Sister White

14/16

Chapter Thirteen—Into All the World

About fifty years ago Sister White came back from Australia to America. The Seventh-day Adventists held a great meeting in Battle Creek. It is called the General Conference of 1901. Sister White went to this conference. She drew the people together in love, and she taught them how to make their work a greater success. She urged them to send missionaries to every country on the earth. SWhite 106.1

She herself had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and worked in Europe. And she had crossed the Pacific Ocean, and worked in Australia. At that time, fifty years ago, our missionaries had not entered China, and we had done very little in Japan or India or Africa or South America. But now there are tens and hundreds of thousands in those countries who look for the Lord Jesus to come, and who love His Sabbath. SWhite 106.2

This great forward movement began back there in 1901. The Adventist people had sent as many missionaries as they thought they could, but now they gathered all their strength together and tried harder. So from this time on, they went into all the world to carry the message of Jesus’ salvation and of His soon coming. SWhite 106.3

They chose for president of the General Conference Elder Arthur G. Daniells, who had worked with Sister White in Australia. He led his brethren to make better plans and greater plans for the gospel work. He got them to have special leaders for the children and the young people, for the Sabbath school, for the selling of truth-filled books and papers, for the health work, for the schools, and for the preaching of the gospel. He was a very good and very great man of God. SWhite 107.1

They chose for secretary of the General Conference, William A. Spicer, who had been an editor in England and a missionary in India. He helped to lay plans and to carry them out, to put missionaries into every country in the world. Both he and Elder Daniells traveled over all the world, teaching the people about Jesus’ soon coming, and finding places where missionaries could go in. Then they and other leaders with them roused the Adventist people to train more workers for God—ministers and teachers and doctors and nurses and canvassers and helpers who would teach the gospel. They led them to give more of their time and effort to teaching the truth to everyone around. The Adventist people poured more money into the cause, to support the missionaries. And year by year the work grew. And still there were more and more calls for missionaries who would teach and heal and lift up the people and prepare them for Jesus’ coming. SWhite 107.2

If we could see all the people all around the world who have gladly received the message and have turned from their evil ways to love the Lord Jesus and to help in carrying the gospel, it would be a little like the kingdom of God. It is the kingdom of God in the hearts of the people, for before Jesus can come in glory, He must come with grace into the lives of His people, and make them ready to live with Him forever. SWhite 107.3

Sometimes in our General Conferences all these people do send a few of themselves to show us how the gospel of Jesus is encircling the earth and bringing into His kingdom people of every nation and kindred and tongue and people. There are white people, black people, brown people, yellow people, and red people. There are tall people and short people, broad people and thin people. There are people with blue eyes, people with black eyes, people with gray eyes, and people with brown eyes. There are people with black hair, brown hair, yellow hair, and white hair, straight hair, curly hair, and frizzy hair. They come dressed in all sorts of clothing, some with coats and pants, some with coats and skirts, some with flowing robes. They wear white clothes, black clothes, and clothes pink, yellow, blue, brown, striped, and mixed in colors like Joseph’s coat. Some of them wear shoes, some wear sandals, and some go barefoot. Some wear hats, some wear turbans, some wear shawls, and some put nothing on their heads. But when you hear them sing, and hear them tell how the gospel has changed their lives, you know that they all love Jesus, and He loves them. Sometimes they bring a few of their children with them. Here are little Indians from the highlands and the river jungles of South America. Here are some bright-eyed little Hindu boys and girls from India. Here are some Chinese and Japanese boys and girls, with their straight bobbed hair and shining black eyes. Here are some African children, who can sing wonderful songs. And mingling with them in the children’s meetings are fair-haired boys and girls from countries of the North like Sweden, and brown-haired boys and girls from Germany and England and Russia and Australia, and black-haired boys and girls from Italy and Peru and Persia. And there with them are you! What a gathering! What a gathering! SWhite 108.1

There was a Karen boy in Burma, which is far across the ocean, near India. This boy’s name was Ba Twe. He lived with his people away back in the jungle, and he knew nothing at all about Jesus. But there came into that land a company of missionaries, and made a school for the Karen boys and girls and young people, at Ohn Daw. And Ba Twe’s father sent him to this school. SWhite 109.1

“Ba Twe,” said Brother Eric Hare, who was at the head of the school, “Ba Twe, are you a Christian?” SWhite 109.2

“Oh, no,” said Ba Twe, “I am not a Christian.” SWhite 109.3

“Are you a Buddhist?” There are a good many Buddhists in that country. Buddha was their teacher, many generations ago, as Christ was our teacher. But Buddha was no savior, as Jesus Christ is. Ba Twe said, “No, I am not a Buddhist.” SWhite 109.4

“What are you, then?” asked Brother Hare. SWhite 110.1

“I guess you must just say I’m a heathen,” said Ba Twe. SWhite 110.2

So as a young heathen boy he went to the Christian school. But he came to love the Sabbath and to sing the songs of Jesus and to learn the Bible verses. And he gave up smoking and chewing betel nut, which is worse than tobacco. And he gave up eating pork, which is—well—not nearly so good as peanuts, for example. But he never prayed, and he never spoke in meeting, and he never would do anything that he thought was Christian, though all the time he was doing more and more things that were Christianlike. SWhite 110.3

“I’m a heathen,” he would say. “God would not want me to pray to Him, or to speak for Him, or to work for Him, because, you see, I’m a heathen!” SWhite 110.4

Ba Twe went home in the summer, and there his father set him to herding the two family buffaloes. Buffaloes are much like our cows. And one day Ba Twe fell asleep out there in the grassy plain, and his buffaloes strayed away, and he lost them. He just could not find them, though he hunted everywhere. So he climbed a tree to see if he could see his buffaloes anywhere. No, he could not. SWhite 110.5

But something said to him up there in the tree, “Pray to God to find your buffaloes for you.” SWhite 110.6

“Oh, no,” said Ba Twe, “I couldn’t pray. I’m not a Christian.” But still the voice within him said, “Pray, pray!” SWhite 110.7

So at last he prayed, “O God! Help me to find my buffaloes.” SWhite 111.1

And then, right under his tree, he heard, “Moo-oo-ooo!” And there were his buffaloes! SWhite 111.2

Then Ba Twe said, “I must be a Christian, because I prayed to God, and He answered me.” SWhite 111.3

So back to school went Ba Twe. And now he told Brother Hare, and he told all the teachers and all the students, that he was a Christian, for God had just the same as talked to him. And he grew, like the boy Jesus, in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. He stayed in the school until he had finished it, and now he was a tall, big boy, fifteen years old or more. SWhite 111.4

When he went back home he said to his father, “I want to go away up into the hill country and teach the wild Karen people about Jesus.” SWhite 111.5

So his father said, “Go, my son, and God go with you!” SWhite 111.6

Ba Twe slung a bag of rice over his shoulder, and he put a pack of simple medicines on his back. And up into the hill country of the Karens he went. Nobody heard anything of him for a long time. SWhite 111.7

His older brother went to look for him pretty soon. But after a few weeks his brother came back, and said: “I could not catch up with Ba Twe. Everywhere I went, the people said, ‘Oh, yes, we know that big, tall boy with the pack of medicines. He heals our diseases. He teaches us how to live. He shows us pictures, and he tells stories to the children and to us from the Golden Book about his Jesus. You go ahead, you catch him.’ But,” said Ba Twe’s brother, “he went so fast I could not catch him.” SWhite 111.8

“Never mind,” said his father. “When his medicines give out, he’ll come back here to get some more.” SWhite 112.1

But Ba Twe did not come. SWhite 113.1

A few months after this, down to the nurse’s office in Ohn Daw came a little old lady from the hills. SWhite 113.2

“I want some more medicines,” she said, “like your missionary gave to our babies and to us, to cure our fevers.” SWhite 113.3

“Why, Auntie,” said the nurse, Yeh Ni, “we have no missionary up there.” SWhite 113.4

“Oh, yes, you did have,” said the old lady, “a big, tall boy with a pack of medicines on his back. And he told us stories from the Golden Book about Jesus. And he cured our fevers. And he loved us. And we loved him.” SWhite 113.5

“Why,” said Yeh Ni, “that’s Ba Twe, sure as can be.” SWhite 113.6

“Yes,” said the little old lady, “and before he died, he told us to come down here to get more medicines. So I have come.” SWhite 113.7

“Before he died!” cried Yeh Ni. “Is Ba Twe dead?” SWhite 113.8

“Oh, yes. He got the bad fever. And he had no more medicines. He had given them all to us. So he died, and we buried him up there, on the hillside above our village. Haven’t you somebody who will come and do what he did for us?” SWhite 113.9

All the school was stirred by the story the old lady told. They mourned for Ba Twe, but they gathered in meeting, and they said, “We must find someone to take his place.” Then Kale Paw, a young teacher, sprang to his feet. “I’ll go,” he said. SWhite 113.10

“And who will go with you?” SWhite 114.1

“Yeh Ni, the nurse, will go with me,” he said. “She is to be my wife, and I will go, and my wife, Yeh Ni, will go.” SWhite 114.2

And they did go. So up there in the Karen hills, away over next to Siam, the work went on, the work begun by Ba Twe, the boy who thought he was a heathen, but who found he was a Christian, and then could not rest until he went out to teach others about Jesus and His coming. SWhite 114.3

Oh, when the Lord Jesus comes in glory, what a gathering there will be, of the fathers and mothers, the young people and the children, from all the lands beyond the sea, from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people—all who love the Lord and look for His appearing. SWhite 114.4

“At the sounding of the trumpet, when the saints are gathered home,
We will greet each other by the crystal sea.
When the Lord Himself from heaven to His glory bids them come,
What a gath’ring of the faithful that will be!
“What a gath’ring, gath’ring,
At the sounding of the glorious jubilee!
What a gath’ring, gath’ring,
What a gath’ring of the faithful that will be!”
SWhite 114.5