IT was some weeks after Cooke’s return from the Cold Country’ before the sequel to his visit became known, when one of the Lisu companions he had left behind turned up in Tengyueh, eager to find Fraser, with a long order for Gospels, hymnbooks and catechisms.
‘But who are they for?’ was the natural question.
‘Why, for all the converts in our Christian villages.’
‘All the converts! Are they then so many?’
‘Yes, scores of families! And more are coming in.’
It then transpired that the young messenger would have come before but that he and his companion had so many inquirers on their hands that neither of them could be spared. Now the need for books was urgent, and he had left everything and taken the six days’ journey, alone, to procure them.
‘But the inquirers cannot read, as yet.’
‘Oh, yes, we have taught them!’ came the eager answer. ‘And many of the younger people can write as well.’
And so the vision dawned upon Fraser and his colleagues―a work of God, a new development, almost apart from their own efforts, yet the answer to and fruit of years of prayer. With what joy the remembrance came to Fraser, then and after, of his ‘prayer of faith’ in Burma, five years previously!
I believe it was January 12, 1915, that I was definitely led to ask God for ‘several hundreds of families’ from the Lisu. Some may say, ‘Your prayer has at last been answered.’ No! I took the answer then. I believed then that I had it. The realization has only now come, it is true, but God does not keep us waiting for answers. He gives them at once. Dan. 9:2323At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. (Daniel 9:23).
How wonderful it was now to listen as, bit by bit, the young Lisu told his story! After Allyn Cooke had left the Hsiangta district to return to Chinese study, the converts themselves went on with their joyous testimony even beyond their own clan. It was the middle of the New Year season, the one general holiday of the year; people were more or less at leisure, and the dry, sunny days made it easy to be out of doors. From village to village and from house to house the Lisu lads (‘teachers’ they now called them) were escorted as interest spread. For the turning of the Fish family when Cooke was there, was only the beginning. It was the surrender, the test case so to speak. Paul, who had come out then so strongly, continued to take the lead, and the Lord used the Lisu lads from Tengyueh as if they had been mature Christians. Wherever they went, there was blessing.
It is marvelous―the people God uses! [commented Allyn Cooke, recalling it all]. Before long the new Christians were able to teach others, and so the work went on and on. They sent in to Tengyueh for loads of books, the money for which had been paid to leaders out there, appointed by the two who had been with me.
Fraser was eager, of course, to see for himself just what was going on; but it was some time before he could be free to revisit the district, and then it was by way of a route he had not taken before. For he found it necessary to go down to Rangoon to see about the printing of their Lisu literature. The work was being held up for lack of Gospels, hymnbooks and catechisms, for which people in the new district were clamoring. He could not leave Tengyueh until the return of Flagg from his wedding journey, but as soon as the latter was established with his bride in charge of the city work, Fraser set out on the sixteen days’ journey, taking with him Cooke, whose eyes needed skilled attention.
The Rangoon business completed, Cooke returned to Tengyueh by what is now the Burma Road, but Fraser struck across country to the east, reaching the China border where the Salween makes its great bend round the Hsiangta district. There, to the north of him lay the scene of the new spiritual movement, but Fraser’s thoughts were focused upon a nearer point just then―a village only a few miles away, across the river and up the mountain rampart beyond. About that place he had been burdened in conscience for more than five years, on account of a lost opportunity at the time of his previous visit. Hastening homeward after a long absence from Tengyueh―a messenger having been sent to find him―he had been stopped by a Lisu woman at her door in that particular hamlet.
‘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, and 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 shot went home, but Fraser hastened on. A lost opportunity―how he had regretted it! He had prayed about the place for years. Was he, now, to have another chance?
The ferry came and Fraser crossed the river, but the Lisu who was carrying his load would go no further, and he was stranded on the northern bank until another could be found to take him on up the mountain. Waiting there hour after hour, he was interested in two men who came down to the shore he had just left and seemed to be calling for the ferry. They were very persistent, shouting for a long time, but he could not hear what they said. The river was wide, and no one paid any attention. It was not until months later he discovered that it was for the foreign teacher they had been calling, sent from a group of Lisu villages to bring him back with them that they, too, might hear his message. For the breath of God was stirring hearts all through that remote region, so low, without the Word of Life.
Somewhere in the mountains before him, Fraser was expecting to run across his two young evangelists la the midst of their work, and it was no little joy to find them in one of the first stopping places above the Salween.
much there was to hear and to ask! They had already been some time in that very locality, which little as they realized it then, was to become the chief center of the new movement. Quite a number of villages on these mountain slopes were already more or less Christian―and, yes, that place about which Fraser seemed specially interested was among them. The woman who had called him was the wife of Pa Tsong-si, both of whom were among the first to believe, and just beyond their hamlet lay Sinchaiho, the larger village to which Fraser was soon taken. Between the two places he must have passed the ridge―silent then and unaware―on which the central station of Muchengpo was soon to stand, shedding broad beams of light, both near and far. Of this part of the journey he wrote to his prayer helpers
I wish you could have been with me as I went from village to village, to have seen the royal reception they gave me! And you would have shared in it too. What with the playing of their bagpipes; the firing off of guns, the lining-up of all the villagers, men and women, young and old, to shake hands with you (they use both hands, thinking it more respectful) you have a feeling of being overwhelmed ―an ‘overweight of joy’.
In that district and in the ‘Cold Country’ further north, Fraser stayed on for weeks—indeed there was no getting away until he went down with fever, through overstrain, and had to return to Tengyueh for a time. ‘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’. It was the rainy son, but in spite of frequent downpours, often wet through and weary, Fraser tramped from hamlet to hamlet, on just the food the little homes could provide, sleeping on a bamboo mat at night by some log fire, with all the household round him, and scarcely ever out of a crowd by day. It seemed as if the people never left him, the young folk especially, who would go on singing the hymns he had taught them, long after he had fallen into uneasy slumber. There seemed no limit to their vitality and friendliness. ‘Almost the whole village would stay with one all day long, crowding the room to suffocation round the fire.’ And many were the hearts the Lord opened.
Some things specially please me about this new Eastern district [the above letter continued]. In the first place, the work was practically begun and has been almost wholly carried on by the Lisu themselves, however raw and poorly trained. They have not only passed on the little they know, but have taught others to teach in their turn. So many of these young people and children had learned to read and write, in an elementary way, that I was flooded with little notes and have not yet found time to read them all.
Another matter for thankfulness is that the proportion of Christians to heathen is so large. In some vicinities scarcely any heathen families remain. This is a great advantage, as it considerably lessens temptation and complications. Last but not least, practically all the converts agree not to plant opium. This will pave the way for baptisms and the formation of churches in due time.... They want to have a large gathering at Christmas. Will you pray that it may be a time of much blessing—as also the Christmas we hope to celebrate again at Turtle Village?
‘If all this is not an answer to prayer,’ Fraser urged, ‘what is it?’
Up to the present I find that in this new district alone there are over two hundred and forty families professing to be Christian. The total number of converts in the districts previously worked, of which I have sent you maps, is over one hundred and eighty families of Lisu and more than twenty families of Kachin. So there are now, in all, about four hundred and fifty families of tribespeople for whose teaching and shepherding we are responsible. This represents over two thousand people, young and old, for the average family out here numbers about five persons.
‘Rejoice with me,’ he briefly concluded, ‘and pray on for them all, in every phase of need you can think of.’