Welcome to a new month and new focus on Searching For The Savior Saturday. As a Southern Baptist, we have now entered into a season of giving to support the missionaries that we send out, like Tim and Marsha. Some of you may not have grown up in a Southern Baptist Church and maybe wondering "Who is Lottie Moon?" and "What did she do?" In doing some research on the International Mission Boards website, I ran across these awesome parts of letters that she had written to Southern Baptist while she was a missionary. Amazing letters and I wanted to share them with you today. I hope you take some time to read through them. Pray about what the Lord would have you to do during this Lottie Moon Season. Each week we will be learning a little more about Lottie Moon and foreign missions. I hope you enjoy.
"At another house two women learned very fast; I say women, but one was a girl about twelve or thirteen, already married, however. There was a little child about three years old. My sister asked, 'Who is the True God's Son?' The little thing replied, in a very sweet voice, 'Jesus.'"
- Lottie Moon
Tungchow, China
Published in the July 1874 Foreign Mission Journal
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"Our hearts were made glad last Sabbath by the baptism of an individual who has interested us by his firm stand under the persecutions of his ... family. They fastened him in a room without food or water, and endeavored to starve him into submission. Providentially, they did not take away his Christian books. He studied these more closely than ever. The pangs of hunger he satisfied by eating some raw beans he found in the room, and when he wanted water he commenced to dig a well in the room in which he was confined. Chinese houses are built on the ground and do not have plank floors as with us. When the family discovered the well-digging they yielded. They had no wish to ruin their dwelling. The man has shown that he is made of stern stuff, and we hope he will be very useful as a Christian."
- Lottie Moon
Tungchow, China
July 1874 Foreign Mission Journal
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"How many there are ... who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God."
- Lottie Moon
Tungchow, China
Sept. 15, 1887
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"Why should we not ... instead of the paltry offerings we make, do something that will prove that we are really in earnest in claiming to be followers of him who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor?"
- Lottie Moon
Tungchow, China
Sept. 15, 1887
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"Is not the festive season when families and friends exchange gifts in memory of The Gift laid on the altar of the world for the redemption of the human race, the most appropriate time to consecrate a portion from abounding riches and scant poverty to send forth the good tidings of great joy into all the earth?"
- Lottie Moon
Tungchow, China
Sept. 15, 1887
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"What we want is not power, but simply combination in order to elicit the largest possible giving."
- Lottie Moon
Tungchow, China
Sept. 15, 1887
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"I would I had a thousand lives that I might give them to ... China!"
- Lottie Moon
Zhenjiang, China
August 27, 1888
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"Thirty miles from Pingtu city is a gold mine. Nestled close among low-lying hills are two foreign houses and the buildings over the mine. Several American miners are there in the employ of the Chinese government. These men are living a hard, dull, isolated life, in a remote region, far from home and friends, with the sole purpose of worldly gain. So much for the devotees of Mammon. One cannot help asking sadly, why is love of gold more potent than love of souls? The number of men mining and prospecting for gold in Shantung is more than double the number of men representing Southern Baptists! What a lesson for Southern Baptists to ponder."
- Lottie Moon
Pingtu, China
Feb. 9, 1889
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"It is a great mistake to say that the Chinese are not hospitable. A more graceful, hearty hospitality than that of the Chinese I have met in no land."
- Lottie Moon
Pingtu, China
Sept. 10, 1890
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"When the gospel is allowed to grow naturally in China, without forcing processes of development, the 'church in the house' is usually its first form of organization. God grant us faith and courage to keep 'hands off' and allow this new garden of the Lord's planting to ripen in the rays of the Divine Love, free from human interference!"
- Lottie Moon
Pingtu, China
Sept. 10, 1890
If you would like to read more, please visit the IMB site at www.imb.org .
Laboring For Him,
Pam
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