Going To Heaven

Going To Heaven

“We don’t know where they’re going, but we’re going to heaven.”

JOHN AND BETTY STAM met at Moody Bible Institute, while both were studying to become missionaries to China. After going there separately under the China Inland Mission (CIM), they were unexpectedly reunited and a year later were married. On September 11, 1934, their daughter, Helen Priscilla, was born, and by the end of November the Stams were installed in their new post in Tsingteh. Only twenty-seven and twenty-eight years old, with a newborn baby, they seemed at the beginning of their ministry, but on December 6, 1934, communist soldiers swept into Tsingteh and arrested the Stams.

John wrote to the CIM: “My wife, baby and myself are today in the hands of the Communists, in the city of Tsingteh. Their demand is twenty thousand dollars for our release. . . . God grant you wisdom in what you do, and us fortitude, courage and peace of heart. . . . The Lord bless and guide you, and as for us, may God be glorified whether by life or by death.”

The Stams were forced to make a difficult march to the town of Miao-shou. Physically exhausted, they were horrified to hear the soldiers discuss plans to murder their baby to make the trip easier. Witnesses said that an old farmer stepped forward to object. When challenged by the soldiers to take baby Helen’s place, the man agreed and was shot on the spot. Little Helen’s life was miraculously spared.

Arriving in Miao-shou, the Stams were imprisoned until morning. Then soldiers bound them both and forced them to leave their baby behind. As they were marched through the streets, the soldiers called people to witness their execution. On a hill outside the village a local Christian doctor stepped forward to beg for their lives. The soldiers condemned him to die as well, and when John asked for mercy for the doctor, he was immediately beheaded. Betty fell on her knees beside John and was beheaded as well.

A Chinese evangelist named Lo was hiding with his family outside the village. Hearing of the executions, they came secretly into town, where villagers furtively pointed toward a silent house. Entering it, Lo found baby Helen, not three months old, miraculously safe after thirty hours alone.

Taking her with him, he went to the hill and found her parents’ bodies. Hastily organizing his friends’ burial, he spoke to the people who had gathered: “You have seen these wounded bodies, and you pity our friends for their suffering and death. But you should know that they are children of God. Their spirits are unharmed and are at the moment in the presence of their Heavenly Father. They came [here] not for themselves but for you, to tell you about the great love of God, that you might believe in the Lord Jesus and be eternally saved. You have heard their message. Remember, it is true. Their death proves it so. Do not forget what they told you—repent, and believe the Gospel.”

Still in danger and penniless, the Lo family made their escape from Miao-shou with the baby. Pinned inside Helen’s sleeping bag they found two five-dollar bills, along with clean diapers and clothes. It was all the Stams had been able to leave to Helen, but it was just enough to provide for their hundred-mile journey to safety.

Brought to her grandparents in Tsinan, Helen was found to be perfectly healthy. The news of the “Miracle Baby” and her parents’ martyrdom spread around the world. In response, many hundreds pledged their lives to missionary service, and there was a great outpouring of prayer and support for the China Inland Mission. A fellow missionary in China wrote Betty’s parents, “A life which had the longest span of years might not have been able to do one-hundreth of the work for Christ which they have done in a day.”

Reflection

Are you surprised that God spared the baby and not the parents? Our times are in God’s hands. He has numbered our days and given us immortality until the day he has chosen for our death.

You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live and we are not given a minute longer.

Job 14:5