Fraser’s Challenge: WHEN Are You Going To Believe?
IN 1908 James Fraser arrived in China as a missionary. Six years later, he could see little fruit. He began to doubt he was in God’s will. Deep depression, even thoughts of suicide, gripped him for the better part of two years. Out of the blue he received a copy of the Overcomer magazine. Reading its pages he learned to resist Satan and came out of his funk.
Fraser had sacrificed much to go to China. While an honors student in engineering, he had read a tract about the need for missionaries. Although also a professional-level pianist and an avid mountain climber, at twenty-two years of age he left the rewards he might have expected from his accomplishments to join the China Inland Mission (now OMF—Overseas Missionary Fellowship). As it turned out, climbing would be a frequent requirement. And though he deeply missed concert music, his musical ear aided him in learning the Lisu language (for which he developed a script) and in teaching part-singing of Christian hymns.
On this day, 12 January 1915, while in Burma, James Fraser repeated a frequent prayer request. He asked for hundreds of Lisu families to turn to Christ. The Lisu (pronounced lee-SOO) are the mountain people in southern China among whom he had evangelized with so little success. In response to his prayer the Lord seemed to say to him, "You have been asking for this long enough. When are you going to believe that your prayer is answered?"
I knew that the time had come for the prayer of faith. Fully conscious of what I was doing and what it might cost me, I definitely committed myself to this petition in faith....The transaction was done. I rose from my knees with the deep restful conviction that I had already received the answer.
When James got back to China, he received discouraging news. Some earlier Lisu converts had renounced Christianity. Saddened, but assured of God’s faithfulness, he opened new work, convinced that the Lord would accomplish his promise although unsure of God’s timing. He even considered offering himself temporarily for an assignment elsewhere if God desired. Meanwhile, convinced that he must do his part, he worked hard to bring about God’s promise. His tactics included prayer, language learning, outdoor evangelism, music playing, hymn teaching, and treks through rugged lands never before visited by a missionary.
At his request, his mom had organized a prayer team back in England. In 1920, five years after his prayer of faith, he was able to report to his prayer partners that a great turning toward Christianity had begun. Citing Daniel 9:23, he wrote:
Some may say, “Your prayer has at last been answered.” No! I took the answer then [in 1915]. I believed then that I had it. The realization has only now come, it is true, but God does not keep us waiting for answers. He gives them at once.
Lisu in one village turned to Christ when Fraser’s new co-worker, Allyn Cooke, wept at the sight of an extended family consuming whiskey and debauching themselves. Touched that he cared enough to cry for them, one of the men said, “Do not weep, do not weep. We will pour out the whisky! We will truly turn, as you have taught us.”
Fraser died of malaria in 1938 at fifty-two years of age. By then at least 20,000 Lisu were Christians. Several other missionaries had joined the work, including Isobel Kuhn, notable for books such as By Searching and In the Arena (See our March 12 story, “Isobel Kuhn Tested God and Found an ENDURING Faith”). Christianity continued to spread among the Lisu so that by the 1990s over 90% of Chinese Lisu identified as Christians. The Lisu erected a memorial to Fraser and periodically remember him in special Easter services.
Mrs. Howard Taylor wrote a biography of Fraser—Behind the Ranges: Fraser of Lisuland, Southwest China—from which today’s date is drawn. One of his daughters, Eileen Crossman, wrote another, Mountain Rain, and also appeared in the documentary Breakthrough: James O. Fraser.
—Dan Graves
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Watch Breakthrough: James O. Fraser at RedeemTV.
Other Events on this Day
- Benedict Biscop Scrounged Precious Books and Art for England's Church
- AFFECTIONATE ABBOT AELRED FOSTERED FAITH AND FRIENDSHIP