A Heritage of Mission
Stories of courage and self-sacrifice.
October 10, 2024 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | David Trim
John Nevins Andrews and his children, Charles and Mary, were the denomination’s first missionaries, but their departure to Switzerland was not, of course, the last departure of Adventist missionaries. In December 1875 the Canadian Adventist minister Daniel Bourdeau and his wife, Marion, were sent to Switzerland to help Andrews. In 1877 John Matteson, a Danish-American minister, and his wife, Anna, were sent as the first Seventh-day Adventist missionaries to Scandinavia. In 1878 John Loughborough and his wife, Anna, went as the first missionaries to Great Britain. Meanwhile, in November 1877 William and Jennie Ings and another female missionary, Maud Sisley, were sent to Switzerland to reinforce Andrews.
Other missionaries followed: to Switzerland, to Scandinavia, and to Britain. In 1878, meanwhile, Herbert Ribton, a self-supporting worker, went to Egypt with his wife, Adelaide, and daughter Nina, but in 1882 Ribton was murdered, and the mission in Egypt was abandoned. In 1885 the first missionaries officially sent by the denomination outside Europe sailed from America for Australia, a large party led by Stephen Haskell. Two years later another large party followed, sailing for South Africa under the leadership of Dores A. Robinson and his wife, Edna.
Missionaries in front of the British Mission House, Ravenswood, Shirley Road, Southhampton, May 19, 1882: (back row, left to right) Jennie Ings, Miss Thayer, Mrs. Gardner, Delmar Loughborough, Mary Jane Loughborough, Anna Loughborough, H. L. Jones (behind metal arch); (front row, left to right) William Ings, Mr. Gardner, Stephen Haskell, John Loughborough PC: Ellen G. White Estate
Seventh-day Adventists now had a presence on four continents, but administrative and financial difficulties slowed the pace of mission expansion in the 1890s. A major reorganization of the denomination, for mission, took place at the 1901 General Conference Session, concluded at the 1903 Session, and thereafter the numbers of missionaries sent out each year increased dramatically and in general kept increasing for the next 70 years, except during the two world wars and the Great Depression.
As more missionaries went out, however, there were more stories of tragedy. Worldwide mission in the early twentieth century meant working in places where all kinds of tropical diseases were endemic, for many of which there was no cure, at least at the start of the twentieth century. Many missionaries died—most are forgotten today, but not by our heavenly Father. What is remarkable is that there was never any shortage of new missionaries to replace those who fell in the line of duty. Also extraordinary is that what was often on the mind of dying missionaries, or their loved ones, was the need for new missionaries to come out and join the work.
In June 1903, for example, Joseph Watson, his wife, Mabel, and their son Romaine arrived at Malamulo Mission Station, in what was then Nyasaland (today’s country of Malawi). Sadly, Joseph soon contracted cerebral malaria and died on December 11, 1903. He was buried at Malamulo, where his body still lies today in a quiet grave. Joseph had served as a missionary for only six months.
In a letter written shortly before his death, Joseph stated: “I am satisfied that this great continent of Africa is not to be warned of the coming of the Lord without much hard work and some real sacrifice. But so many seem to think that the Lord will perform wonderful miracles while we stand by and look on and see the results.”1
In 1905 Charles Enoch went with his wife, also a nurse, and a young child to the West Indies as medical missionaries. The Enoch family landed in Barbados in November 1905 and opened treatment rooms in Bridgetown. In 1906 they moved 200 miles to the southwest, to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, where Charles’s brother, George, had served since 1901. The Enochs opened a new treatment room, but Charles contracted yellow fever on February 1, 1907, and died on February 5. He had been in the Caribbean for a little more than 14 months.2
George Enoch wrote of his brother Charles: “I am thankful that he died at his post of duty. . . . We have no regrets to offer, but take this bereavement as one more link to bind our lives on the altar of missionary endeavor.” George acknowledged that “our hearts are bowed in sadness,” but his real concern is evident when he writes, “Still the thought presses heavily upon us, Will this branch of the work in the West Indies, which we strove together so hard to get upon its feet, be now left to languish for the lack of consecrated workers?”
Dr. Maude Amelia Thompson was a classmate of Dr. Harry W. Miller’s at the American Medical Missionary College; they graduated in 1902, when Maude was still only 22 years old. The two doctors married on July 2, 1902, and in 1903 they were called to serve as missionaries in China. According to colleagues, Maude preferred to wear Chinese dress, and “she worked energetically in mastering the language and teaching the gospel as well as caring for the large number of sick children and women” who came “every day” for treatment.
In the winter of 1904-1905 Maude contracted sprue, a tropical disease with horrible symptoms. And yet, as fellow missionaries marveled: “During her illness her hope and courage found many expressions which we cherish to our comfort. . . . Although we do not understand the reason,” they continued, “we know God’s ways are . . . above our ways. May the seed of a consecrated life laid down in the line of duty and self-sacrifice be watered of God to bring forth a glorious harvest of souls from China ere the soon coming of our King.”3
The examples and the sentiments are humbling. May the spirit of courage and self-sacrifice that characterized early Adventist missionaries be alive and well in the Adventist Church today, that the three angels’ messages may boldly be proclaimed throughout the world.
1 Michael W. Campbell, “Joseph H. Watson (1869-1903) and Mabel Edith (Aldrich) (later Bailey) (1876-1964),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=7JA1.
2 The story of the Enochs is taken from D.J.B. Trim, A Living Sacrifice: Unsung Heroes of Adventist Mission (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 2019), pp. 50, 51.
3 Ibid., pp. 58, 59.