Missionary Martyrs: A to Z Blogging Challenge

A somber topic, yes....but their voices need to be heard.  Missionary Martyrs are the most Memorable HEROES that deserve a Moment of Meditation:

Wheaton College Archives

Jim Elliott, killed in the jungles of Ecuador in 1953 along with 4 other missionary men by Auca Indians, was dedicated to sharing the Gospel with their tribesmen.  This was the motto that drove his passion:  "He is no fool who give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  He lost his earthly life (which we can never keep), but is living a heavenly life (which he will never lose) with His Savior right now....and forever.

The following year, thousand of young people took their place on mission fields all over the world, compelled to bring the life-changing Gospel to unreached peoples.  Hundreds of Aucas, including those who speared the five men, came to Christ as their wives stayed in the jungle, continuing the work the husbands began.  Read the full story here.


Betty Stam young missionary to China was captured by communists in 1934 and beheaded alongside her husband, John. She had written these words in her Bible years before:

Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes,
All my own desires and hopes
And accept thy Thy Will for my life.
I give myself, my life, my all
Utterly to Thee to be Thine forever.
Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit.
Use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt
And work out Thy whole will I my life at any cost now and forever.

John and Betty Stam: carlstam.com

Read their story from the Stam family's website here.













Ridley, chaplain to King Henry VIII, and Latimer, bishop of Worcester, were both burned at the stake in Oxford for their Protestant beliefs in 1555:

Ridley said to Latimer as the fire was about to be lit:  "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust will never be put out."

Their deaths fanned the flame of Protestantism, which spread throughout the world!
Read the story here.


Voice of the Martyrs quotes:

"God, I do not ask you to make my life easy; I do ask you to make me strong"
From a Jewish child found in the rubble of a Jewish ghetto in Poland after it was bombed by the nazis

"We have learned that suffering is not the worst thing in the world-disobedience to God is the worst."  A Vietnamese Christian Pastor imprisoned for his faith


"O God, accept all my sufferings, my tiredness, my humiliations, my tears, my nostalgia, my being hungry, my sufferings of cold, all the bitterness accumulated in my soul.  Dear Lord, have pity also on those who persecute and torture us day and night.  Grant them, too, the divine grace of knowing the sweetness and happiness of your love."
From a Christian Woman who was serving time in the Siberian Labor Camp, Vorkuta


Hebrews 11:13

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

What are you willing to die for?  Do your troubles seem small in comparison?