A Notice in Liverpool

“How shall they hear without a preacher?” — from Romans 10

Back in England, the Studds had very little money, but family and friends helped them. Charlie spoke at meetings when he was well enough. In 1896 he went to America and spent about eighteen months visiting universities, telling students about Jesus and about the millions who had never heard of him.

In 1900 the family moved to Ootacamund, a town high in the cool hills of southern India, and Charlie became the pastor of a church there for about six years. The family was together, and the girls were growing up. Many people would have been glad to stay. But Charlie kept thinking about people who had never heard of Jesus at all. In 1906, ill again, he brought the family home.

One day in 1908, walking in the city of Liverpool, Charlie saw a notice outside a hall. Inside, a German missionary named Karl Kumm was talking about Africa. He told of peoples in the middle of Africa who had never heard about Jesus. Traders, hunters and slave-catchers had reached them, but no one had come to tell them the good news.

Charlie came out with a question he could not forget. Why had no Christians gone to these people? Because nobody had been sent. And then a second question: why should he not go himself?

Most people thought it was a crazy idea. Charlie was forty-seven. He had asthma, he had been ill many times, and he had no money of his own. Priscilla was unwell, and she did not want him to go. But at the end of 1910 he sailed to Africa to see for himself. In the far south of Sudan he learned that in the north-east corner of the Congo lived many people who had hardly heard of Jesus.

The Bible asks, How will people hear about Jesus if nobody tells them? You can be someone who tells. You can tell a friend what Jesus means to you, and you can pray for people far away who have never heard of him.

Dear God, please send people to tell everyone about Jesus. Help me to tell my friends about you too. Amen.