Page 6 - History of Arabian Mission 1926-1957

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uiscipline - suspension from full fellowship, and dismissal from his Job as Religious leaders were sent from Baghdad to preach in the mosques
colporteur. Through all this time of seven months, the true story of his sin against Questions, and. a traveller from Yemen Joined in the campaign. Funds
was never hidden from anybody and he faced up to it in the bazaar. Ho re­ were raised to open and maintain an anti-Christian religious bookshop. Spies
mained faithful in his witness within the group and outside.
were sent to meetings e.t the Mission.
Both men and women have accepted responsibility for meetings end when The keeper ot the Bible shop, a convert from Islam, was persecuted
we were not in the station all the services were divided among them. mercilessly by th.fi leaders of the anti-Christian campaign. He was taken to
the edge of towk by a Mullah who poured gasoline over his clothes and actually
Christians give a set sum every month; church offerings have increased began to set. £ls*e to with the dire warning, "Recant, or elsel"
so that we are able to support a former teacher in the tuberculosis sanatorium
in India. Two children of converts were received into the church on confes­ After i&Ad ho sold his furniture and burned all his copies of Scrip­
sion of faith. ture and Christies* books. He was then associated with the opponents of the
Mission and apgtt&xisd to aid them for a time.
The Bible shop, hospital evangelism, and touring by the clergymen end
doctors have all had a prominent share in the work of Muscat station, The "Inquirers^ one b,y one, disappeared or discontinued coming," wrote
women's evangelistic report for 1956 closes with these words: "There Is a Mr. Moerdykv "Only three inquirers and sometimes a fourth now come to our
fine community spirit, a co-operation and an integration between church, school, classes for instruction* Our Sunday and weekday meetings, which had been so
and hospitals. The morning prayers are attended by those employed by the Mis­ well attended p/.’calelng, are now attended only by the Christian mission
sion, those within the church, the teachers in the school, those in. the hospi­ helpers end theis* families and by the Christian teachers in the government
tal. Mat rah and Muscat each has its own work and program, but ve get together schools; by our little band of confessing Christians and inquirers; by Muslim
for midweek prayer meeting and on Sundays." servants in cur earploy, and by a few swisiders, some of whom are known to be
spies. It almost seems like baTing ~ begin again from the beginning.'1
The foundations laid by the pioneers in evangelistic work - Peter
Zwener, the Cantines, the Bamys and Miss Fanny Button - were built on by the In spite of all this opposition the new chapel built during this
Van Peursems, the Pennings, Rena and Ann Harrison, the Dykstras, 3eth Thoms, period was always well filled, Sabeans as veil as Muslims were among the in-
Jeanette Boersma, the Xapengas, and ELoise Bosch. quirers, and two young women of the former faith were converted to Christian­
ity and baptized. Likewise two of the women from the leper colony were
The peculiarly warn and close fellowship in the Muscat church is no baptized and maintained a steadfast witness as long as they lived. Several
. doubt partly due to the fact that the rising tide of materialism, which creates men among the lepers gave a fine and consistent Christian testimony.
such a problem in some of our stations has not yet engulfed Muscat. Life is
simpler there and there are fewer distractions. Persecution and opposition Over the years, the witness was maintained, and the little church, in
only draw them more closely together. spite of dangers from without and difficulties from within, made steady growth.
Amarah. The sequel to the convert's story should be told here for it has a
happy ending, He said long afterwards that he never knew a happy day after
Our northernmost station, Amarah, in Iraq, has a more mixed membership he denied Christ. He went from Amarah to Basrah and tried unsuccessfully to
in its church fellowship. There are Arab Christians from different groups of find a job, then walked barefoot to Baghdad in summer - over three hundred
the historic Eastern churches, as well as converts from Islam. mLles. He made a precarious living as an itinerant peddler, and went to the
mission Bible shop every day. Mr. Hakken, on his arrival to take charge of
In 1926 there were several baptisms of converts from Islam, and groups the work in Baghdad, saw him there, reading one of the Bibles in the shop and
of inquirers - some who came privately by night, like Nicodemus - were so bowing in prayer, and never missing a meeting. After a long period of pro­
numerous that the little courtyard of the Arab house where the missionaries bation he was re-admitted to the Christian fellowship and took communion, and
lived would hardly hold them, and the need for a chapel was acute. eventually became a colporteur. His simple faith and sincerity attract people
to him, and his loving care of his mother during a long illness made a great
A wave of fanaticism followed this upsurge of interest and a year or impression on his friends and neighbors, She was baptized shortly before her
two later James Moerdyk sadly wrote: "And there are many adversaries." He death, having been won to Christ by her son's influence and example. Mr.
went on: "For some reason or other the Muslim zealots of the Sunnis, and more Ilakken says of him now, "He is the best convert we have."
particularly those of the Nejaf Shiahs, seem to have taken to themselves the
duty of arousing the people against our Christians and inquirers. Early in In 1954 it was reported: "By far the most hopeful feature of this
the year letters and even in some cases telegrams were sent to different towns past, year's work in Amarah has been the apparent development of a certain
far and near, reporting that numbers of Muslims were becoming Christians, and runount of cohesiveness and mutual concern among church members - both those
calling upon the religious leaders to come and help before it was too late. from Christian and non-Christian backgrounds."
Wonderfully exaggerated stories were invented and circulated: for example,
that as many as one hundred women and girls had been sent off to America in The men of the Amarah group are beginning to assume more responsibility
one lot, and many men and boys were given regular monthly stipends for coming for the regular program. During the absence of the minister from Amarah this
to our meetings and for witnessing that they were Christians." past summer, the men of the church carried on regular Sunday morning and prayer
I