Of Moravians, Filipinos and little-known missions

By Derek Christensen

I was surprised but also delighted when I discovered part of my ancestry traced back to Czechoslovakia, the portion that is now the Czech Republic. I knew about the English bit and the Norwegian connection but this was new. Immediately I wondered which of the two main regions my ancestors came from, Moravia or Bohemia? The Bohemians have become a by-word for a hippy like approach to life, relaxed, alternative and easy with the rules. The Moravians though were the ones who interested me. The Moravian missionary movement is one of the great stories of Christian missions.

It all sprang from a community of believers in a village called Herrnhut on the estate of Count Von Zinzendorf just over the border in Saxony in Germany. To cut the long story short, there was a stirring of the Spirit amongst the people, a hundred year (yes I said hundred year) prayer meeting and then a burst of believers that spread out through the known world, to proclaim the good news. Just ordinary people; trades people, merchants, craftspeople. They went to the hard and hostile places, from Greenland down through all six continents and the cost was incredible. Many died. Most were persecuted and many were imprisoned. They were the first significant Protestant mission and the first to have missionaries on all six continents. It is a staggering story, far too long to tell here but worth pursuing.

There is a story today that has echoes of that, the story of the Filipino Dispersion. I have mentioned in briefly before but it bears repeating. Some 8 million Filipinos live and work abroad at any one time. A healthy number of these are keen Christians and keen also to take their faith with them when they travel. To this end the Filipino Mission Association has set about deliberately to train and equip the workers to share their faith at their destination, aiming over a period of time to train 200,000 people! A high percentage of these go to the Middle East, working in many jobs- often in domestic service, in the most closed segments of the world population. Again persecution is a reality. Prison is a reality but the waves of new workers keep on coming. You can read more about this in a fascinating book, “Scattered-the Filipino Global Presence”.

As with the Moravians, the Filipino story is virtually unknown for many Christians. Which all goes to show that God still loves to choose the often overlooked to do what he wants to do in ways we never thought of.