AND now the first thing was to strengthen the spiritual base of the work. Called to a forward movement, Fraser realized not only his dependence upon the Divine Leader but upon the support also of fellow-believers, one with him in Christ. He might be the hand reaching out into the darkness, but not a hand cut off and thrown ahead of the body. The vital union must be maintained. He was about to start on an exploratory journey to the Lisu of the Upper Salween, a district till then wholly untouched by missionary effort, but before doing so he felt he must give expression to a desire which had long been growing.
I know you will never fail me in the matter of intercession [he wrote to his mother in January], but will you think and pray about getting a group of like-minded friends, whether few or many, whether in one place or scattered, to join in the same petitions? If you could form a small prayer circle I would write regularly to the members. But more of this anon.
It was the first suggestion of a fellowship which was to become in a very real sense the power behind his work. For the mother at once responded, prayerfully seeking friends to act with her in the matter. Even before Fraser could return from the Salween, she was able to write of one and another feeling definitely led to work with him in this way for the Lisu of the Burma border. It was a small group at first, but very real, as Fraser soon realized, and the encouragement of their prayers was timely. For the journey to the Upper Salween proved afresh the sternness of the task.
Happily in this undertaking Fraser had not been alone. Joined by his nearest missionary neighbours, Mr. Geis and Ba Thaw of Myitkyina, he had also the help of Major Davies’ newly-completed map of Yunnan and Mr. Forrest’s report of an exploration in the Salween district, published by the Royal Geographical Society. But even so, the ordeal was serious enough. Setting out in winter to avoid the rainy season with its landslides and slippery mud, the party encountered stormy weather at high altitudes. Mr. Geis, though nearing fifty, proved to be ‘a splendid companion, full of life and fun’. But let imagination fill in the following notes, made in a talk with Fraser over their experiences.
Spent the night on the top of a range ten thousand feet high, after two days with no human habitation. Darkness came on and snow began to fall. Our Lisu made a sort of booth for us. Morning, snow thick on the ground, obscuring the track. The Lisu, wet through, shivering with cold. Had to find our way over the pass. K’u teh liao-puh-teh / (extremity of suffering). Ba Thaw stubbed his foot, leaving blood marks all along the way. He had never been in snow before. No food till late in the afternoon when (below the snow line) we could make a fire. Saw armed robbers, but they did not attack us. Scenery magnificent. I enjoyed it after a fashion.
The two following weeks were spent in the Black Lisu country, travelling up the gorge of the Salween. Little could the pioneers anticipate the work of God that was to spring up in that ‘wild, inhospitable region’, or that Fraser would one day be revising the whole New Testament in Lisu, on those mountainsides, amid a Christian community numbering thousands. As it was, they found it difficult to get into touch with the people because of the great difference in dialect. Even the Lisu who had come with them could hardly be understood, and it was only Fraser’s excellent Chinese that carried them through.
North of Luchang, where Government officials and a Post Office were found, the road was increasingly perilous―sometimes a mere ledge across the face of a precipice, the river winding like a green ribbon far below. Branches of trees were stuck in cracks here and there to steady passersby, while great stones, dislodged at a touch, might come down on the pathway carrying all before them. Yet hamlets were to be found wherever a water supply was available, broad planks covering the earthen floors in dwellings of a log-cabin style. As their object was to gain impressions of the people rather than the country, our travelers turned back some three days north of Luchang. They had seen enough to convince them that the Lisu of the district were sufficiently numerous and distinct in language and customs to require missionaries of their own, whether tribal or foreign. A people waiting, accessible and in desperate need of the Gospel―it was a call indeed, though they could see no way at the time to meet it.
What a number of earnest, spiritually-minded Christians there are at home [Fraser wrote on his return to Tengyueh] and how correspondingly rich are the prayer forces of the Church! How I long for some of this wealth for myself and the Lisu here. Yes, I have had it in measure already... but I should very, very much like a wider circle of intercessors.
Our work among the Lisu is not going to be a bed of roses, spiritually. I know enough about Satan to realize that he will have all his weapons ready for determined opposition. He would be a missionary simpleton who expected plain sailing in any work of God. I will not, by God’s grace, let anything deter me from going straight ahead in the path to which He leads, but I shall feel greatly strengthened if I know of a definite company of prayers holding me up. I am confident that the Lord is going to do a work, sooner or later, among the Lisu here.
It was at ‘Little River’ that Fraser made his home that spring, ‘a village on a very steep mountainside’, as he wrote. ‘A foaming river roars along two thousand feet below, and the mountains all around run up to over eleven thousand feet.’ His room in this beautifully situated hamlet was not much to boast of.
It is really an outhouse made of bamboos and thatch, all tumbling to pieces. But it has not come down on top of us yet! It leaks badly, but Old Five has patched it up by putting plantain leaves over the rotten roofing. The floor is as usual plain earth trodden hard, and there are a lot of old bins, baskets, logs and things cumbering the ground. But such as it is I am very comfortable in it and do not hanker after anything better.
The ‘comfort’ consisted chiefly in his books, for he had gone to the lavish expenditure of about two shillings for coolie hire, to bring some of his treasures, including study books and his Greek Testament. He had also an enameled plate and mug in his outfit, a few tins of condensed milk, some of cocoa and ‘all the bedding I want, instead of the irreducible minimum’. His hosts supplied the ordinary food they had themselves, and Ah-do (Old Five) was there to help in various ways. A bath could be obtained by a descent to the swift, turbulent river, involving a climb of two thousand feet back again. As far as externals were concerned, he felt himself well off for a prolonged stay, if not exactly ‘in clover’.
It was along another line that he was tested at this time, and that more and more seriously. In the ardour of his faith he had taken it for granted that God’s time had come for the blessing he longed to see among the Lisu. Now that he was giving himself wholly to them, they would surely respond and gather round him in larger numbers. They would appreciate his learning their language and be eager to hear more of the Word of God. But, in reality, the very opposite was the case. The people at Little River were hospitable and friendly as before, but showed no added interest in spiritual things. At Six Family Hollow he was always welcome, Ah-do’s old mother being specially real in her love for the Saviour. A few others, scattered in three villages, gave evidence of a change of heart, but beyond that the work seemed to have come to a standstill. Where was the great and growing interest? He had been so happy in the expectation that the walls of his Jericho would soon fall down.
‘We thought it was the seventh day of our compassing,’ he recalled long after, ‘but it was only the first.’
The children of the hamlet loved him and were full of fun and curiosity. Indoors or out they hung about him, watching his every movement and trying to help in his studies. To tackle a language not reduced to writing was proving a tough job. It was pioneering in a new realm; and without books or teacher, Fraser welcomed the interest of the children. They never tired of repeating words and phrases till he had them written down, tones and all, for his musical ear insisted on correctness.
It was not lack of interest in his surroundings that led to the depression of spirit that now began to assail him. He did not know at first what to make of it. Was he lonely in that isolated hamlet, remote from contact with the outside world? Was it the poor food that left him undernourished? Was it the struggle with the language, or the deadlock in the work? Rain and mist in the mountains might be depressing; but as the days and weeks wore on, he realized that there were influences of another kind to be reckoned with.
For strange uncertainty began to shadow his inward life. All he had believed and rejoiced in became unreal, and even his prayers seemed to mock him as the answers faded into nothingness. ‘Does God answer prayer?’ loomed larger and larger as a tormenting question. ‘Does He know and care? Your faith, your expectation ―what is the outcome?’ In his solitude, depression such as he had never known before closed down upon him. Was he really right in the course he had taken? Five years in China, and so little to show for it! Was there anything after all in his burden of prayer for the Lisu? How he dreaded the coming of some letter in a tone of sympathy― ‘Perhaps you have been mistaken,’ or ‘Are you sure you are in the will of God?’
Deeply were the foundations shaken in those days and nights of conflict, until Fraser realized that behind it all were ‘powers of darkness’, seeking to overwhelm him. He had dared to invade Satan’s kingdom, undisputed for ages. At first, vengeance had fallen on the Lisu inquirers, an easy prey. Now, he was himself attacked―and it was war to the death, spiritually. No one knew about it or imagined what the lonely pioneer was facing; that in his extremity he was even tempted, and that persistently, to make an end of it all. No one, did we say? Then how was it that succor reached him just at that time and in the very way to help him most? For it was then, when the rainy season was at its dreariest, that a messenger came from Tengyueh with letters and papers, one of which brought him light. Someone, strange to say, had sent him a copy of The Overcomer, a magazine with which Fraser was unfamiliar. Its appearance in the poor little shack in those Lisu mountains was surely timed by Omnipotent Love! for it set forth the very truth needed in that strange conflict, and ‘the truth shall make you free.’
The fact that came home to Fraser, as he pored over the welcome pages, reading and re-reading every word, was that Satan is indeed a conquered foe. Christ, our risen Lord, has in very truth ‘bruised his head’ upon the Cross of shame. ‘Having put off from Himself (through His death) the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.’ This he had held before, as a matter of doctrine. Now, it shone out for him in letters of light that victory is ours. Satan had desired to have him―determined, as he realized, upon wrecking him as a missionary, then and there. No words could tell what the long struggle in the dark had been. But now the Mighty Victor took him by the hand. What other Voice could have said as He said it―
‘“Triumph thou because of Me?” Overcome, overcome, “Even as I also overcame.”’
Long years before, in the life that seemed far away, Fraser had responded in obedience to the claims of that Glorious One Who, for him, had died upon the Cross. Now, in the Lisu mountains, he responded again and yet more deeply to the liberating power of the same Cross. ‘They overcame him (the great enemy) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.’ There, in that poor shack, the victory was won that was to mean life to thousands. The rest Fraser told long after, as far as words could tell it, in conversation with the writer.
I read it over and over―that number of The Overcomer. What it showed me was that deliverance from the power of the evil one comes through definite resistance on the ground of The Cross. I am an engineer and believe in things working. I want to see them work. I had found that much of the spiritual teaching one hears does not seem to work. My apprehension at any rate of other aspects of truth had broken down. The passive side of leaving everything to the Lord Jesus as our life, while blessedly true, was not all that was needed just then. Definite resistance on the ground of The Cross was what brought me light. For I found that it worked. I felt like a man perishing of thirst, to whom some beautiful, clear, cold water had begun to flow.
People will tell you, after a helpful meeting perhaps, that such and such a truth is the secret of victory. No: we need different truth at different times. ‘Look to the Lord,’ some will say. ‘Resist the devil,’ is also Scripture (James 4:77Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)). And I found it worked! That cloud of depression dispersed. I found that I could have victory in the spiritual realm whenever I wanted it. The Lord Himself resisted the devil vocally: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ I, in humble dependence on Him, did the same. I talked to Satan at that time, using the promises of Scripture as weapons. And they worked. Right then, the terrible oppression began to pass away. One had to learn, gradually, how to use the newfound weapon of resistance. I had so much to learn! It seemed as if God was saying:
‘You are crying to me to do a big work among the Lisu; I am wanting to do a big work in you yourself.’
And this aspect of truth opened up more and more. The enemy does not retire at the first setback. Some time later, Fraser was much tried by the persistent recurrence of evil thoughts. It almost came to be an obsession.
These thoughts were present with me [he said himself] even when I was preaching. I went out of the city (Tengyueh) to a hidden gully on the hillside, one of my prayer haunts, and there voiced my determined resistance to Satan in the matter. I claimed deliverance on the ground of my Redeemer’s victory on the Cross. I even shouted my resistance to Satan and all his thoughts. The obsession collapsed then and there, like a pack of cards, to return no more.
James 4:77Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7) is still in the Bible. Our Lord cried we are told ‘with a loud voice’ at the grave of Lazarus. He cried ‘with a loud voice’ from the Cross. In times of conflict I still find deliverance through repeating Scripture out loud, appropriate Scripture, brought to my mind through the Holy Spirit. It is like crashing through opposition. ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you.’
Another attack of the enemy at Little River came through the serious illness of Ah-do, the Lisu friend and companion from whom Fraser had hoped so much. His personality and gifts fitted him for leadership, and he had always been keen about making known the Gospel. But Ah-do was stricken down with what seemed like typhoid fever. Fraser did his best to care for him in those primitive surroundings, but the high temperature and delirium, with the fear of what it would mean to the work should he not recover, distressed him very much. Mental symptoms persisted even after he had been taken to Tengyueh for medical treatment. Prayer was answered and Ah-do’s life was spared, but for a long time he was quite unlike himself.
It is painful for me to see him in this condition [Fraser wrote to his mother]. He has a peculiar expression at times, such as I have never seen in his sane moments―sometimes a worn, harassed look, like a suffering old man, sometimes a dull, hard aspect of defiance. These uncanny moods of his are distressing.... He needs prayer, be sure of that―and I have not told you all that has been going on in my mind about this trouble.
Ah-do was to have accompanied Fraser on a journey to Tali, to meet one of the leaders of the tribal work in the east of the province. This was out of the question now, and it was doubtful if he would ever be the fellow-worker Fraser had longed for. But comfort was at hand in this trial also, for just as he was setting out on the eight days’ journey a mail arrived from home, telling of the definite formation of his Prayer Circle. This greatly cheered the way, so that he could write in cold and rain from an utterly wretched inn:
Time would fail to tell of all the help Fraser received from the visit to Tali and intercourse with Mr. Metcalf, who had come two weeks’ journey to meet him. Much was to be learned from this quiet, gracious man whom the Lord was using among the Lisu of the eastern district. His experience was generously made available to the younger missionary, whether regarding language study, methods of work or spiritual effectiveness. And in that city, beautiful for situation, they had good times together, enjoying the snowcapped mountains with their outlook over the far-reaching lake and distant ranges, and refreshed by the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Hanna and the Chinese Christians. On his return journey, Fraser was further encouraged by definite answers to prayer with regard to the important city of Paoshan. Five years previously he had found a hearing for the Gospel there, on his first evangelistic journey, but no one had been able to follow up the work. Now he was prospered in renting a shop on the busy street, in which he preached every evening through the month of August to more people than could be crowded in, many standing outside the open front to listen. It was a joy to be using his Chinese again and to have part in the opening of Paoshan as a permanent mission station. For the work thus begun was carried on by a devoted Chinese evangelist, the expense of renting and furnishing the preaching hall having been met by a gift from Mrs. Fraser through her son― ‘the very first preaching hall’, as he wrote, ‘in this large heathen city.’
And so renewed in vision and courage, Fraser came again to his main task. Five strenuous weeks were spent in visiting both the Kachin and Lisu villages in which he was already known and making friends in a number of others. Everywhere the feeling seemed to be the same―the little places must take their lead from the larger centers.
‘If the people of Tantsah would become Christians,’ was the refrain, ‘we would all turn with them.’
It seemed clear that Fraser must have some sort of home from which to carry on settled work, and after much thought and prayer this upland plain with its considerable Lisu population was decided upon. So to Tantsah Fraser went in the early autumn, as the rains were giving place to clear, cold winter. And cold it was up there, six thousand feet above sea level! But the forests supplied abundant fuel, and the headman of the Ts’ai family with whom Fraser had stayed before was warm in his welcome. A two-roomed shack to himself supplied all that was needed of comfort. Ah do was with him, recovered from his long illness and, with more than forty villages within easy reach, Fraser felt well in touch with his work. Living on their own level, wearing everyday Chinese garments and eating food they themselves provided, he was open at all times to the family and neighbours. Language study filled all spare moments, so that to his Lisu friends it must have seemed, as long ago to Rutherford’s flock at Anworth, that ‘he was always praying, always preaching, always visiting, always catechizing, always writing and studying.’ Though making progress with the spoken language, he was keenly feeling the need of books from which to teach the inquirers. This decided him at length to go down to Myitkyina to settle with Mr. Geis the much-discussed question of a Lisu form of writing.
But before leaving Tantsah for several weeks, Fraser felt that he should call together the chief Lisu of the district, to discuss their willingness or otherwise to receive him and his message. After hours spent in talking it all over, the majority said that they would like to become Christians, if Fraser would stay on with them and be their teacher. A simple meal together ratified this conclusion and sent him happily on his way to Burma.
After six years in that remote corner of China, it was a relief to exchange the crudities of pioneer life for a brief touch with the comforts of civilization. British Government outposts were found as soon as the border was crossed, and from six thousand feet high it was a glorious descent to the plains of the Irrawaddy. On the way Fraser’s spirits were rising. The beauty of Burma fascinated him and, unflinching as he was in enduring hardness when necessary, he had not lost his capacity for enjoyment. Several nights in Kachin hovels prepared him for a stay in passing at the Government rest house at Sadon.
You could not wish for a better place [he wrote to cheer his mother], so roomy and comfortable! You have it all to yourself and feel quite lordly. I have had a sort of light European meal which was nice... and a hot bath too, and feel altogether aristocratic! One enjoys things by contrast, you know. Excuse all this trivial stuff, dictated by the exuberance of the moment!
Full of interest were the two weeks spent at Myitkyina, in the large mission compound and among the Lisu of the jungle villages. Mr. Geis and Ba Thaw gave themselves to collaborating with their guest in working out a Lisu script and preparing an enlarged catechism. This accomplished, Fraser was eager to return to his promising field at Tantsah, where the prayers of years seemed about to be answered. Of the charm of Burma he wrote before leaving:
The air is balmy, the sunsets are rich and beautiful―the evening colors in the sky and on the hills are wonderfully soft, reflected from the lake-like surface of the Irrawaddy. I look up from this letter to a fine extensive view of wooded heights, bathed in the sunset glow, stretching perhaps sixty miles in some directions, abounding with sharp peaks and lofty ridges. Burma, beautiful Burma!
Six days’ journey lay before him, up and up to the rugged frontiers of his adopted country. It was good to be facing Chinawards again, though rumors that reached him from the first day out were not encouraging. Bad news travels fast, and it appeared that his friend and host at Tantsah was in serious trouble. Reports were vague at first, but Fraser’s apprehensions were increased as the journey proceeded, until at last messengers appeared who begged him to turn aside and on no account return to Tantsah. This, of course, he could not consider, but it was with a troubled heart he came again to his Lisu headquarters. He had been away barely a month, but the enemy had been busy. The situation is best explained in his own words.
The very day I left for Burma the Chinese of Tantsah who outnumber the Lisu began to circulate wild stories about me.... They said that I had come to the district with the intention of making it over to the British Government for money, and that Mr. Tsai was my accomplice. Also that Tsai’s going with me to Myitkyina to buy salt was a blind; his real purpose was to fetch the load of money the British Government was paying him! Some of them were for confiscating his house and property right away. Milder counsels however prevailed and they agreed to wait until his return.
When he got back, they held what could only be called an intimidation meeting. They summoned Tsai and all the Lisu who had eaten the meal with me that day... and after much argumentation made them sign an agreement that they would on no account turn Christian or allow me to come and live among them; otherwise they would have their homes and property confiscated. Tsai, as a kind of leader, was made to stand the cost of a meal for all present. The Lisu, overawed and alarmed, gave way entirely, and sent to me, like the Gadarenes of old, and besought me ‘to depart from their borders’ (Mark 5:1717And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. (Mark 5:17)).
One comfort in the sorrow of it all was that, as far as Fraser could judge, the attitude of his Lisu friends was not unfavorable. It was simply that they dared not receive him, or become Christians, in face of the opposition of their Chinese neighbors. If Fraser could obtain permission from higher authorities to return and live among them, they would like, he gathered, to do as they had said before he left for Burma. The really vital thing, however, was not this hopeful element, but the way in which Fraser reacted to the whole situation.
If such a thing had happened a year ago [he wrote to his Prayer Circle] it would have driven me down to depths of depression. I have given way to discouragement, dark discouragement, far too much in the past. Now I know rather better, and thoroughly agree with the assertion, ‘all discouragement is of the devil’. Discouragement is to be resisted just like sin. To give way to the one is just as bad and weakens us as much as to give way to the other. God has wonderfully sustained me through this trial, and to Him be all the praise when I say that not for one instant has it disturbed my peace or radiant faith in the risen and ascended Lord.... God has enabled me to trust Him more than ever before, to rejoice in Him more than ever before, and to believe more than ever before for a work of grace among the Lisu.