WILLIAM CAREY
As we consider the impact of the gospel in the region of Odisha, we have to start with the incredible life of the English Missionary William Carey. He lived in India for the last 41 years of his fruitful life. Among his incredible achievements was translating the Bible into 6 Indian languages, including Hindi, Bengali, and Odia (or Oriya as it was called back then). Odia is the language of interest for us in this blog article and in our particular mission, because when the first Baptist missionaries arrived there 100 years later, the Bible was already in the language of the Odia people.
The GLENDINNING FAMILY (Picture attached)
About 100 years after Carey, in 1902 a Canadian family arrived in Odisha. John and Eva Glendinning, with 4 small children were the first Canadian Baptist Missionaries. They would lay the foundation and, with other missionaries that follow in the decades following, would see many churches springing up through the mountainous regions of the Saura Hills. It was a fruitful time of sowing and also reaping. They laboured for decades, learning languages, building houses, putting down roots, enduring great hardships and investing in people. It was a hard mission-field, with some returning and some even dying from malaria, dysentery and other sicknesses. Others endured to the end and had their final resting place there. There is a forgotten, overgrown graveyard we visited where some were laid to rest.
SIR, WHO IS JESUS?
In 1907 a villager walked 20 miles through the jungle trails to meet the missionaries. He handed an Odia gospel tract to John Glendinning entitled “the way of salvation”. The man, named Biswanath, asked the question “Sir, Who is Jesus?”. They were able to share the gospel with him for those few days and sent him away with literature, a hymn book, and a Bible. A week or two later he returned and said he now believes and would like to be baptized. In 1910, his village, was to be the place of the first official church plant with 44 initial members. By 1912 there were 220 members in that church. And so it was with the work in the Saura Hills. Bodoapoda 1913, Serengo 1915, Rayagada 1922, Narayanapur 1923 and on and on…
A Village called GUMMA
I managed to get my hands on a book called “THE SEED HOLDS THE TREE” that retraces this history and some of the stories of these faithful missionaries As I turned the pages my heart lept as I read the names of certain villages we have visited on past trips to India. Last trip they told me “we are Christians because of those Canadian Missionaries, whoever they were”. The seed still bears fruit, as we would not have been able to have the children’s home or the ministry we have there without the labours and prayers of those who went before us.
LOSING THE GOSPEL As you might imagine, over these many following generations, many of these “Christian churches” have become quite nominal and seem to have lost sight of the grace gospel and the means for salvation. Sadly, this our own Church history shows us that the same has happened in England. It reminds us of Paul’s words to the Galatians as he marvelled that they had been so soon removed from the gospel of grace (Gal 1:6) and now had returned to legalism. One of the most valuable times we have is meeting with 30 pastors for a 2 day seminar. Investing directly into the lives of these precious men will bear much fruit up in the mountains. They are very hungry for the teaching and direction.
