Wi-yu’s father and mother were pagans. She never heard a word about Jesus Christ till she came to our home for we were missionaries among her tribe. One day Wi-yu walked up to me and said: “I want to give myself away to you.” I was much surprised but looked into the little girl’s black eyes, and said: “Why does Wi-yu wish I give herself to me?” “Because,” she said simply, “I love you,” After this they called Wi-yu my little girl.
One day while Wi-yu sat by me learning how to hem a pocket handkerchief neatly, I asked her if she loved Jesus, for I had been talking to her about Him. “No,” she said, “I don’t, but I want to I want to be a Christian, but I’m too little.”
“But Jesus says, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me.’”
“I don’t know how to go to Him; I don’t know what to do,” said she “Wi-yu,” said I, “you must give yourself away to Him.”
She looked at me in surprise. “How can I do that?” she exclaimed.
“How did you give yourself to me?” “I came to you and asked you to take me because I loved you.”
“Why do you love me, dear?” She hesitated a moment, and then answered: “I think it must he because you love me.”
“Yes, Wi-yu, that is just the reason. Now Jesus has been loving you all this time, while you have not been caring the least for Him.”
“Would Jesus be willing for me to give myself away to Him just as I did to you?”
“Certainly, my dear child; that is exactly what He wants you to do, He wants all of you too.”
After some more quiet thinking Wi-yu kneeled by my side and said, “Lord Jesus, I give myself to Thee. I give my hands, ray feet, my mouth, my tongue, and my heart. I give Thee all of myself. Please take me, dear Lord Jesus.”
She arose and said, “Do you think He heard me?”
“I am sure of it,” said I, “and you will find His promise in your little Testament.” Together we found these precious words in her Indian Testament: “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37). Believing that Jesus meant just what He said, she from that moment knew that she was His own dear saved child.
A few days after I said to her: “Wi-yu, after you had given yourself to me, did you try any harder to please me?”
“Oh, yes!” said she, with a bright face. “I tried to please you in everything, even in the very little things.”
“Are you willing to do anything to please Jesus?”
“I think I am,” she answered.
“Will you tell the other girls that you are now trying to live a Christian life?”
She hung her head and blushed. “I am ashamed to tell them,” she said.
“Were you ashamed to tell them that you had given yourself to me?” “Oh, no, indeed!”
“And yet, my Wi-yu, you are ashamed of Jesus, your most precious Friend, your wonderful Friend, who loves you so much and who saved you from your sins. Oh, Wi-yu! Wi-yu! Let us ask Him now to forgive you and help you to please Him, even in this.”
We kneeled down and Wi-yu said with a voice choking with sobs: “My own dear Lord Jesus, please forgive me for being ashamed and afraid, and help me to tell them all that I have given myself away to Thee.”
When we arose she said: “I can tell them now; I will tell everybody.”
On her way to find her schoolmates, she met a preacher who was visiting the Indians. She was afraid of him, because he was a stranger, but mustering up all her courage she looked up to him and said, “I have given myself away to Jesus.”
He was much surprised and touched, as he thought of his daughter at home who knew so much more about Jesus than this little Indian girl, and had not begun to love Him. He put his arm about the little timid Wi-yu and said some very kind and helpful things to her. After this she found it easier to tell them all, and she even gained courage to write to her stern pagan father, although she was quite sure that he would be angry with her. Here is a copy of her letter: “My dear Father: I have given myself away to Jesus, and I am not ashamed nor afraid to tell it.”
Her father was alone when this message reached him, and nobody knows what he thought. But the very next Sunday he walked several miles to the mission and heard the missionary preach about the same Jesus to whom his little daughter had given herself. After that be kept coming until he too became a Christian.
ML 04/23/1961