A Rock In A Weary Land Ii3
A ROCK IN A WEARY LAND
II9 deacon knew that there was just enough corn for the teachers, and to admit a layman free would be to run short for the evangelists. Pade-John certainly never expected to be refused, and he was quite upset. The kind Shepherd looked at the disconsolate young fellow, and said, "John, have you no money of your own to buy corn?"
"Yes, about three dollars; but the cost of three months' food is five dollars.'
"Well," said Me-do-me-pa, "'you use that three dollars and I'll add a fourth!" Whereupon a guest in the home piped up,
"And I'll give the fifth!" and so the boy got his study expenses and the church did not suffer. This is a small incident, but it is revealing. For the good of the majority, Me-do-me-pa had to stay by "the law"; but he tempered it with "grace" out of his own pocket! That is why his reputation for integrity and yet for kindness and ingenuity, spread for many days' journey up and down the canyon.
It was now becoming clear that an incurable disease had laid hold of our beloved Rock-man. We sent him to a Chinese doctor at Paoshan city, but though they put him through many tests, some very painful ones, they could not diagnose the trouble.
Perhaps if they operated they could find out, they said. But at that he refused and elected to come back to his beloved mountain home.
A little incident stands out in my memory, but I cannot place its date. However, I give it here. Charlie Peterson had just returned from the district of Luda, where he evidently had spent some time. It was Sunday morning at breakfast.
"Who is slated to speak this noon?" he asked.
"Me-do-me-pa's name is up,"' I replied.
"Me-do-me-pa!"" he exclaimed, sitting back in his chair.
"So I am going to see and hear the celebrated Me-do-me-pa!
Well I tell you frankly, I am prejudiced against that fellow! What atime I have had with the deacons up there at Luda! No matter could be brought to a decision. Just as it seemed to arrive there, someone, was sure to say, 'Well, let's wait awhile and see what
Me-do-me-pa will say about it.' Me-do-me-pa, six days' journey away, and who does not belong to their district at all! What
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
has he got to do with Luda affairs, anyway? What is he? A Lisu pope?"
At that time I did not know of the Shepherd's reputation for godly wisdom and I was alarmed lest something had been going on which I did not know. So I just answered, "I don't think he is like that. But, anyway, you will hear him yourself this noon.
You can ask him anything you like then."
That noon service as the dear Shepherd stood up to break the Word of God to us, his face aglow with the light so often there,
I soon forgot the suggested accusation, in listening to his humble, sweet message. It touched my heart and I did not think of the matter again until at the close of the service I suddenly saw
Charlie Peterson rise from his seat, and go forward with both arms outstretched as if he would embrace the Shepherd. But he planted those hands on the big Lisu's shoulders and said, "Thank you, Brother. That message was a blessing to my own heart."
And the Lisu deacon blushed with pleasure like a schoolgirl.
Charlie Peterson was one of his faithful friends from that hour onward.
Our next circular said:
Our beloved Shepherd Me-do-me-pa is likely dying of cancer. Pray that he may end triumphantly. He has had to resign from all church work and the church is in a flutter. In fact I am so grateful for the rivilege of being here at so critical a time—if there were no missionary sen I don't know what would happen—likely there would be difficulty in having any Rainy Season Bible School at all. As it is, the deacons insist that there is food for only one month's supply. Perhaps they are to have a lesson in faith. Perhaps God has other plans for this summer, but pray that if the R.S.B.S. is God's will for these months that Satan may not be allowed to hinder supplies getting through.
But though he "resigned," Me-do-me-pa was not allowed to lay his burdens down. People flocked to his sick bed with their problems. The following extract will be a sample:
May 23, 1940.
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
It was Sunday evening, May 12; the sun had just set quietly behind the opposite mountains. No glorious streamers of gold and crimson has he displayed for a long time now; he merely wraps himself in a
A ROCK IN A WEARY LAND
I21I mantle of grey cloud and silently drops over the edge. Was he trying to match the grey tenor of my days, I wondered? Or was he also gtieving for the emaciated suffering one, up there in the little shanty in Oak Flat Village, whose feet are painfully threading the unlightened path of the valley of the shadow? Me-do-me-pa is not far from any of our thoughts, as the following little story will tell.
Dusk in Lisuland. Although I was still alone and the days still heatmisty I rejoiced in this hour. Everything then is settling down for the night's resty grey though the sky is, it is peaceful and serene; twitter of drowsy bird and happy hum of contented cricket or cicada, the quiet of God's holy places seems to brood over earth and sky. I was strolling back and forth over the rock platform which made our shanty home level, drinking in all the stillness and the nearness of the Other Land, when my solitude was interrupted by Papa Peter coming jauntily down the hill and seating himself near the edge of the stone foundation work evidently intent on having a conversation. After a while it burst out.
"Ma-Ma, there is a wind-word has reached my ear'—with many grimaces and gesticulations without which Papa Peter would be as unable to talk as a Frenchman.
"And what did it say?" I asked, smiling and stopping in front of him.
"Tt is said that when Me-do-me-pa goes up to heaven the Big Fellow is going to leave too."
I was puzzled. Lisu is a most ambiguous language which often leaves much to the imagination. Other Lisu had appeared and were grouping themselves around us. "He means," said La-fu-si-ma with a smile,
"that when Me-do-me-pa dies you white folk will go away too."
"Yes-s,"" groaned Papa Peter expressively; "'and that is why everybody's heart is cold. Oh, when Me-do-me-pa goes I won't dare to live on the earth any longer, for when evil men abound and try to steal my fields, what shall I do? Even sick as he is now, he always has some plan or idea to help me out of a trouble. I'm a fool; I have no ideas to combat anybody. I'll just be a helpless victim when he is gone!"
His woebegone face made me smile, but the tears were very near the surface. Memory flew back to a Sunday years ago when Papa Peter had brought some iron to church (he is the village blacksmith) in order to bargain for the coming week's work with a certain heathen or some such thing. The heathen came before the service was over and called
Papa Peter in the middle of the meeting. When Me-do-me-pa saw that the old man had actually brought the iron to chapel and was hiding it under his bench, he seized it and threw it outside. Whereupon there was a hot argument afterwards, and the Shepherd said, on our trying to make peace, "I was wrong to get angry, but there is no one gives me
I22
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
more trouble than that old man. He is a continual trial to me!" And here was Me-do-me-pa's "Continual Trial" sitting before me with a gloomy countenance telling me that he would not dare to live after the Shepherd dies!
But I saw in a trice that Papa Peter was the voice of the ignorant part of Lisu church. So I pointed the obvious lesson. "But, Papa Peter, the Lord is not going to leave-us, nor is your white pastor." (How grateful I was at that moment that I had stayed behind. My very presence was a living testimony that the wind-words were not true and need not be feared.) "Don't you suppose the Lord Jesus has ideas too, and can defend His own from evil? Is your trust in Me-do-me-pa or in Christ?
Perhaps this is the reason that Jesus is taking Me-do-me-pa from us, so that His children will learn that He is their true Leaning-Place. Haven't you heard Mr. Yang's story of how the Lord took care of him some months ago? He was on his way to Luku market when his horse ran away at the top of the mountain as they were about to descend. He had to chase back after it, but when he caught it and finally reached the river bank he found a heathen fellow bleeding and wounded. Robbers had been waiting there, and because Mr. Yang's horse ran away the heathen man reached the robbers first, lost all that he had with him, and had his arms badly cut, or perhaps broken, besides. Could Me-do-me-pa have done that? Isn't the Lord Jesus a safer trusting place?"
Papa Peter was impressed—he had not heard that story. "That's so.
You've comforted my heart, Ma-Ma. Thank you," he said slowly.
Then . . . does it ever fail? . . . "the fowls of the air devoured it"; the "fowl" this time being Abel who said with a light laugh, "Oh, but Mr. Yang is a preacher; you and I could not expect such attention!"
Do not the devil's lies make you angry? But aren't there some Abels at home who say just the same thing? "Oh, that life of faith is all right for the missionaries. God has a special love for them'"—and so on.
Yet all the time the Word says, "Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." The only conditions to such acceptance with God are faith, the love that fears to sin against Him, and the life that in no point has been consciously disobedient to Him. But I do not know SK ae "the seed"
'was rope devoured or not; the group broke up and the conversation ended.
But I have told you this so that you may see how to pray. In every church there are spiritual and carnal Christians, and in 'every church practically the same class predominate. Are you harshly judging Papa
Peter and his crowd? Listen. My mother died when I was twenty-two