March 17, 2011
The Cost of the Gospel
I am constantly in awe of the intrepid band of missionaries who planted the seeds of the Gospel in the northeast region of Brazil--the region where our family now works. These hardy men and women suffered tremendously for privilege of spreading the good news to the nordestino.
It is an honor to be able to count as a friend the son of one of those heroes of the '30s and '40s. He provided me with the following pictures, which provide a snapshot into some of the hardships faced by those pioneer missionaries.
The above photograph shows the aftermath of a disrupted service. One of the tactics that the Roman Catholic priests used in those days was to gather together a mob, inflame them with fiery rhetoric, and send them to disrupt the service of the "foreign Protestants". The damage you see in the picture is the result of such a mob.
In this picture we see the window of one of the missionaries' cars. It has been given a new "spiderweb" design by someone disgruntled with their work.
What follows is a first-hand description of some of the persecution, written by Edward McLain, the first Baptist missionary to work in the Cariri Valley:
While the Gospel continues to face opposition in Brazil, today it takes subtler forms. Those of us who work in Brazil today must never forget the sacrifices made by those who went before.
Posted by Andrew on March 17, 2011 1:21 AM.
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Comments
Posted by: Philip McLain at March 19, 2011 11:13 AM
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Thanks for the update, Andrew. I am pleased that you can use the things I passed on to you to tell the story of the Gospel in Brasil, albeit a small bit of it. Only Eternity will reveal all of the things the Lord was doing in other places and in other lives during those days. I think it is harder to to present and live the Gospel against subtle opposition than against outright hatred and persecution. Stay the course my brother!