The Courage to Go

Allen Gardiner was a respected 19th century British naval officer who, upon the sad death of his beloved first wife, left his navy career to throw himself into Christian mission in some of the most inhospitable and unwelcoming environments in the world.

There is not space here to tell the full story, but I urge you to click this link and read it for yourself. Following repeated frustrations, disappointments, and open hostility from both those he was trying to reach and also the established Catholic and Protestant churches, Gardiner eventually financed a mission ship to travel to Patagonia and the South American Chaco to reach indigenous tribes in these regions, about which Charles Darwin himself said it was “completely useless to send missionaries”. Here his mission floundered, his team becoming stranded on an island and died of starvation before supply ships could get to them. On the face of it, a life of unwarranted privation for no gain whatsoever.

But the story does not end there. His own son, inspired by his father’s devotion and commitment to obedient mission, went on to form the Patagonian Mission which began to successfully outwork the cause for which Allen Gardiner had given his life. The Patagonian Mission later became the South American Missionary Society, under whose auspices Rachel travelled with her father and mother to the Paraguayan Chaco to take the gospel to indigenous tribes there, make disciples, train leaders and plant churches. Over 12 years of sacrificial labour, they helped nurture a handful of churches established among the tribes there. This summer Rachel and I revisited this mission field some 50 years after her parents had returned to the UK, to discover a thriving network of some 35 locally-led churches.

Why is this story important? Well, apart from anything else, what a story! But it raised several questions with me. Firstly, how far am I prepared to go in the pursuit of obedient mission for the extension of God’s Kingdom? And how do we evaluate success? And who is to know what fruit will arise from our simple acts of obedient devotion pursuing the call and cause of God in our own lives? Perhaps we will never see this for ourselves, but our children and our children’s children will see consequences that we may never see in our earthly lives

Every Blessing

Maurice

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We belong to the Relational Mission family of churches, which is part of Newfrontiers.

In Europe, Relational Mission has the vision to establish a network of 20 locally-led churches in every nation of Europe by 2050. Learn more about Relational Mission, its vision and values here.

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