Into His Marvellous Light
Into His Marvellous Light R. ALEXANDER MACLAREN once said: "If we put our poor trust in the Eternal Light that was manifest in Christ, then we shall walk in the sunshine of His face on earth, and that lamp will burn for us in the darkness of the grave, and lead us at last into the ever-blazing centre of the Sun itself."
This chapter is to be about Father Wood, the first convert in the Lisu tribe of North Thailand, and the first tribesman of any tribe (in the C.I.M.-O.M.F. work) to burn his demon altar. I would like to use Dr. Maclaren's words as outline headings for this little story.
"Our Poor Trust'"'
"Our poor trust'"—this expression was used by a white man and a scholar; and he wrote it, not out of mock humility, but because by coming close to his Lord he had learned that it was the truth. Another fine scholar testifies to the same thing.
C. S. Lewis said: "The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether, or you see yourself as a'small, dirty object.'? Mr. Lewis was not trying to be humble, either. One of the disconcerting things to the saint of God is to find out how weak his faith is. It is always easy to recognize when the other fellow's trust is
"poor"! It is soul-shaking when you find that your own is.
But bless the Lord, He does not test the strength of our faith before He accepts it! As soon as we reach out to Him, we are
His.
To those of us who watched Father Wood emerging from animism, there were no heroics of faith; each step was wobbly the whole way out. But as George Miiller once said: "Strong faith in a weak plank will land you in the stream. Weak faith in a strong plank will carry you safely over it." Father
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Wood had laid his "poor trust" in One that is mighty, and so he was carried in triumph.
He was tested severely. True, during the dry season, with Nurse Eileen's good care, he was helped in his arthritis so much that he was able to make one trip to the plain and back again. He also broke off his opium under her guidance, and paid for the medicines voluntarily. But when the rainy season returned and his joints ached again and gnarled up, he saw clearly that he had not been granted a permanent cure, and he started to smoke an occasional pipe of opium to numb the ache, and perhaps, to cheer himself up. To the young missionary who had seen him through to a cure, it was a sore trial to see him return to the drug, even though he smoked only lightly. But let us think into the keen disappointment of the man himself, that his new Lord had not given him a perfect cure. Yet his
"poor trust" did not switch masters; doggedly he went on after the Christ.
Another bitter disappointment was the failure of his neighbours to join him in his new-found faith. Four other families had said they would become Christians too if he would lead the way; but, headman Honey threatening them, they did not dare to do so. So Father Wood found himself on a lonely pathway.
"The Christian life is rather tasteless, isn't it?" he said to me one day, as he sat in his crippled condition, unable to move outside and join in the general life. "'A fellow gives up smoking and drinking and the heathen festivals and—well, there isn't any fun in being a Christian, is there?"
I was pierced to the heart for, of course, the normal Christian life is the most joyous on earth. The Lisu church in China was full of laughter and good times, and its joys were a magnet that drew the heathen around. But they found their pleasures in singing, reading contests, and the festivals of the church. I am speaking now of earthly pleasures. Father Wood knew and acknowledged the peace of heart which fellowship with the Saviour had brought him; that was why he continued as a Christian, but he had no comradeship. No one else was learning to read or sing (later some of the children did, but no men of his generation) and time often hung heavy on his hands. It was a real test for Father Wood. Before we judge him as a weak
INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT
Christian, let us think how we would respond if suddenly deprived of all the contingent blessings that God heaps upon us.
So it was with much rejoicing that I heard of the very happy Christmas which the Wood family spent in 1954. I shall quote from Eileen and Edna's letter of those days. John, Mr. and Mrs.
Fred Hatton, and Dorothy Jones had gone up for the festival.
The men slept at Father Wood's house, while HiggledyPiggledy had to stretch its walls to go around Dora Hatton and Dorothy, as well as Eileen and Edna. Edna wrote of how she and Eileen stole out, after everyone else was in bed and that night we carolled and tea'd Dora and Dorothy in bed, and then went up and carolled the men at the Woods'. The village wondered what had struck us.
On December 21 [the day they called Christmas, as they were going on to Maesalong for the 25th] we ate the noon meal with the Woods—lots of fat pork. And in the afternoon had games. There was a good group of both adults and children, with Father Wood hovering in the background, chuckling as he watched them progress. [He was well and walking around again.] Half the village gathered to see us eat...
. Then for the games. Wish you could have seen headman Honey and Wu-be competing to eat bananas strung on a pole! And the kids ready for a three-legged race and going with inside legs up and hopping with the outside legs! And Father Wood lighting a candle as many times as he could with a match! And Ah-kame-ma and Ah-mee-do jigging cardboard frogs along on a string!
The whole village had a lesson in the possibility of clean fun, and Father Wood was as happy as anyone. At the close of the uproarious game session he warmly invited all to come to his shanty for the evening meeting.
The girls had prepared a beautiful flannelgraph of the Nativity and also had material for the shepherd scene.
Eileen put a chuckle in parenthesis about this in her letter to me; John and Mr. Hatton had tried to set up the flannelgraph by themselves, and Eileen says, "I wish you could have seen them. There were pigs clinging to the walls of the stables and angels in very unangelic positions! But everything got sorted out in due time and the service went on. Father Wood made a good attempt at singing for about the first time, and he read the Christmas story from Luke." (Note the progress he
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had made through endless monotonous hours of trying to put letters together.) John brought the message in Lisu on "Immanuel, God with us," and "the day ended sweetly and triumphantly."
So Father Wood had a taste of "'the sunshine of His Face on earth" and what Christian fellowship could mean. Mother
Wood also had broken off her opium smoking and professed to believe in Christ as her Saviour. Wu-be was always aloof and acted as if he feared we'd lay hands on him if he got too friendly. (Remember those lies circulated about our wanting to kidnap the children for American soldiers.) The married daughter, Ah-me-do, is the cleverest in the family, but extremely fickle, and although she had accepted Christ under my own leading, and prayed very intelligently and clearly, I saw little things in her conduct from time to time that made me doubt that she was rendering much more than lip-service to the Lord. Her heart delighted in the fleshly part of heathen festivals, and I believe she tried Christianity as a mere novelty. So Christian fellowship in his own family circle brought Father
Wood nothing very satisfying.
The happy Christmas over, Eileen and Edna shut up Higgledy-Piggledy and joyfully went off with John and the others for a Yao Christmas at Maesalong. Who could think what would happen before they returned ?
Tue "Lamp WILL Burn For Us IN THE DARKNESS OF THE GRAVE"
The night of December 25, Father Wood awoke with a "'stomach-ache." Only Mother Wood was in the shanty that night; Ah-mee-do had gone down to the plain and Wu-be was up watching her house for her. "I believe I am going home to God," Father Wood told his wife. "Now don't you put silver in my mouth when I die! Or kill a pig! Or any of the old heathen practices!" Later, as another sharp pain struck him, he called her by her name and said, "Pray to God for me!' and then he fell asleep in Jesus. The valley of the shadow had been mercifully shortened for him, but his "amp" had burned so clearly that he had recognized he was passing through it. '""Weak faith in a strong plank" had carried him
INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT
over the stream! In those few minutes his "poor trust" had kindled into steadfast flame. In those dark hours he must have faced the belief of his old life—that the demons must be placated with a pig sacrifice; that his welfare in the next world must be paid for with a silver coin between his dead lips. He must have faced the sneers of the Thai traders who had visited him with their Buddhist explanations of life, who had told him
(for he asked me about it) that life was just so much energy and that the soul returned after death into some other form of life on this planet. They had told him that eternal life was a lie of the white man, that there is no God, and that transmigration is the only hope after death. Father Wood knew he was dying, he was able to talk with and advise his wife; therefore he must have faced all these theories of life and death and he made his choice. That "lamp will burn for us in the darkness of the grave.' With no white missionary around, and only his rather feeble wife in the black little hut, Father Wood must have had a clarifying of life's issues, and he chose the Christ.
Off in Maesalong for the happy celebration of Christmas among the Yao, his girl missionaries had no idea of what was happening at Ta-Ngo.
December 30 saw them happily climbing the hill to HiggledyPiggledy again. As they returned over the crest, the old sorcerer of New Village met them on the trail and roughly shouted, '"'Ma-jyao! Si-pa_yi meh leo A-wo-pa ma jya, shih keh leo."
(He's not alive! The Wood man has fallen asleep. Uncle is not here, he is dead.) Edna writes:
As we went on, our thoughts were in a turmoil. How had he died—triumphant or fearful, quickly or in agony? Did he cling to the Lord? What of the family? Had they buried him as a Christian? Were they wavering? What would the heathen think, straight on top of our Christmas festival? We rested beside the trail and committed it all to the Lord, asking for wisdom to comfort and help the dear ones left behind, and praying that the Lord's glory might come forth through it all.
As we came into the village everyone blared the news at us.
We went straight up to their house but they were away in the fields, so we came up to Higgledy-Piggledy and settled in.
After supper we went up and found them eating around the little table—Mother Wood, Wu-be, Ah-me-do, and Be-ba.
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At first they seemed a little distant, and Ah-mee-dosaid, "What do you want?" We said we had heard the news and had come to comfort them. Then they were more responsive and told us all about it.
. None of the villagers would help with the burial. I think Wu-be dug the grave and they had to pay men to carry the body out. The villagers said they would not help believers in God. Poor things! .
. Ah-mee-do says the heathen are persecuting, don't want them living in the same village, threaten to burn their houses, and so on. We have urged them to commit it to the Lord and be fearful, but we can see it is a very real trial for them.
. Wu-be firmly declared this morning, '"'I am going to believe all the time. Ah-mee-do seems the most shaken and fearful of the three.
Pray much for them—I know you do—and for the testimony as it goes out to the heathen that the hope and assurance of eternal life may not be without its drawing power. As we talked with Ah-ka-me-ma this morning I asked if she would see Father Wood again and she said, "Yes." We are still not sure where she stands.
This brings us to the effect of tribal economy on new Christians. Lisu custom is to bury the dead in coffins—homemade coffins of course, as they could never afford to buy one in civilization, nor to have it hauled up to the village. Usually someone in the village is trained to make them, but rich tribespeople buy theirs beforehand so that the corpse will not have to be kept waiting for burial until one is made. The Wood family was too poor to prepare beforehand so, the villagers being all arrayed against them now, Father Wood had to be buried uncoffined.
More than that, it is tribal custom for everyone to help carry out the body; they do not charge for this, but do expect a meal. Not a neighbour would touch the dead body of a Christian, so the family had to bribe heathen men from a distance to help carry Father Wood to his resting place. The heathen would not accept money, so the family had to bribe them with opium. The shame and distress and heartache of all this can hardly be realized by us. For some time now the Wood family had been quietly persecuted; no one would help them in their fields. As if that were not enough, headman
Honey had openly stolen one of the Wood family fields, and as he himself is the court of appeal in the village (the only one
INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT
they know) nothing could be done about it. Mother Wood just stood in the field and cried as she watched his men planting it with his seed. Ah-mee-do was the most upset, as she has no root of the matter within. She kept telling Wu-be and Mother
Wood that there was no use in going on with this Christianity.
They would be starved and robbed out, she said, carrying all the heathen threatenings to their ears. Still the mother and son stood firm, asserting that they would continue to believe in Christ. So Satan had to attack from another direction.
Edna had to take furlough. It had been more than six years since she had been home and she was very thin and worn. After she left Eileen was willing to stay on alone, but politically things began to boil. Nationalist Chinese guerillas were backing up into Thailand as Burmese patrols bombed and shot at them. Thai troops were sent to drive them off Thai soil, and the mountaintops became a battlefield. Ta-Ngo was always a favourite resort of the Chinese, so Eileen, with others, was asked by the consul to come down to the plain (Hweiphai) until the matter was settled. This probably also precipitated the intention of the villagers to move to different sites. Then arose the problem—where were Mother Wood and Wu-be to go? To remain alone was to invite plunderers. They could have moved to Tsa-Ba where there are other Lisu Christians now, but they did not know that. There was no missionary present with whom to counsel. And Ah-mee-do kept urging them to recant, and repeating all the calamities which had and would befall them if they tried to stand alone. It was too much for their weak faith, and with no help in sight they recanted.
The heathen had refused to allow them to move with them in any direction, as long as they were Christian. There seemed to be no other way.
Down on the plain Eileen knew nothing of this, but had a presentiment that she should make another trip up and try and move some of her belongings down. She finally gained permission for this, and her letter tells of what she found. I quote:
I hardly know how to write for my own heart burns, and I can but trust the Holy Spirit to cause yours to burn likewise.
Is it true that you at home want to read only the glamorous
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stories of missionary victories? If so, put this letter down, for this is a "'battlefield where the fighting is not pretty play, but stern reality," and there are defeats as well as victories. Some of you are stout-hearted warriors and I know you will take up the prayer cudgels, realizing your part. Lisuland is a battlefield and battlefields are not beautiful, but for you who so courageously wage the warfare in the heavenlies, I have no sufficient word of thanks. . .. Only He who trained you into His service can ever do that adequately.
But don your armour and trudge with me up the mountain to Ta-Ngo. The political situation seethes, Edna's fellowship is gone, the Lisu are moving, and I don't know what I shall find on arrival. But the lost sheep still wander in darkness and love is the cord that ever draws one back to them, triumphing over danger, loneliness, and uncertainty.
As we near the village only skeleton shapes of the shanties still stand and point out the place where Ta-Ngo stood. Lisu voices are silent and the mountain is left to its memories. Only our shanty, Higgledy-Piggledy, still is intact with its roof in place.
Pulling up over First Ridge, we can see two horses standing at the door, and stamping their feet, anxious to be away.
Two men are loading them with the things from our house and the fifteen minutes that it takes to get to Second Ridge gives them plenty of time for escape with many of our household and personal things.
Alas, what a return! The house rifled . . . the village gone... but the saddest part is still to come.
The only real tragedies are spiritual tragedies. Things can be purchased anew, moving villages can be located, but spiritual tragedies—ah, there is where the battle of the burning heart begins!
Yes, seeing no way out of their predicament, the Christians had agreed to renounce the Lord in order to live in New
Village. The agreement with the heathen goes on to say that they will have no singing, preaching, or missionary in their home. Do these facts stir your heart? Mine burns! Satan seems to have snatched them back into darkness and slammed the door, and now stands leering at the ambassador of Christ.
But .
. "to stand steady in defeat is itself a triumph" writes one from India's battlefield. And we endeavour to stand steady—looking unto Him, but attacking vigorously in the realm of prayer.
INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT
2i1 Eileen wrote to me that she meant to go and visit them in New Village anyway. She quoted: "Love is a stouthearted soldier. She can pick up the cross and trudge on." So, once with Jean Nightingale, and once with Verda Peet as companion, Eileen climbed the mountain to New Village. She found that the Wood family were willing to have her come and see them, but her heart was sickened to find that Ahmee-do had persuaded Mother Wood to go back to the opium smoking; and she herself is fast becoming an addict. Eileen wrote, ""We had street meetings in the village. .
. Some of the homes were curious and friendly, some were indifferent, and some were cool-to-cold, but in none of them was open opposition."
Such is my last news. Ta-Ngo village site is being ploughed up into fields.
Was it all loss? No. The purpose of this particular Summit Camp had been to find a place where the two young workers could learn the Lisu language, and both now speak it. Edna has passed all her Lisu language examinations and Eileen is working on her last.
Another kind of language effort has not been a loss, either.
Vaughan Collins and David Hogan of Gospel Recordings had paid us a visit and captured several North Thailand tribal tongues and dialects, one of which is Father Wood's Lisu record. How tender of the Lord to foresee that when Father
Wood reached the Happy Land he would be conscious that others had fruit to offer to their Saviour, but he had been a cripple. And though he had witnessed to everyone who came in his door about his faith in Christ, he never saw any results of it. But now that the Thailand Lisu Gospel records have arrived, they are being played all over the hills of that country, for Lisu villages are interspersed with other villages and Lisu guests may arrive at a tribal station any time. So Father
Wood's testimony, as speaker on those records, has travelled far distant, where his poor gnarled joints could never have taken him in life. And he, from those little discs, is still exhorting men to leave their sins and seek Him who alone has salvation. And who knows what fruit the poor arthritic may yet have to offer to His Lord?
And Father Wood is safely gathered up into Heaven. As
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I thought about it, I saw how tender it was of the Lord to take that poor cripple before he had to face such a terrible decision—tribal ostracism or recant. The other members of the family have been given into the sieve of Satan that they may be winnowed. '"'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat" (Luke 22:31). His tender Lord would not allow the cripple of steadfast heart to be so winnowed, so tossed up and down, so pressed beyond measure. No, that one was gathered into His garner.
Anp "'LeEAD Us at Last INTO THE EVER-BLAZING CENTRE
OF THE Sun ITSELF'
What a transition for this important tribesman of the Thailand hills to find his "poor trust" conducting him into God's marvellous light! To find his Advocate standing at God's right hand to receive and own him, as washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. To find all whispering doubts allayed forever and perfect knowledge of the truth his. To find that Jesus Christ was the way to God. To realize fully now his own imperfections, at the same moment as he received the white robe that covers them for always. To gaze on the everblazing holiness of God and to know that Christ's love has saved him from its consuming justice! To see the rough ways of his earthly life falling from him and the gentle tenderness of Heaven refining him into Christ's own likeness!
And around the ever-blazing Centre, which will always be the centre of our heart's worship up there, Father Wood found himself in the midst of an inheritance of saints! Medo-me-pa would not be long in shaking hands. Teacher John, who gave his life in the evangelizing of the Upper Salween, would make welcome this first arrival from the hills of Thailand.
Homay and Mary would not be shy to express their joy. He who had been lonely on earth, and found his solitary pathway sometimes drab, has been dazzled with the joys of fellowship from his own Lisu race, his inheritance forever.
If a selfish man like Dives remembered those of his brethren left behind, one can easily picture Father Wood turning to some kind smiling face and asking eagerly, "Is there anything I can do to help the other Lisu of Thailand
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to come here also?' We must leave the answer beyond the veil.
Two young corns of wheat buried themselves on that Ta-Ngo mountain for about a year. Was it worthless?
As was once said, ''We may lose a battle, or a whole series of battles, and yet win the campaign."' Much as a lost battle hur-s, it is the campaign we are after!
(See Progress Report on the Lisu, p. 272.)