Of all the privileges God has given me, none has been greater than that of being a missionary.
I cannot remember a time when I did not hope that God would give me the opportunity to be a missionary.
A famous missionary said: 'The evangelisation of the heathen world is a desperate struggle with the prince of darkness; it is a serious task.' That might be enough to turn a young person off. When I was four years-old, a young woman who was on her way to China visited our home. Her name was Betty Scott. She was going to China to marry her fiance, John Stam. Four years later, my father told us the horrifying story of how John and Betty Stam had been captured by Chinese communists, stripped half-naked, marched with chains through the streets of the little Chinese village in which they had been ministering; how Betty was forced to watch while her husband had his head chopped off, and how she was then required to put her head on the chopping block and was likewise beheaded. You might imagine that an eight year-old child would be completely turned off from ever wanting to be a missionary. But that story had quite the opposite effect: it spurred me on.
