Fruitful Ministry

Fruitful Ministry

You never know how God will bring fruit from your life.

GOD USED the influence of Robert and James Haldane, two Scottish brothers, to reach all the way to Africa. Converted in 1795, they began to preach throughout Scotland.

James Haldane preached in Edinburgh for years. After ministering in Scotland, Robert Haldane went to Geneva, Switzerland, and began a student Bible study. Most of the students attending became preachers used by God to bring a religious awakening to Switzerland and France. This revival gave birth in 1822 to the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. As Robert Haldane lay dying in 1842, little did he know how the streams of his influence would converge on a little boy then tending turkeys on a French farm.

One of Robert Haldane’s students in Geneva was Ami Bost, who became a pastor of a church in Asnieres, France, originally founded by John Calvin. In the church was Mrs. Coillard, a poor widow with seven children. She had dedicated her youngest son, François, to the ministry, but as a six-year-old he had to herd turkeys to help support the family. When Ami Bost came to the church, his preaching kindled a passion for foreign missions in the impressionable young Francois.

At seventeen Francois was admitted to a training school for young men without means. The founder and director was Monsieur Jaquet, a man of great faith whose motto for the school was “The Lord will provide.”

One Sunday, instead of his usual dry sermon, Jaquet read a tract that ended with the question “Wheat or chaff, which art thou?” Francois was tormented by the question, wondering what it meant. He struggled for days, unable to grasp the concept of belief. He later wrote that finally “a ray of light flashed into my night of anguish.” He saw that to “believe” means to accept God’s salvation through Jesus Christ without reservation. A peace previously unknown flooded his soul, and the experience colored the rest of his life.

After attending university, seminary, and missions school, Francois asked to be sent to a place where no missionary had gone before. The Paris Evangelical Mission Society assigned him to Basutoland, the modern kingdom of Lesotho, in South Africa.

Before leaving for Africa, Francois spoke at a mission meeting in Paris, and a young Scottish woman named Christina Mackintosh was in the audience. When she was a child, her family had attended the church of James Haldane, and under his influence Christina’s father became a minister himself. As Christina listened to the enthusiastic young missions recruit, a deep desire was awakened to do missionary work herself. When the two met after the meeting, it was love at first sight for Francois, but he was too shy to give any hint of his feelings.

When the young missionary arrived in Africa in 1857, clean-shaven and eager to begin, the Africans immediately informed him that no one would listen to a man without a beard and a wife. At once he began growing a beard, but securing a wife was a greater challenge. Right away he thought of the lovely Christina Mackintosh, and after much prayer, he followed the French custom of writing a mutual friend to propose marriage to her for him. Six anxious months later Francois received a letter saying that she didn’t know him well enough.

He waited two long years before trying again. This time he wrote to Christina directly. When she received his letter, she experienced a peace from God that this was indeed his will for her life. On July 5, 1860, Francois received her reply. She sailed for Africa, and they were married in 1861.

Francois and Christina Coillard served together for thirty years until her death in 1891. The culmination of their fruitful years of service was the founding of mission stations along the Zambesi River in modern Zambia.

The fruit of the Haldane brothers reached halfway around the world. The more than two million evangelical Christians in Zambia today are part of the fruit of their labors.

Reflection

God has purposes of which we know nothing. If we are faithful to him, he may use us to accomplish purposes we never could have dreamed. Our responsibility is to trust and obey. The results are up to him.

My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

Isaiah 55:8