he died thinking he'd made no difference

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Dr. William Leslie (1868-1935) was a Canadian-born medical missionary who went to the deep African Congo with his wife and children in 1893. He worked amongst the Yansi people there, teaching the tribal children to read and write, and teaching the adults about the Bible. Many of his travels involved miles and miles to reach the innermost areas in the jungle, starting a mission at the village of Vanga. His three youngest children were born there.

In 1910, after 17 years of service, Dr Leslie and one of the village chiefs had a falling-out and he was asked to leave. While they did reconcile, Dr Leslie came back with his family to America, and for the rest of his life he felt he hadn't made a difference to the Africans he had tried so hard to serve.

100 years later, in 2010, a missionary team flew into the Congo area and made a trip up the river, thinking they would find uncultured natives who may only have a remote, if any, knowledge of the Bible.

What they found were actual church buildings (including a 1000-seat stone "cathedral", congregations, and believers, all beginning from Dr Leslie's mission. The only Bible they had was an old French Bible, presumably left by Dr Leslie.

Here's the story: Dr. Leslie

[M. T. Cross]

Thats a pretty cool story

[Naomi]

Great story and a good reminder that we may never know how we have influenced those with whom we come into contact: negative or positive.

[Tom Wetmore]

Great story! I have come to accept that only time will tell the impact of any of our lives and that even the simplistic and seemingly insignificant acts or words of kindness or goodness do set in motion a chain of events that can have lasting effects and even grow and multiply as this story illustrates. No life is a failure in God's reckoning. If he can take mud and make man, the muddies of our own feeble efforts and "failures" are just an opportunity for God to start working to create something new, good and amazing!

My story is far less dramatic, although I can identify with that experience in a small way. My wife and I spent a year in Indonesia as student missionaries over 35 I years ago. We primarily taught English as a second language. Most of our students were Muslim and Buddists. But our mission was to develop friendships and plant seeds. To further their English language exposure we gave away a lot of English language Adventist magazines, and held a simple church service in English at the language school on Sabbath. We invited our students to come and always had a good group show up. They always liked any opportunity to practice their English. We sang and taught those students a lot of songs in English and told Bible stories which we also translated for the beginner students. And we had a branch Sabbath School in a remote village for awhile for children there. (You can see a couple pictures of those children I posted in my photo gallery.

When we left Indonesia I felt a bit disappointed there were no baptisms of our students while we were there. I only hoped we planted seeds that fell on receptive hearts. But I also felt like a failure as a missionary. We may not know this side of eternity, but I see glimmers of hope now. I have reconnected on Facebook with a couple students form back then. I have seen them post expressions of Christian faith which does my heart good. Who knows what our efforts did in the long run...