The record of missions is filled with stories—stories that stir your heart and mine. There are stories of deliverance and of God's care for His children in time of trial and great need. I have chosen to tell you a story of how God not only protects and looks after those who are laboring in far-distant lands, but also looks after those things which are necessary for the carrying forward of that work.
Let me preface my story by an account of what we have to meet out in Tibet with respect to transportation difficulties, and it will help you to understand better the setting. The Tibetan Mission is perhaps the most isolated of our mission stations and hospitals. It is at least one of the most isolated of our hospitals. Supplies and workers all must come over very difficult roads, and supplies in particular have to come in from the coast of China, up the Yangtze River, across the mountains and gorges, and into Tibet. It is a long, hard journey, which takes six months or more. The last twenty or thirty days of the trip, the supplies must be carried upon the backs of men. Those coolies strain under their load, hour after hour and day after day, over those mountains, sometimes making five miles in a day, sometimes ten, and at last our supplies reach us.
Since the war has broken out, our difficulties have increased. The war has brought many problems which are not easy to solve, and that of transportation is one of the greatest. Instead of coming up the great Yangtze River as in the past, our supplies now have to come in farther to the west, and much more slowly. Therefore we have had to lay our plans for getting supplies with the greatest of care.
It was about two years ago that we had a great need. The supplies of two vital drugs had run low. I refer to sulphanilamide and neosalvarsan—drugs of which we use a great amount. It is with the latter that we combat relapsing fever, that great scourge of the Tibetan borders, and we use large quantities of it. As I said, the supplies have to be provided for many months ahead. One day we received word that two shipments of our drugs had been destroyed in bombing raids. That meant disaster as far as our supply plans went. So we immediately got into action. We asked the government radio station to send a wire to Hong Kong directing our brethren there to fall back on the airplane service, which we use in emergency only, since it is very expensive. So the brethren in Hong Kong prepared an immediate shipment, but it had to wait in Hong Kong for a long time, how long we do not know. After some weeks we had word that the shipment was on its way.
Every day as I went to the drug cabinet and looked in, it seemed that the supplies would never last. They dwindled rapidly, and yet there was no further word of the emergency shipment. We had tried every means we could think of to conserve our supplies, using everything we could to substitute for them. At last came the day when it seemed we could get on no longer. The drug cabinet was alihost empty. That morning, as I sat at the desk where I could watch the front gate of the compound, I saw a man walk in the gate. In his arms he carried a small box. It was a great event, I assure you, to have a box come through, and so I hurried to the door to meet him. As I looked at the box, it seemed intact, with everything there. But the man who had brought it kept standing there, and said to me, "Will you open that box, and see if everything is there?"
I replied, "Yes, I will open it, but we will have to get some tools."
"Please look quickly," he said.
"What's the rush?" I asked. "This box has been on the road twenty or thirty days. What's the hurry?"
Then he told me the story. "This box was given to me in Chengtu about twenty-five days ago. They told me to bring it to you. We put it on a cart and came across the plains to Western China. There, as you know, we have to change all our things, and put them in smaller boxes for the journey over the mountains. Your box was light; so we put it on top of a man's load to go over the Yangshe Pass. As you know, that is a dangerous pass, and many people have been robbed there. When we started up that pass, the robbers came down out of the mountains. There were many of them—many more than there were of us. They had guns and knives; we had only sticks. Don't blame my men, but they all ran away."
"Well," I said, "I can't blame your men for running. What did you do then?"
He continued: "All our loads were gone—fifty loads of merchandise—and your box was among them. I knew that your box was very valuable, but it was gone. My men had all run away. I felt like running away, too, and never showing myself again. After two or three hours, when we thought the bandits had gone, we went back to see if they had left anything. We came back to the scene of the robbery, walked up the trail, and saw papers and broken boxes and dishes scattered along the way. Nothing of any value was left. They had taken away everything of those fifty loads of merchandise; nothing was left. I didn't know what to do. Then I walked up the trail a little farther, and there on one side of the road I found this box. And now I have brought it to you after eighteen days over the mountains. Is everything there?"
I checked the box and found that nothing in it had been disturbed. It was a box the value of which amounted to at least half of the entire sum of goods that those fifty men were carrying—a box vital to the needs of our mission—and it wasn't even scratched.
In the Spirit of prophecy, there is a statement which says that the prayers of God's people are not always answered immediately. They are laid up beside the throne of grace, and in such time as God sees fit, they are brought forth and answered in accordance with His pleasure. And that afternoon our prayers—yours and mine—brought that box through. Let me say that it was your prayers. I know that each one of you remembers those of our people who are laboring in faraway lands. You are remembering us in your prayers, and the Lord is laying up those prayers, and I know that your prayers were answered that afternoon. That box of very vitally needed supplies was watched over, protected, and brought safely through to us, that we in our frail strength might be able to help carry forward the work assigned to us.
Several years ago, when Mrs. James and I were called upon to take over the work in the Tibetan Mission, we went out, never expecting to return to these United States of America. Our feeling was that the time of the end was very near at hand. We hardly expected to see our homeland again, but I am very happy this afternoon because we have had the opportunity of returning and again looking into the faces of our brethren and sisters here.
As I was leaving the Tibetan Mission to come home on this furlough, I had occasion to come through the great war-torn city of Chungking. You have doubtless read in the newspapers of the terrific bombing that city has been receiving during the last two years. It seemed scarcely possible after that for one stone to be found standing upon another. While I was there, I had occasion to visit two of our native doctors, Drs. Samuel Phang and H. Liu. There they were, carrying forward the work of our medical department in that great city. They have established a small hospital, and are trying their best to carry on in the face of the difficulties they have to meet. Pray God we shall never have to meet such difficulties.
How many of us have ever stood and watched while the great war birds thundered overhead? How many of us have seen houses destroyed and other buildings crumble before our eyes? How many of us have seen the great scourge of fire sweep over a city after a bombing? How many have seen our hospitals fall, and how many of us have had to carry forward under such conditions ? Those men are seeing things like these, and are having to meet such conditions, and they are carrying on. They are depending upon you and me for strength. You may think that is a strange thing to say, but please do not misunderstand me. I am not speaking of financial help. I come to you this afternoon, and I appeal, not for your means, but for your prayers.
I can assure you that the Lord God, who watches over those small boxes of supplies that go to our individual stations throughout the great world, is also watching over His servants who labor in these lands. And I can assure you that- those prayers which you send up day by day are laid up by the throne of grace, and in such time as they are needed, they will be brought forth and answered. You may not know those for whom you pray, and may not even know that your prayers have been answered, but I appeal to you, brethren and sisters, pray for those of our workers who are laboring under these tremendous difficulties in this trying time of earth's history. The Lord knows who and where they are.
