Quote - Missionary

Hymn - Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary

Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary

1. Days are filled with sorrow and care,
Hearts are lonely and drear.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near.

CHORUS:
Burdens are lifted at Calvary, Calvary, Calvary;
Burdens are lifted at Calvary, Jesus is very near.

2. Cast your care on Jesus today,
Leave your worry and fear.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near.

3. Troubled soul, the Savior can feel
Every heartache and tear.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near.

By the Grace of God I am......

1 Corinthians 15:10 – “By the Grace of God I am that I am”

Adopted – Romans 8:15

Redeemed – Galatians 3:13

Justified – Galatians 2:16

Sanctified –  Hebrews 10:10

Saved – Romans 5:10

Called to Serve - Romans 12:1-2

Sent to preach – Mark 16:15

Child of the King – Romans 8:16

Joint Heir with Christ – Romans 8:17

Put in trust with the Gospel – 1 Thessalonians 2:4

Soldier – 2 Timothy 2:3

Husbandman – 2 Timothy 2:6

Workman – 2 Timothy 2:15

Servant – 2 Timothy 2:24

Son – John 1:12

And the list goes on.......

Hymn - One Day

One Day

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises,
One day when sin was as black as could be,
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin,
Dwelt among men, my Example is He!

Refrain

Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely forever;
One day He’s coming—O glorious day!

One day they led Him up Calvary’s mountain,
One day they nailed Him to die on the tree;
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected:
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He!

Refrain

One day they left Him alone in the garden,
One day He rested, from suffering free;
Angels came down o’er His tomb to keep vigil;
Hope of the hopeless, my Savior is He!

Refrain

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer,
One day the stone rolled away from the door;
Then He arose, over death He had conquered;
Now is ascended, my Lord evermore!

Refrain

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming,
One day the skies with His glories will shine;
Wonderful day, my belovèd ones bringing;
Glorious Savior, this Jesus is mine!

Refrain

Quote - Missionary Jim Elliot

Missionary Bio's - John Hardy Neesima (Part 3)

Part 3

 

    In October, after an absence of ten years, Neesima left New York for his native land. The changes that had taken place there seemed to him almost incredible. He found a national line of steamers, lighthouses at all important coast points, a general telegraphic system, a postal service, an organized navy, and a railway between Yokohama and the capital. In the treaty ports small Protestant churches had been established ; but in visiting his parents at Annoka, directly after his arrival in Japan, Neesima was the first to carry the gospel to the interior, and here he founded one of the most genuinely Christian communities in Japan.

     Neesima arrived at Osaka, the home of the American Board Mission, Jan. 22, and here he planned to establish a Christian school with a broad collegiate course ; but meeting with opposition, he gave up the project, and turned his steps towards Kyoto. Here he met with many and varied difficulties, but by persistent effort opened, Nov. 25, 1875, the Doshisha, with eight pupils. The winter of 1875 was one of hardship and discouragement; but assisted by the Rev. J. D. Davis, D.D., he maintained the school, which constantly increased in numbers.

      On Jan. 2, 1876, Neesima was married to the sister of the counsellor to the Kyoto Fu. She had been a teacher in the government school for girls, but her engagement to a Christian caused her discharge. After her marriage she entered fully into her husband's life-work ; and in their house, provided by Mr. J. M. Sears of Boston, services were constantly held, and Christian teaching promulgated.

    From 1876 to 1884 Mr. Neesima's life was filled with trials, and obstacles of every kind threatened the very existence of the Doshisha. The fact that the school, while nominally a Japanese company, was in reality supported from foreign means, caused an attack which compelled Mr. Neesima to write to the Prudential Committee for a permanent endowment ; and in November, 1879, he received the joyful tidings that the year's appropriation of eight thousand dollars would soon be placed under his direction for the educational work in Kyoto. The keynote of true teaching was struck by Mr. Neesima's effort to disseminate Christianity through an educated ministry. In 1880 he writes: "Try to send out choice men, Christians must not be charged with being ignoramuses, or we shall be ridiculed for our lack of learning as well as for our faith. We need the broadest culture and Christian spirit to counteract the downward tendency of our educated youth."

     Through all his work Mr. Neesima entertained the hope born at Andover of a Christian university at Japan, and determined to raise endowments for history, philosophy, political economy, law, and

medicine. His personal activity in this direction was incessant ; but, his health failing, he accepted in 1884 an invitation for rest and change from the Board, and visited Europe and America. During this trip he everywhere inspected schools and colleges, and noted in detail methods and results, and made plans of buildings and apparatus.

    He arrived in Boston, Sept. 27, 1884; but even there he was not freed from care and responsibilities. The outlook in Japan was broadening, and the demand great to place the Doshisha upon a university basis ; and he was looked upon as the medium between Japan and the source of its supply.

     In December it became necessary for him to go to Clifton Springs, N.Y., for rest at the Sanitarium. He left there in March, 1885, somewhat better in health, and cheered by the news that fifty thousand dollars had been appropriated for the Japan mission. He arrived at Yokohama Dec. 12, 1885, "and found five hundred friends, students, teachers, relatives, and prominent citizens," assembled there to meet him. The day after this the tenth anniversary of the Doshisha was celebrated, and the corner-stone of two new buildings laid. The school was in a flourishing condition ; and the Japanese boy of long ago was now, by acclamation of its faculty, president of the college.

   Two years later Amherst College conferred upon Neesima the degree of doctor of laws. May 17, 1887, an income of not less than twenty-five hundred dollars per annum was assured to the Doshisha by the American Board. In April, 1888, a meeting was held in the great Buddhist temple of Chionin in Kyoto, to consider the question of a university endowment. In July a dinner was given to Mr. Neesima by the late minister of foreign affairs, that he might present this question to distinguished Japanese guests. At this dinner Mr. Neesima fainted, worn out by his efforts. The result of the meeting was a pledge of thirty thousand dollars to the university. In the summer of 1888 he was told by his physicians that he had not long to live, and by their advice was taken to a mountain resort (Ikao) ; here he was cheered by the gift to the Doshisha of a hundred thousand dollars from Mr. J. N. Harris of New London, Conn. Writing to Mr. Harris, Mr. Neesima says, " A donation like this is unknown and unprecedented in our country."

    During the summer months of 1889 Neesima's health seemed to improve ; and after seeing the foundation for the new science building laid, he went to Tokyo to work for the endowment fund ; but rest was again advised by his physicians, and he went to Oiso ; and here, Jan. 23, 1890, he died. On the news of Mr. Neesima's dangerous illness, the students of Doshisha were with difficulty restrained from proceeding in a body to his bedside. On Jan. 24 the body was taken to Kyoto, where the funeral services took place, Jan. 27, in presence of the school, graduates from all parts of the empire, city authorities, and representatives of foreign missions. In the procession (a mile and a half in length) was seen a delegation of priests bearing the inscription, " From the Buddhists of Osaka." Truly no private citizen ever died in Japan whose loss was so widely and so deeply felt as that of Mr. Neesima.

    On the plain below Kyoto stands his outward monument, the Doshisha, from whose walls have come the most powerful factors in the civilization of new Japan ; but in the lives of the men about him is written the endurance of his influence, the divinity of his soul.

Hymn - To God Be The Glory

To God Be the Glory

To God be the glory, great things he hath done!
So loved he the world that he gave us his Son,
who yielded his life an atonement for sin,
and opened the lifegate that all may go in.

Refrain:
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done!

2. O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
to every believer the promise of God;
the vilest offender who truly believes,
that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
(Refrain)

3. Great things he hath taught us, great things he hath done,
and great our rejoicing thru Jesus the Son;
but purer, and higher, and greater will be
our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.
(Refrain)

Missionary Bio's - John Hardy Neesima (Part 2)

Part 2

 

At this time no missionaries were allowed in Japan. So Neesima, recognizing God as the only father to whom he owed life fealty, determined to break the environments of his youth, and to leave temporarily his home and country. With some difficulty he obtained first his prince's, then his parents', sanction to leave Yedo, ostensibly to go to Hakodate, and in the spring of 1864 went thither. Neesima, always thinking of his country and its conditions, watched closely the people of Hakodate, and, painfully cognizant of their corrupt existence, determined that Japan needed moral reformation more than mere material progress. His desire to visit a foreign land he confided to a Japanese clerk employed by an English merchant. This friend at midnight and with great difficulty conveyed Neesima in a row-boat alongside an American vessel, whose kind-hearted captain had consented to take the Japanese boy as far as China. At Shanghai, Neesima was transferred to the American ship Wild Rover, whose captain employed Neesima to wait upon the table ; and not liking "Shimeta," called " his boy" Joe, and was uniformly kind to him. After a four months' voyage the ship reached Boston Harbor ; and through the kind interest of Captain Taylor, Neesima was introduced to the owner of the Wild Rover, Mr. Alpheus Hardy, one of Boston's noblest philanthropists. He became at once interested in the boy, and, with Mrs. Hardy, assumed the responsibility of his education.

    In September,1865, he entered the English department of Phillips Academy, Andover. Here he

remained until 1867, when his benefactors sent him to Amherst. His letters during his student life tell of frequent illnesses, which at times interfered with his work, of his tramps through different States during vacation, of letters from his Japanese parents, of his anxiety about his home affairs during the rise of the princes against the shogun in 1868-1869, of his growing spirituality, and of his heartfelt gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Hardy. In a letter dated March 21, 1871, Neesima writes that he met in Boston, Mori, the Japanese minister sent to Washington by the mikado. Mr. Mori offered to reimburse Mr. Hardy for Neesima's educational expenses, and thereby make Neesima subject to Japanese government. Mr. Hardy at once declined the proposition. On Sept. 17, 1871, Neesima wrote to Mrs. Hardy that he had received a passport from the Japanese government, and that from the same source his father had received a paper saying : "It is permitted by the government to Neesima Shimeta to remain and study in the United States of America.”

   In 1872 an embassy representing the imperial government of the Mikado visited America and Europe on visits of inquiry into Western civilization ; and Minister Mori summoned Mr. Neesima to Washington to meet the embassy, and to assist Mr. Tanaka, the commissioner of education. In this way Mr. Neesima became acquainted with the most progressive men of new Japan, whose friendship in later years was of great value to him. Fearing, however, that his plan to return to Japan as a free advocate of Christianity might be endangered, he carefully stipulated that Mr. Mori should state to the embassy that any service desired of him would be undertaken only under a contract that freed him from all obligation to the Japanese government. Under these circumstances he was engaged, and soon proved so valuable an assistant, that Mr. Tanaka insisted upon his accompanying the embassy to Europe. There he gave all his time to the study of the best methods of learning in schools and institutions of all grades ; and on the basis of his reports was built to-day's educational system in Japan-. From this European trip with the embassy Mr. Neesima returned to Andover in September, 1873.

     In March, 1874, Mr. Neesima formally offered himself to the American Board, and July 2 was appointed corresponding member to the Japanese mission. He was graduated as a special student from Andover Theological Seminary, and ordained in Boston, September 24. The Board held its sixty-fifth annual meeting at Rutland, Vt., that autumn, and Mr. Neesima spoke on the establishment of a Christian college in Japan. By his soul-felt enthusiasm the young Japanese carried his audience with him ; $5 ,000 was at once subscribed, and Neesima's dream became a reality.

Psalm 112:7 - The Heart

Psalm 112:7 - The Heart

•         Daniel 10:12 – Daniel set his heart to understand the things of God

•         Ps 112:7 – The psalmist heart is fixed trusting in the Lord

•         Psalm 112:8 – Heart established will not be afraid

•         Job 41:24 – a heart as firm as a stone

•         Psalm 119:10 – Sought thee with my whole heart

•         Psalm 119:11 – Word hid in the heart

•         Psalm 119:34 – Observe the Law with my whole heart

•         Psalm 119:111 – God’s testimonies, the rejoicing of the heart

•         119:112 – Heart inclined to perform statutes

•         119:161 – Heart standeth in Awe of God’s word

•         131:1 – Heart not haughty

•         Psalm 111:1 – Praise the Lord with my whole heart

•         Ecclesiastes  1:13 – Gave my heart (To understand the world, not God

•         Ecclesiastes  1:17 – Gave my heart to know wisdom, madness, folly

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