Aschmann TRUSTED God to Turn $7 into a Useful Life
SOME CHRISTIANS are able to point to a red letter day when God did something so extraordinary that it seemed miraculous—a blazing instance of divine intervention. Even for such Christians, the life of faith is a life of many steps and missteps. Others never see a miracle after their conversion (which itself may not have seemed exhilarating or outstanding) but nonetheless realize they are being guided step by step.
Herman Aschmann’s life was of the latter sort. As a hyperactive boy with attention deficit disorder, he was often in trouble and accident prone and didn’t seem to fit anywhere. His father expected him to work in his shoe shop and nixed his desire to go to MIT. At eighteen Aschmann became a Christian and, over the next two years, recognized he needed Bible training. When his father learned that he planned to attend Moody Bible Institute, he kicked him out of the house. At twenty years of age, Aschmann boarded a train for Chicago. He had chosen Moody because it was tuition free and far enough away that his father could not easily drag him back to work in the shoe store. Years later, Aschmann’s father wrote him a letter, saying he, too, had found peace with God.
Aschmann worked nights and attended school during days. He planned to become a pastor but realized he was not suited for the role. He heard missionary speakers and wondered if God was drawing him in that direction. Missionary-explorer L. L. Letgers convinced Aschmann to enroll in Camp Wycliffe for a few weeks of missionary training.
In 1938 Aschmann set out for Mexico with just seven dollars in his pocket, trusting God to provide for him. God did provide in ways too numerous and varied to record here. God also redirected him. He had set his mind on working in Brazil, but God had him act as a Spanish translator for one missionary and then to make a language study of the Tlapanec area. Finally, in 1940, Aschmann found himself in San Felipe Tecpatlan, Mexico, attempting to learn the Totonac language.
He must have wondered if this really was God’s direction. During the next six months everything went wrong. The only suitable housing he could find was an unused jail cell; no one would help him learn the language except the jail’s single prisoner who soon escaped; hunger gnawed his belly; and he contracted a severe case of malaria. He would have died had not a sympathetic trader straddled him across the back of a mule and lugged him to where he could get medical care.
Again the Lord led. While Aschmann was visiting Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Mission, Townsend’s gardener, a Totonac Indian, invited Aschmann to Zapotitlán. There Aschmann was welcomed but had to live in a single room with six Indians. That was actually a good thing, because he was forced to communicate in Totonac from the start.
While in the United States in 1941 to take more linguistic training, he met and married Bessie Dawson. Aschmann, who had a deep sense of unworthiness because of his many failures as a boy and his father’s aloofness, was always amazed and humbled that Bessie accepted him.
Back among the Totonacs, Aschmann worked with a young man named Fulgencia, trying to learn enough language to begin translating the Bible. But then Fulgencia fell from a mountainside onto some rocks and died from internal injuries. Manuel Arenas, perhaps not yet in his teens (his birthdate had not been recorded) took Fulgencia’s place. Arenas had a hunger for learning and a strong desire to help his people. After twelve long years, the Totonac New Testament rolled off the press. (See our May 27th story "Arenas Gave His People School, Hymns, And HOPE.”)
Aschmann went on to translate the New Testament into two other dialects of Totonac. Eventually the original translation had to be redone. By translating a noun where Greek had a noun, he had made the translation harder for Totonacs to understand. Totonacs tend to use verb forms to express nouns.
Like most Christians, Aschmann had his share of suffering: illnesses, family tragedy (a son died young), and sorrow when Bessie could no longer recognize him, owing to Alzheimers disease. Yet he persevered in faith, guided by grace and by circumstances to the end, dying on this day, 18 February 2008, his 94th birthday.
Other Events on this Day
- Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan's Famous Allegory, Was Published
- COLMAN AND WILFRED DIVIDED OVER WHEN TO OBSERVE EASTER