This is a biography of James Outram Fraser, a Christian missionary who practiced his outreach with the Lisu peoples in South West China.

I received this great recommendation via this blog post of "Top Ten Missionary Biographies" which is worth checking out;

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/10174784-my-top-ten-missionary-biogr...

I loved this book. It consists of a combination of narration and excerpts from letters written by Fraser to his mother whilst he was on the mission field. There were too many great quotes to list but I will share some of them to tell the outline of the story in the hope that you will read this for yourselves....

Fraser headed to China determined to share the Gospel with the "Lisu" people group. His desire was to live and work amongst the people. He developed a deep burden for them and spent countless hours wrestling in prayer for progress. He wrote numerous detailed letters to his mother at home in England requesting prayer and asking her to gather "prayer warriors" to support the work. Fraser's prayer life and desire for intercessory prayer was remarkable. He sought to make the prayer needs "real" to his supporters by providing regular updates

"Repeatedly he had had occasion to notice the difference between people and places that had been much prayed for and those that had not. In the former, half the work seemed to be done already, as if an unseen ally had gone ahead to prepare the way. This made him not only persevere in prayer himself; whether he felt like it or not, but impelled him to induce and encourage Christians at home to pray."

"Just as a plant may die for lack of watering, so may a genuine work of God die and rot for lack of prayer."

He encountered many struggles, trials and discouragements along the way (as might be expected during pioneer work.) The areas he was seeking to reach were remote and rife with rampant demon/ancestor worship, alcoholism and opium smoking.

"Yes we want to turn Christian. But we must worship our ancestors once more, to send them away respectfully, and offer sacrifices to the demons that they may not injure us. And there is this whisky- which of course we must use up."

"The government had set out on a nationwide campaign against the growth and use of opium— the Christians of Mottled Hill told of how they had resisted this interference with their liberty. Troops were coming into the mountains to pull up and destroy the ripening corn, but the Kachin, especially, took up arms to fight them. After preparing their knives and poisoned arrows, they held a prayer meeting to ask the help of God. And prayer had been wonderfully answered, they naively assured their missionary, because the soldiers never came, and they had been able to make more money than usual out of their opium crops!"

In two of the cases I have had to attend to, the sufferers told me that, in their opinion, the best way to settle the matter would be to get their swords, go in a body, and kill their persecutors. It is not easy to teach them to love their enemies.

Fraser persevered through many struggles learning invaluable spiritual lessons that he relayed to his mother and that can be very useful for us today

"A mature Christian is not the product of a day or a month or a year. It takes time to grow in Christ."

"Let us shake off dull sloth on the one hand and feverishness on the other"

Fraser found a real desire and hunger to hear the Gospel which encouraged him to continue the work especially after around 10 years in China by which point hundreds of "Lisu" families had come to faith

"The joy of telling of the Great Deliverer to those who had never heard was quickened, here and there, by the response of prepared hearts. Talking with a few men in a poky little shop one day, Fraser was surprised by the entrance of a bent and suffering woman who addressed herself to him. She had caught the drift of his preaching out on the village street, and ventured in with the question: “If idols are false and cannot help us, what then is true?” Very simply, Fraser told her of the living Savior, and how to put her trust in Him. It was a joy to hear her say, as she left him, that her heart was now ten-tenths at peace.

“Teach me to pray,” was the plea of another, the busy keeper of an inn who had listened while serving her guests. She, too, seemed to grasp the way of salvation, and went over and over the simple prayer that Fraser taught her. It was still dark the following morning when she came to him as he was preparing to leave the inn. “Tell it me again,” she said earnestly. “There will be no one to teach us when you are gone, and I do want to remember how to pray to Him.”

“Where are you going, stranger?” she inquired with the easy friendliness of the mountain people. “Just going on up north.” “And what is your business?” “I am a preacher.” “A preacher? What’s that?” “I tell about the Good News,” he replied in passing. “But stop, if it is good news, then tell us about it.” “I am on a long journey and cannot stay.” “But you must stay,” she persisted. “What is the use of being a preacher, if you have not time to preach?”

“The people,” as he put it, “were all tumbling over themselves in their earnestness.” They could not learn enough or read enough, or above all sing enough, by day and night, with their “Elder Brother, No. 3.”

I wasn't expecting to find humour in this book but it is laced throughout.

One of the cases we have investigated was that of the kidnapping of a Christian girl by a heathen Lisu. We went to rescue her (I and my Lisu) over across the Salween. It turned out a kind of fiasco, for when we found her she did not want to be rescued after all. So we had to leave her— and this after walking I do not know how many hours by night with a lantern, to surprise them before they could run off with her again. We must have walked thirty miles each way. The matter was settled by the payment of a fine.But as a rule, young women who had been abducted were only too glad to be set free again.

Of course, it was all primitive in the extreme. If the bamboo chapel was full for a meeting, inquiries yelled from outside would be answered in the same strident tones by those within. If a herd of cattle were driven by, the whole audience would stampede to the door and out on the hillside to take stock of them, leaving the teacher, waiting with what patience he could muster.

And their slowness in learning to think for themselves! Question and answer might proceed a little way—for example: “Who were the sons of Adam and Eve?” “Cain, Abel and Seth,” for the lesson had been carefully taught. “Good. Now who were the parents of Cain, Abel and Seth?” “Don’t know. It isn’t in the Catechism.”

To the end Fraser loved and served this people and this book is a testament to his life and witness

The people are perhaps shivering through their rags. They are poor, dirty, ignorant and superstitious, but they are God’s gift to us. You ask God for spiritual children, and He chooses them out for you. You shake hands with the brothers and sisters and mothers He has found for you, and sit down with them, the boys and girls all around you if possible. For I would far rather teach Lisu children to sing “Jesus loves me, this I know,” than teach the integral calculus to the most intelligent who have no interest in China.

Recommended for all Christian readers!























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$12
The life-changing story of J.O. Fraser.

The most significant book on spiritual warfare of this century, in reaching an unreached people group.