1863
Swiss-born Henry Dunant needed water rights for a business venture in French-controlled Algeria. The person who could get him those rights was Napoleon III. The only problem was, Napoleon III was on the battlefield in Italy. Dunant did not let that deter him, but set out for Napoleon’s headquarters at Solferino in Northern Italy. Thanks to that bold venture, this Christian-influenced businessman became the first person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
He arrived in Solferino in time to witness one of the bloodiest battles of the 19th century. About 40,000 men died in the fighting on June 24, 1859, and another 40,000 perished afterwards because of inadequate medical care.
Henri Dunant had been reared in active Christian faith. His father was involved in social work and Dunant himself had labored for the Swiss arm of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). He was a man of action. Appalled by the suffering he witnessed at Solferino, he immediately organized the local peasants to gather the wounded and care for them in homes and churches. Had he not done so, even more may have died. He persuaded Napoleon III to issue an order freeing doctors and surgeons attached to the Austrian armies. But more was needed.
Dunant saw that modern weapons would kill increasing numbers of men. Something had to be done. He wrote a book titled A Memory of Solferino. In it he called all nations to set up commissions to deal with war casualties. Everyone who could should be trained to care for the wounded. His idea sparked interest. In 1863 a committee of five, including Dunant, met in Geneva to see if his plan could be implemented. It called for a conference. This was also held in Geneva. On this day, October 29, 1863, the conferees founded the International Red Cross (not yet called by that name). The following year, the concerned committee drew up the Geneva Convention.
Dunant never got his water rights. As a consequence, his business failed. Genevans lost money through him and shunned him. He was accused of homosexuality and died obscure and impoverished in a hospice, bitter and refusing to spend the international awards that showered upon him.
1870
Juji Nakada‘s heart was broken for Japan. So many people knew nothing about the true God. If only there were more people willing to tell them!
Born on this day, October 29, 1870, Juji enrolled in Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, when he was twenty-six, because, as he explained it, he wanted to “get filled with the Holy Spirit.” Dwight L. Moody’s fame as an evangelist had spread around the world. Eventually Juji would himself be known as the “Moody of Japan.” His vision was to found a similar institute and train national pastors for his native land.
One Sunday morning, while he was still studying in Chicago, Juji Nakada met Charles Cowman in church. Cowman had become a Christian at age thirteen but drifted for ten years. When his faith was restored in an experience in which he declared “The room became glorious with the presence of the Lord..” he immediately set out to convert others. Within six months he had converted seventy-five of his co-workers, including the first man with whom he shared the gospel, Ernest Kilbourne.
Juji asked Cowman to join him in working for Japan. Kilbourne and Cowman founded the Telegraphers’ Missions Band. This group supported Juji when he returned to Japan.
Juji sailed back to Japan in 1898, but stopped in England on the way in order to visit the tomb of John Wesley and meet English holiness leaders. Three years later, Charles Cowman and his wife Lettie sailed for Japan.
Together with Juji and Ernest Kilbourne, they founded the Bible institute that Juji had dreamed of. Juji became its first president. In 1910, the team incorporated the Oriental Missionary Society in Tokyo. This became a significant world mission, now known simply as OMS.
The story of the Cowmans is well known. Charles suffered painful heart problems that forced him to return to the United States. As he was dying, he prayed fervently for world missions. To encourage him, Lettie accumulated clippings and inspirational sayings. She later published these as Streams in the Desert. However, if it were not for Juji, OMS would never have come into being.
As Dr. Edward Kilbourne, author of a history of OMS reminded his listeners at an OMS conference in 2001, “Nakada never let the Cowmans forget that God wanted them in Japan.”
1907
The entire nation of The Netherlands celebrated the seventieth birthday of Abraham Kuyper on this day, October 29, 1907. By proclamation the nation recognized that the history of the Netherlands, in Church, in State, in Society, in Press, in School, and in the Sciences the last forty years, could not be written without the mention of his name on almost every page, for during this period the biography of Dr. Abraham Kuyper was to a considerable extent the history of the Netherlands.
Who was this man who had such a deep impact on his nation? Abraham Kuyper was born on this day, October 29, 1837. At first his teachers thought he was dull, but at the early age of twelve he entered the Gymnasium (roughly equivalent to an american senior high school). Later he graduated with highest honors from Leyden University. He went on to receive his doctorate in sacred theology and was a minister at Breesd and Utrecht before going to Amsterdam in 1870.
In Kuyper’s earlier years, the religious life of the nation was almost dead. The church was largely cold and formal. There was no Bible in the schools and it had minimal influence in the life of the nation. Kuyper did much to change this by his involvement in the Anti-Revolutionary Party.
The Anti-Revolutionary Party derived its name from its opposition to the ideas of the French Revolution; the party was basically the Protestant contingent of the Dutch nation. In 1872 Abraham became Editor-in-chief of De Standard, the daily newspaper and official organ of the Anti-Revolutionary Party. Soon after taking the helm of De Standard, Kuyper also became editor of De Heraut, a weekly Christian newspaper. He continued as editor of both newspapers for over forty-five years.
In 1874 Kuyper was elected to the lower house of Parliament, and he served there until 1877. Three years later he founded the Free University of Amsterdam, which took the Bible as the foundation of every area of knowledge.
As leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, Abraham was summoned by Queen Wilhelmena to form a cabinet and become Prime Minister of the nation. He was Prime Minister until 1905. Some party members were dissatisfied with their leader, however, because he would not keep his church and political activities separate. To him, they were identical interests since he saw Christ as king in every department of human life. Abraham believed that Christ rules not merely by the tradition of what He once was, spoke, did and endured, but by a living power which even now, seated as He is at the right hand of God, He exercises over lands, nations, generations, families, and individuals.
Abraham Kuyper had a tremendous aversion to wasting time when there was so much to do. A man of tremendous versatility, he was a noted linguist, theologian, university professor, politician, statesman, philosopher, scientist, and philanthropist. In spite of his many accomplishments and his tremendous urgency to redeem the time, Abraham was also a man of the people. Like the Savior whom he served, he always had time for people and never turned any away who needed his counsel.
In 1897, at the 25th anniversary of his editorship of De Standaard, Abraham described the ruling passion of his life:
That in spite of all worldly opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school, and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.
Abraham had the rare combination of being both a great theologian and a great, warm Christian. Every week he wrote a devotional meditation– over 2000 in his lifetime. Some of these were collected into his book To Be Near Unto God. In it he wrote,
The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality, in the full and vigorous prosecution of our life. It must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perception, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence.
1964
AS A CHILD, Helen Roseveare heard missionary stories from an aunt and uncles and dreamed of becoming a missionary herself. While studying at Cambridge, she comprehended the gospel. She desired to know Christ better and made a bold commitment, asking the Lord to make her more like Jesus and not to stop, no matter how she begged off. She joined the World Evangelical Crusade.
Assigned to the Congo as a missionary doctor, she developed a vision to train local women as nurses to meet basic needs in their villages. However, other missionaries resisted the idea. Despite this conflict, she established a training hospital at Ibambi and several of her trainees passed government exams. She went to African Christians for friendship and spiritual counsel, practices which other missionaries considered humiliating and which distanced her from them. Over her protests, the mission reassigned her to an abandoned leprosy camp at Nebobongo. Within two years she had overcome enormous obstacles to establish another training hospital.
Then, apparently in an effort to subdue her pride, the mission placed a male colleague over her. John Harris took complete charge of the work she had built. Resentment and bitterness welled in her. Sparks flew between them. During a furlough, she quit the mission. Regretting the move, she asked to be reestablished and was. Because Harris went on furlough, Roseveare was the missionary in charge when Simba rebels came in 1964. Arriving in August, they held the compound for five months. Roseveare and African staffers lived in terror of rape, beatings, and forced trials. As an example of the horrors they faced, a local chief, found “guilty” by a “people’s court” was flayed alive and eaten.
On this night, 29 October 1964, the rebels banged on Roseveare’s door, demanding entrance or they would smash it down. Then followed one of the most terrible experiences of her life. They robbed her of everything worthwhile. Then the head lieutenant, with a pistol at his belt, ordered her to undress. She managed to dart outside and throw herself under some bushes in the darkness, where she prayed to be hidden. She could hear the rebels’ coarse laughter. They assumed she was hiding something from them.
In ten minutes they found me, dragged me to my feet, and struck me across the face, searching around me for what I was hiding—they just did not appear to understand that I was only hiding myself from them! ….
Hugh tried to stand between us, and demanded they leave me alone. They struck him down, and beat him brutally…. The Liotina took me in at the point of his pistol, forced me into my bedroom, ordered me first to dress and gratefully I grabbed any garment I saw. Then he roughly pushed me on to the bed—and oh, dear, dear God, a terrible half hour of mental and physical agony—but I cried unto Jesus in pain and fear and shame and misery—and claimed the precious blood.
Then he let me go and ordered me to dress….he even dared to demand I choose my best dress and a clean jersey, as I was now his wife, and he was taking me to Paulis and wanted to show me off! Then he hustled me out and I was bundled into the cab…. I tried to sing choruses as we went, in Swahili, to quieten my own terrified heart and that they might hear the Name of Jesus and the devil in them should fear and tremble.
The experience helped her succor other rape victims. On the last day of 1964, government-friendly forces rescued Roseveare. After a rest, she returned to the Congo for seven more years. Those years brought new trials as nationalism, incompetence, and disrespect for Whites cankered all her efforts.
After leaving the mission field, she often spoke at Christian gatherings, urging her listeners to let God use them as ambassadors to the lost world. Her writings have encouraged other Christians because they documented her experiences and feelings, showing that God used her although she was a broken and sinful person.