Woman and Her Saviour in Persia: By a Returned MissionaryLaurie, Thomas
History
Woman and Her Saviour in Persia: By a Returned Missionary
Laurie, Thomas
Church of the East -- Missions; Missions -- Iran; Women missionaries
"There were meetings several times a day, and when they closed, the
voice of prayer might be heard on all sides, in the houses and stables.
Every family now has morning and evening worship."
In this revival, the native helpers were very much interested for the
salvation of their unconverted wives. The families of Siyad and Yonan
live in Geog Tapa, and their first visits home were blessed to the
conviction of their companions, who soon came to the school, begging to
be allowed to stay and learn the way of life. Of course, they were not
refused. The wife of Siyad had been a frequent visitor there, but such
an opposer of religion, that her coming was always dreaded; but now how
changed! Day by day her convictions deepened, till they were
overwhelming. Tears were her meat, and prayer her employment, day and
night, till, as she said, "The Saviour found her," and she was at rest.
Three children and a daughter-in-law joined her in believing, and it
was delightful to see the family, not long after, each in his or her
turn, calling on the name of the Lord in one of the rooms of the
Seminary.
Yonan, the junior teacher of the school, had been married by force two
years before, by his wicked father; that, too, when his heart was fixed
on another, every way fitted to be his companion. It was a severe
trial; but grace triumphed, and his great desire, seemed to be the
conversion of the wife thus forced upon him. At midnight, he was often
heard interceding for her, and, in the early part of the revival, the
answer came. Miss Fiske will never forget the time when, in an
adjoining room, she heard her for the first time praying with her
husband. It gave her a new insight into the meaning of that scripture,
"They believed not for joy." The new convert was very active among the
women in her village; and when her father-in-law forbade social prayer
in his house, she took her little company at sunset behind the village
church, where even the bleak winds of February did not chill their
devotions.
Khanumjan, the aged mother of John, though past threescore and ten,
entered into the work with a zeal that might put to shame many younger
women in our own land. She toiled to bring the more aged women right to
the cross, taking them one by one into her own closet, that then and
there they might accept the Saviour. Though herself unable to read, she
did much for the preachers who went out to the villages, providing food
for them on their return, and exhorting them to courage and
faithfulness. No wonder she said to a visitor, "Three years ago, I saw
Christ in heaven, and I have seen him there ever since; but now he sits
by my side all day long." When she died, she said, over and over again,
"I am going after Jesus."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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