfulness runs in the best of blood.
Hardly any bridegroom gets through without some sign of his excitement. And if you only knew it, under a similar trial, your own superintendent years ago had arrived at another
Base Camp for the same purpose as yourself and found he had forgotten—the wedding ring!
Family laughter is born, on such occasions, that will never die out! And this all brings us to another matter that those at Base Camp must make a decision on.
In every civilized city of the Orient, there is a thing called The White Community. The colour of your skin elects you to its membership, whether you like it or not. In Chiengmai it will give you a Welcome Party—just merry games and nice refreshments, and get-to-know-everybody. For those who are tied down all day to busy schedules (the secretary's desk, the schoolroom, the hospital beds) it offers relaxation. If you embrace it warmly, you will soon find yourself in a social whirl.
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It may seem harmless, and everybody is so nice you hate to refuse; you seem like a piker to refuse invitations, but nevertheless there it is—The Whirl. Very soon John and I had to face the question: How much time were we going to spend at parties and pink teas?
Speaking from the mere relaxation-question side of it, we felt that O.M.F.ers did not need it. We were none of us institutional workers and our lives were far from monotonous.
We had plenty of variety.
But there was another angle to it—the indigenous pattern to which we were pledged. This suggests that relaxation times be spent with the nationals. Do we need a game of volleyball? Call in the Thai neighbours to take part with you.
They will love it and you incidentally have made a contact.
The same holds for parties and picnics—Thai friends are always available. This does not mean that we never went to a party; it means that this was the pattern to which we felt committed. Or, as Miss Carmichael put it, ""We march to a different drumbeat."
But was there, then, to be no relationship with other missions? With the Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh-Day Adventists of Chiengmai we had none.
There remained the Presbyterians, Baptists, and New Tribes (the latter moved in about 1952). We very definitely needed to work together with these. The divisions in Christianity were much used by the Buddhists against us. "Buddhism is united," they said proudly.
Personally, I had never encountered this before. In China, we had the blessed privilege of living so far out on the edge of the world that "sects'' never visited us. The nearer you live to physical comforts, the more your small prickly problems increase. I used to say, 'Physical hardship and spiritual luxury," and I still think they are related.
Shortly after my arrival in Chiengmai, I was witnessing one day to a city merchant.
"Do you agree with the Catholics or the Jehovah's Witnesses?" he flung at me.
"Neither."
"Well," he said, a bit contemptuously, "each of you says you are the one in the right. How are we to know who is?"
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Atanotherstore, a young clerk accepted a tract from Don quite respectfully, then asked in all innocence, "What Day are you?"
As we prayed together about these matters, John and I felt that for the honour of the Lord Jesus and His great Gospel, we must unite with all other Christians with whom it was possible at all. Socially we felt we could not. Was there any other place where we could? There was.
On Sunday evenings a vesper service was held for the whole White Community, in Prince Royal College Chapel
(A.P.M.). The speakers were drawn from the different missions in turn. (This does not include the R.C., J.W., or S-D.A. groups.) At first, when we began attending, we did not see any English-speaking Thai present, but, we were told, they were welcome. About the time we began to invite our language teacher to come, other Thai appeared also, and we are all very happy when they do join with us. We have had blessed times together; one German and several American and British business people often join with us, and members of the consular staffs. It is a very worth-while gathering.
Then there was a midweek prayer meeting, mainly Presbyterian, but the rest of us were urged to come. It is held every Wednesday afternoon and rotates to the home of the speaker on that occasion. Sometimes they had had book reviews at that hour, but as the O.M.F. always held to the pattern of a short Bible message and then prayer on mutual needs, the others courteously accepted this unvoiced preference.
In fact many of them shared it with us, and especially the Vanbenschotens and Bukers. Each leader is free to do as he likes, but the meetings became more and more Christ-centred, and I personally received a lot of blessing from them. J was surprised to discover how much real unity there was among us upon the principles that mattered most. Book reviews do not reveal this, but Bible messages usually show where a man stands.
Just here I would like to quote a message on Christian differences, given by our late Mr. Fred Mitchell. Our own
Mission is interdenominational and international, and there often must be divergences of opinion among us. Mr. Mitchell, our Home Director for England, put it this way:
"T think we should distinguish between principle and preference. From the principles of the Gospel we can never budge.
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That Christ's death was to atone for our sins. That He is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. That without Him all men are lost. These are principles upon which we can never compromise or keep our mouths shut. But there are other doctrines which are matters of personal interpretation. The exact period in which the church is raptured, for instance. One soundly saved man may believe it is before the tribulation.
Another equally born-again man may sincerely hold that it is after the tribulation. Those are preferences of opinion. One prefers this interpretation, another that. On our principles we must be adamant. On our preferences we can be silent; if to speak is to sacrifice the unity of His Body.'? Unity is possible, if love decides to discipline its personal preference.
Just here we might touch on the deepest and most sacred part of Base Camp. Expeditions to scale Everest, previous to Sir John Hunt's, successfully got food, fuel, and shelter up to their men, but failed to get enough oxygen. Hunt planned his oxygen supplies very carefully. There is a spiritual parallel possible here.
A Base Camp that merely forwards supplies to its missionaries is missing its most solemn prerogative.
Said Charles G. Finney: "Probably on the Day of Judgment it will be found that nothing is ever done by the Truth used ever so zealously, unless there is a spirit of prayer somewhere in connection with the presentation of the Truth."
At Base Gamp we have an O.M.F. family prayer meeting each Friday, besides of course, morning, noon, and evening prayer times. Wrote one young missionary, roughing it alone in the mountains in a hard place: "I had a wonderful blessing the other afternoon. It was so specially given that I wondered about it. Then I remembered. It was Friday afternoon and you in Chiengmai were praying for us."'
We had a Family Prayer Book at Base Camp. Each member was privileged to write his or her prayer burdens in it. Some drew maps. One (our artist, Otto Scheuzger) illustrated with pen-pictures. Some gave snapshots. Each early afternoon
John and I (sometimes others also) brought these requests before the Father. This was what I meant by a "noon" time, also.
Then a few of us kept the first Tuesday of each month for a morning of prayer and fasting for the work, and our own
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soul's needs, This began away back about 1933 in China.
A challenge had come from Miss Ruth Paxson that we join with others the world around in prayer for revival, on the first Tuesday of each month. It was such personal blessing that we found life under fire is not to be faced without it. I did stop it for some eight years after my little son was born, when I was left alone so much and felt there would be no one to watch over him if I took time out. But I think I was wrong to drop it, even so.
Anyway, beginning things anew in Thailand, it had to be brought back again. Under the orchard trees of Garden of Peace is a little tile house that we set aside and named The Sanctuary. Any member of the family wishing for some hours alone with Him is sure of it there. And in January, 1955, our Field Council voted to ask all the family to take the second
Tuesday of each month as a day for drawing apart with Him.
Do you think He ne'er reproves me?
What a false friend He would be, If He never, never told me, Of the sins which He must see.
These things we do not like to talk about, but as they are the heart of Base Camp, they cannot truthfully be left out.
"Helpers," that is what we like to call them, for we do not think of them as servants. But we could never do without them. Three different breakfasts in one morning, for those leaving at unearthly bus and train hours, is not unknown.
Five telegrams in one morning was our record, I think. But the hostess must be ready at any moment to drop what she is doing and take care of a crisis. It may be an immediate visit to the consul to straighten up papers needed by a person who had already started on his trip in ignorance that his visas were not yet granted. It may be the unexpected visitor.
Never have we forgotten the hilarity caused by a telegram which read:
HONEY ARRIVING FRIDAY
AFTERNOON.
What honey? Barrels? Or a person? Whose honey? Did it require a place in the storeroom or a bed in the house? The mystery was only solved by John's return. "Oh, I forgot to tell you.
It is a young Christian architect named Honey, from Malaya."
We got the bed ready just in time.
AT B
34.
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To have a cook who can carry on if one is delayed at the consulate or market is heart rest—and stomach complacency
—for the house full of guests and language students! Let us come out to the kitchen and behold its queen. A slight willowy
Thai woman in her thirties is unhurriedly busy there. You would not look at her twice in a crowd, but once you have tasted her delicious coconut curries you would begin to think about a second meeting! Her serene smiling manner covers very deft fingers, a quick intelligent brain, and a heart of gold. She never knows when she will suddenly be asked to enlarge a meal. Buses that promised to leave at ten in the morning may not arrive for passengers until after noon.
Guests, whom we had not planned to have for lunch, then have to be invited after all. Or guests may arrive before their telegram to say they were coming has been received. But I have never seen Madame Curry angry. Sometimes I even had the audacity to say: '"The sun has come out. Can we change supper and have it picnic-fashion on the river sand-bank?"
Always a cheerful reaction.
A moment of thought, then a quick smile and the right solution.
Maybe you think Madame Curry has no private worries.
She is married, with three children, and they live on our premises. She is as deft at sewing as at cooking, and makes all their clothes and her own. She is a Christian, but married, under family pressure I think, to a man who was for years a Buddhist priest. He is a clerk in the city, courteous to our face, but adamant in refusing to let his children come under Christian influence. He never allows his wife to go to church, nor may she attend our Sunday evening singsong. We made attendance at Thai family prayers compulsory, so as to insure her this little time each day in His presence.
Several of the helpers were nominal Christians when they first came to us, so each takes a turn at leading prayers. When they said they couldn't, I subscribed for a Bible magazine in Thai, and they were allowed to read a message out of that, if they could not get one for themselves. All can read. Several times I caught Madame Curry's eldest child, Nit, a girl, eagerly reading these messages. But if her father caught her doing so he was furious. "That isn't the Word of God," he would rage. '"'Christ isn't the Son of God. You are not to
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believe that." As I quietly watched him, I began to suspect that the communists might be influencing him. Buddhists do not get nasty over merely listening to the Christian message, but communists would. Moreover, I never saw him perform any Buddhist rite, or make trips to the temple. He is a very kind, firm father and the children are beautifully trained; he is a faithful husband, but he shows no sign of any religion.
There must be some reason for his furious opposition to the Gospel in his own family.
Only once did I ever see Madame Curry when her inner heartaches were too great to conceal. One morning it was
Madame Curry's turn to lead prayers, and she chose Acts 12:1-6. She was very sober as the verses were read, and silent at the end. Then she said, "Herod thought he was helping the people by killing James. He thought he was doing good."
Again a silence. Then, abruptly, "Let us pray.'' She, who was normally so poised, was so agitated that she could hardly control her voice, get through the prayer, and dismiss the meeting.
I pondered this strange happening and remembered that the night before our Thai banker and his wife had come to dinner, and she and Nit had been asked to help serve. Maybe
Nai Curry had betrayed his feelings about "'capitalists'" and she had found out what I had long suspected. I still do not know for sure. But I bided my time until everyone else was away about the daily work, and then I called her in to render accounts. After we had finished, I detained her and spoke about Communism. I did not make an accusation; I just took it for granted, and tried to point out the way of victory through Christ. She said not a word, but her eyes overflowed with tears. She is a rare soul—one who can be wisely silent.
Wiping her nose and brushing the tears away, she listened.
At the end she said simply, "Thank you, Mem." But all that day she was sad and preoccupied.
\ My position as hostess, and sometimes errand-runner at Base Camp was, at first, a bit of a cross to me. I so longed to be up in the Lisu villages in the thick of the spiritual fight.
Sometimes a kind fellow missionary would substitute for me, and I could make such a trip. But when I had to stay among the "miserable comforts" (so styled by a dear fellow worker
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who also loved the hilltops despite their hardness), the Lord had trained me to watch for recompensing blessings, which He always provides. It is a spoiled child who refuses to look at the toy proffered when a dangerous one is being removed.
Madame Curry was a "recompensing blessing" to me, a "secret ballast.' '""The gracious ways of God whose secret ballast is such a steadying thing' —(A.C.).
She had been saved when a girl, in the home of former Presbyterian missionaries. A Buddhist, of course, she was attracted by the fact that all in that home loved one another.
Then the missionary dealt faithfully with her and brought her to the Scriptures. Having experience of both religions, she desires that her three children should have Christ, too. When you come across the story of a live human being like this little
Thai woman, when her deep need is presented to you, do you make it a habit to stop right there and pray for her? You should. These human hearts are not laid bare to you for your entertainment, but for your sympathy and prayer help.
In my husband's account book was a short item which always made me chuckle. "Wash I...salary .. ." Wash I was our laundress. She is as old as I am but the best laundress, considering the crude facilities, that I have ever known. I was first burdened for her because of her sad, sad face. She was supposed to be a Christian, but never had I seen her smile.
She spoke Lao and not Thai, so fluent conversation was never possible between us. But I made inquiries into her history and learned that she was a widow of many years. Tragedy had visited the little home she strove so hard to keep together.
One day her two sons quarrelled and one in anger hit the other so that he killed him. No wonder she had a sad face! Yet Christ is equal to any situation. She had a Lao hymbook and although I could not read it (Lao has a different script from Thai) the titles of the hymns were given in English, and from that we worked out the numbers of her hymnbook which corresponded with the Thai hymnal which we used in family prayers. So often in the morning she could croon her own words along with our singing. And in various little ways we tried to make the Lord more real to her. Gradually her face relaxed and the return of her smile was one of my comforts.
We had promised the Presbyterians not to initiate a new
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work among the Thai; that is, not to set up a separate Thai church. But the missionary must witness. Woe betide him who settles back content to be mere errand-runner for his brethren. Such little tasks are time-consuming, and Satan can easily lead us to think that we do not have opportunity for soul-contacts. But a sea that has no outlet soon becomes dead; and a Christian with no channel of endeavour for Christ will soon become critical of others, bitter and unhappy.
Reaching out to help someone else is the best way to grow.
I have never forgotten the lesson the Lord taught me long ago in my early missionary life. I was inwardly grumbling about lack of opportunity to get out and preach, tied as I was to language study and household duties. "'What is that in thine hand?" He asked me. Servants, peddlars who come to the back door. There is always somebody in our hand. Start with them first.
Wash II was a second laundress, pert, with boy friends often hanging around her ironing table. Kasem had been taken as an orphan by Presbyterian missionaries and brought up in the faith. Glib of tongue, clever of wit and hand, she is never at a loss to do anything—not even to lead Thai family prayers! Yet we saw little sign of her really possessing Christ... .
Little Kasem, there is something wonderful which we think you haven't found yet! And that is why morning prayers were often prepared with you in mind.
June (she went by another name) came to us first to help look after the Heimbach children while their parents studied
Thai. When the Heimbachs left us for mountain work, our maid had to leave also, so June fitted into her place very easily. She was always honest, courteous, and willing, but her young face was dark and had the unlit heathen look. As I did not speak enough Thai to present Christ to her efficiently,
I whispered to Lamduan (the Christian maid who was leaving) that this was a little work for the Master she could do. At morning prayers we went over the way of salvation from this angle and that angle. And it was a thrill to watch the dark young face begin to change as the Truth wrought within; like the gradual incandescence of a pressure lamp. At first you merely know the light has "caught," then there is a growing brightness, and suddenly the dazzling whiteness.
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Do the angels watch for this dawning luminosity in our lives, I wonder? Up in the mountains where we have to use these gas lamps, sometimes the incandescence does not brighten as it ought, a fleck of dust may have got in where it shouldn't.
Then we have to pump the pressure gadget until the desired light comes. Maybe that is why pressures have to come into some of our lives. But how satisfying when the lamp glows as expected!
At first little June flickered. She believed in Christ, but the Buddhist family at home would not approve. It would mean persecution. We quietly prayed, and loved and taught and sang the Truth to her. We have much singing at Base
Camp. And gradually the young life glowed, asked for baptism, and became radiant. Then came a day when a friend said to me, "June has grown pretty, don't you think?' I had been thinking just that. But it was His beauty shining through —a much more satisfactory kind.
All our helpers, including the language teacher, chose to go to the Presbyterian Church. There is a break-off little church led by a fine man of God, Boon-Mi and his godly wife.
They and their little group were set on fire by Dr. John Sung in 1939, and are still_earnest soul-winners. They said that they left the A.P.M. because it was so modernistic, and they would expatiate on this subject if encouraged. We did not encourage criticism, for in our day we knew that most of our A.P.M. friends were as loyal to the basic doctrines of the faith as we ourselves. But personally John and I went more often to Boon-Mi's on Sunday, for we felt at home there, though none of our helpers chose to go.
There is one other figure at Thai family prayers. It is important to have a man about the house! Water-carrier, coolie, gardener, and samlo-driver (our ancient jeep was in the garage for repairs so often that I purchased a pedicab, called a samlo, for emergency trips to market, etc.) was Mr. Gold
(surname translated). He is a nominal Christian but not incandescent. When you call to him he will usually answer with a scowl, That is an outer defence for an inner qualm of conscience! He has probably been curled up in a secret corner sleeping; or another reason for the scowl may be the half-hour he spent in another hidden nook, combing his black hair into
BASE CAMP
that glossy shine before the mirror! When he finds that you are not calling him to remind him that he is being paid for his time, but merely because you want to ride the samlo to market, he is very nice immediately. Samlo-driver is a higher social status than coolie, and he does not object to this at all. Thailand is the Land of the Lotus Eaters, and Mr. Gold has partaken rather heavily of the national diet. Alas, for the mistress, when gold does not glitter! And alas, for the gold when it has no desire to be what it might!
"Our individuality is to be rendered incandescent by a personal relationship to God," said Oswald Chambers. Oh, what the Lord would do for us, if we would only co-operate with Him!
And so the heartbeats of Base Camp are varied. The emergencies bring many a quiver. The little tile-house Sanctuary sees many a heart-throb the world does not.
"The key to the missionary problem is .
. praying, not work .
. because work may mean the evasion of concentration on God. The key to the missionary problem is not the key of common sense, nor the medical key, nor the key of civilization, nor education nor even evangelization. The key is prayer.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the Harvest.'—Oswald Chambers.
The guests who arrive, often so weary from the battle, are~ in need of His dew. "Quietness and absorption bring the dew. At night, when the leaf and blade are still, the vegetable pores are open to receive the refreshing and invigorating bath; so spiritual dew comes from the quiet lingering in the Master's presence. Get still before Him. Haste will prevent your receiving the dew. Wait before God until you feel saturated with His presence.
. Dew will never gather while there is either heat or wind; so the peace of God does not come forth to rest the soul until the stil] point is reached."—Unknown.
The purchasing of supplies for those on the front line is a heartbeat.
There your workday toil shall mate With your prayer, nor desecrate.
HeEnrRIK IBsEN The sharing of burdens with other missions is a heartbeat we would not miss.
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
... the close coiling chain That strengthens the heart; the burden that weighs on the wings That would soar...
The Thai around us involve heartbeats. One of our helpers, whom we shall not name, was discovered to be living in a cesspool of immorality. The outward show was fair. If there had been no personal interest in this one, it would never have been discovered. Christ as Saviour was presented, and the last I heard, there had been deliverance.
The joy of initiating new missionaries is a heartbeat.
For the eastern skies are glowing, as with lights of hidden fire, And the hearts of men are stirring, with the throb of deep desire.