Tonight I want to take a break from the seriousness of the hour and share with you a beautiful story sent to me by a pastor friend of ours, Ralph Davis. Sometimes we just have to sit back and forget our troubles and remember that many are walking through the trials of life even now. However in the end we are are brought to realize that God is in Control and he loves us so much. I hope you enjoy this true story about a missionary family of days gone by.
God Bless
Elaine
A Kernel of Wheat
Scripture: John 12:24:
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground
and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces
many seeds." NIV
Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with
their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa to what was
then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young
Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God
for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and
sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to set out from the main mission
station and take the gospel to a remote area.
This was a huge step of faith. At the village of N'dolera they were
rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear
of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to go half a mile
up the slope and build their own mud huts.
They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. The only
contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell
them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood a tiny woman only four
feet, eight inches tall decided that if this was the only African she
could talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And in fact,
she succeeded. But there were no other encouragements.
Meanwhile, malaria struck one member of the little band after another.
In time the Ericksons decided they had had enough suffering and left
to return to the central mission station. David and Svea Flood
remained near N'dolera to go on alone.
Then, of all things, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the
primitive wilderness. When time came for her to give birth, the
village chief softened enough to allow a midwife to help her. A little
girl was born, whom they named Aina. The delivery, however, was
exhausting, and Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria. The
birth process was a heavy blow to her stamina. She lasted less than
twenty days.
Inside David Flood, something snapped the moment his wife died. He
dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old wife, and then
took his children back down the mountain to the mission station.
Giving his newborn daughter to the Erickson’s, he snarled, "I'm going
back to Sweden. I've lost my wife, and I obviously can't take care of
this baby. God has ruined my life." With that, he headed for the port,
with a hired man carrying Aina down the mountain in a hammock-cradle,
all the while he was rejecting not only his calling, but God himself.
Within eight months both the Erickson’s were stricken with a
mysterious malady and died within days of each other. The baby was
then turned over to some American missionaries, who adjusted her
Swedish name to "Aggie" and eventually brought her back to the United
States when she was three. This family loved the little girl and were
afraid that if they tried to return to Africa, some legal obstacle
might separate her from them. So they decided to stay in the United
States and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry in South
Dakota.
Aggie grew to a young woman and attended North Central Bible College
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There she met and married a young man named
Dewey Hurst.
Years passed. The Hurst’s enjoyed a fruitful Ministry. Aggie gave
birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time her husband became
president of a Christian College in the Seattle area, and Aggie was
intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage in that area.
One day a Swedish religious magazine mysteriously appeared in her
mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course she couldn't
read the words. But as she turned the pages, all of a sudden a photo
stopped her cold. There in a primitive setting was a grave with a
white cross and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD.
Aggie jumped in her car and went straight for a college faculty member
who, she knew, could translate the article. "What does this say?" she
demanded. The instructor summarized the story: It was about
missionaries who had come to N'dolera long ago ... the birth of a
white baby ... the death of the young mother ... the one little
African boy who had been led to Christ ... and how, after the whites
had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to
let him build a school in the village.
The article said that gradually the little African boy had won all his
students to Christ... the children led their parents to Christ... even
the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred
Christian believers in that one village.... All because of the
sacrifice of David and Svea Flood so many years ago.
For the Hurst’s' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the college
presented them with the gift of a vacation to Sweden. There Aggie
sought to find her real father. An old man now, David Flood had
remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his
life with alcohol.
He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in
his family: "Never mention the name of God because God took everything
from him. After an emotional reunion with her half brothers and half
sister, Aggie brought up the subject of seeing her father. The others
hesitated.
"You can talk to him," they replied, "even though he's very ill now.
But you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies
into a rage.” Aggie was not to be deterred. She walked into the
squalid apartment, with liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the
seventy-three-year-old man lying in a rumpled bed.
"Papa," she said tentatively. He turned and began to cry. "Aina," he
said. "I never meant to give you away." "It's all right, Papa," she
replied, taking him gently in her arms. "God took care of me. The man
instantly stiffened. The tears stopped. "God forgot all of us. Our
lives have been like this because of him." He turned his face back to
the wall.
Aggie stroked his head and then continued, undaunted. "Papa, I've got
a little story to tell you, and it's a true one. You didn't go to
Africa in vain. Mama didn't die in vain. The little boy you won to the
Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed
you planted just kept growing and growing. Today there are six hundred
African people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call
of God in your life.”
"Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you. The old man turned
back to look into his daughter's eyes. His body relaxed. He began to
talk. And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he
had resented for so many decades. Over the next few days, father and
daughter enjoyed warm moments together.
Aggie and her husband soon had to return to America and within a few
weeks, David Flood had gone into eternity. A few years later, the
Hurst’s were attending a high-level evangelism conference in London,
England, when a report was given from the nation of Zaire (the former
Belgian Congo). The superintendent of the national church,
representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the
gospel's spread in his nation.
Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard
of David and Svea Flood. "Yes, madam,” the man replied in French, his
words then being translated into English. "It was Svea Flood who led
me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents
before you were born. In fact, to this day your mother's grave and her
memory are honored by all of us."
He embraced her in a long, sobbing hug. Then he continued, "You must
come to Africa to see, because your mother is the most famous person
in our history." In time that is exactly what Aggie Hurst and her
husband did. They were welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers. She
even met the man who had been hired by her father many years before to
carry her back down the mountain in a hammock-cradle.
The most dramatic moment, of course, was when the pastor escorted
Aggie to see her mother's white cross for herself. She knelt in the
soil to pray and give thanks. Later that day, in the church, the
pastor read from:
John 12:24: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to
the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it
produces many seeds." NIV
He then followed with:
Psalm 126:5: "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy." NIV
Prayer: Father, how magnificent You are to take one seed and turn it
into the foundation for an entire nation. In the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen!
