TL;DR:
Discover a significant event in Christian missions history for every day in June. Highlights include the martyrdom of Boniface on June 5, the 1980 Consultation on World Evangelization in Thailand, and Adoniram Judson's baptism of Moung Nau, the first Burmese convert baptized through his ministry, on June 27, 1819.
Notable June Events in Christian Missions History
Missionary William Carey sailed from Great Britain for India in
June.
Frank Laubach, known as the Apostle of Literacy, passed away in June.
In June 2003, Time magazine ran a cover article on missionaries going to
the 10/40 Window.
"All these many people who have had faith in God are around us like a cloud.
. . ."
Hebrews 12:1, New Life Version
Events, locations, people, and movements in world evangelism
June 1, 1823 — Reginald Heber (1783–1826), author of sixty hymns, including the classic
"From Greenland's Icy
Mountains," was appointed Anglican Bishop of Calcutta. In that role, he oversaw Anglican ministry across India, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Australasia.
June 2, 1901 — Throat cancer took the life of Canadian Presbyterian missionary George
Leslie Mackay. Mackay left his mark on Taiwan, where his close
identification with the
Taiwanese people led him to marry Tiu Chhang-mi, a Taiwanese woman—an interracial marriage that challenged the social conventions of his era. Professor Chen Chi-Rong said of him, "He
was very committed to this land in a way that was different from that of other missionaries." One
of Mackay's ambitions was to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Taiwan. Although Mackay
saw medicine simply as a tool in evangelism, he has acquired fame among trivia buffs for pulling
over 22,000 teeth.
June 3, 1911 — Arthur Tappan Pierson, an influential pastor, missions writer, and editor, died. Born in New York City on March 6, 1837, he graduated from Hamilton College and Union Theological Seminary in New York. He pastored in New York, Connecticut, Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and also ministered in London, England. Pierson became an influential editor of Missionary Review of the World. His association with D. L. Moody and participation in the Northfield Conferences strengthened his determination to see the world evangelized in his generation.
June 4, 1948 — Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) began broadcasting from Manila, Philippines. Founded in 1945 by Robert Bowman, John Broger, and William Roberts, the ministry sought to share the gospel through radio.
June 5, 754 — Boniface and his companions were awaiting a group of converts in Frisia, in what is now the Netherlands, when pagan warriors attacked and killed them.
June 6, 1756 — John Roth arrived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a group of unmarried Moravian men. Born in Germany on February 3, 1726, Roth later served as a missionary among Native Americans in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He learned the Unami dialect of the Lenape language and prepared religious materials in it.
June 7, 2002 — An American missionary, Martin Burnham, and a Filipino nurse were killed
when the Philippine military launched a raid to rescue them from the Islamic radicals that had
held them as prisoners in the jungle for more than a year. Burnham's wife Gracie was freed
but suffered a gunshot wound.
June 8, 1950 — The Fitkin Memorial Nazarene Bible College was launched in Benque Viejo,
Belize. Missionary David Browning was the school's first director.
June 9, 1888 — The Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World opened in London. Held June 9–19, the conference brought together 1,579 delegates of 10 nationalities representing 139 denominations and missionary societies. Participants included historian Philip Schaff, A. T. Pierson, and J. Hudson Taylor.
June 10, 1925 — The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention
acknowledged its dire financial straits. Members issued a call to prayer "that
Southern Baptists may realize the emergency and be faithful with their money and that the
pastors and people spread the information of the urgent need of the board."
June 11, 1970 — Frank Laubach, known as the "Apostle of Literacy," died. Laubach had become
aware of the importance of literacy while serving as a missionary among Maranao Moro Muslims
in the Philippines. He came to see literacy education as a way to help people address poverty and injustice. The "Apostle of Literacy" and his wife Effa are buried in Benton, Pennsylvania. Their tombstone reads "World Missionaries."
June 12, 1878 — Missionary Alexander Mackay arrived at Lake Victoria in Uganda,
Africa.
On or around June 13, 1793 — William Carey, a pioneer Baptist missionary sometimes called "the father of the modern missionary movement," began his voyage from England to India.
June 14, 1910 — The World Missionary Conference was called to
order at the Assembly Hall of the United Free Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. Of the 1,200
delegates, over 80% were from Britain and North America. One hundred and seventy were from
the European Continent. Just 18 came from the rest of the world. The conference reflected the strong Western leadership of Protestant missionary organizations at the time, with limited representation from Christians elsewhere.
June 15, 1755 — African-American John Marrant, the future missionary to Native
Americans, was born in New York.
June 16, 1980 — The Consultation on World Evangelization opened in Pattaya, Thailand. More than 800 participants gathered for seventeen mini-consultations and developed reports on Christian witness among groups and communities including the urban poor, Chinese peoples, Jews, secularists, Hindus, Buddhists, animists, Muslims, and nominal Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic Christians.
June 17, 1869 — John Boden Thomson was ordained at Trinity Presbyterian
Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Born April 14, 1841, at Kirkpatrick, Kirkcudbrightshire, he
studied at Western College and Highgate Missionary College. The same year he was ordained,
Thomson married Elizabeth Edwards. Shortly after his ordination, the London Missionary
Society appointed him to Matabeleland (the western portion of what is now Zimbabwe).
Thomson
and his wife sailed on August 9, 1869, and arrived at Inyati, Matabeleland on April 29, 1870.
June 18, 1999 — A Southern Baptist missionary, his 11-year-old daughter, and two young
summer missionaries died in a swimming accident on Mexico's southern coast. Gary Sloan, 37,
his daughter, Carla, and summer missionaries John Weems, 21, of Nacogdoches, Texas, and Joy
Murphy, 19, of Pelham, Alabama, drowned in the ocean near Tapachula. The four had gone with
Sloan's wife, Gloria, the Sloans' three other children, and three other summer missionaries to
celebrate a family birthday.
June 19, 1859 — Ashbel Green Simonton, missionary to Brazil with the Presbyterian Board
of Foreign Missions, sailed from Baltimore on the merchant ship Banshee. He
arrived in Rio de Janeiro on August 12. In November 1864, Simonton took the lead in
establishing Imprensa Evangélica, a
semi-monthly evangelical newspaper.
June 20, 1880 — Samuel R. Brown, an early American Protestant missionary to Japan, died. Born in East Windsor, Connecticut, on June 16, 1810, Brown served as a missionary in China for nearly a decade. After spending about ten years in the United States, he sailed for Japan in 1859 as a missionary of the Reformed (Dutch) Church. He assisted in translating the New Testament into Japanese; the translation was completed shortly before his death.
June 21, 1851 — Lillias Horton Underwood, a physician and missionary, was born. She went to Korea in 1888 as a single Presbyterian medical missionary. Her account of her first fifteen years in Korea, Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; or, Life in Korea, was first published in 1904. An expanded second edition appeared in 1908.
June 22, 1767 — August Friedrich Kemmerer, missionary to India, was born in
Wusterhausen, Brandenburg, Germany (died 22 October 1837). Educated at Halle, he was
ordained in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1789. He began his missionary service in 1791 in
Tranquebar, India.
June 23, 1951 — The Saturday Evening Post published an article titled "The
Conqueror of the Congo." It recounted the work of William Alexander Deans, missionary with
Christian Mission in Many Lands. Deans (1908–1999) worked in northeast Belgian Congo (now
Democratic Republic of Congo), especially in publishing Christian literature in African
languages.
June 24, 1809 — William Carey completed his translation of the entire Bible into Bengali.
June 25, 592 — Irish missionary Moluag died. A contemporary of Columba, Moluag (also
called Lugaidh) brought Christianity to the Island of Lismore and parts of northeastern
Scotland.
June 26, 1892 — Pearl S. Buck, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, was born. She later lived and worked in China with her missionary husband and became the author of the bestselling novel The Good Earth (1931).
June 27, 1819 — Adoniram Judson baptized Moung Nau, the first Burmese convert baptized through his ministry, in what is now Myanmar. That day, Judson wrote in his journal: "Oh, may it prove to be the beginning
of a series of baptisms in the Burman empire which shall continue in uninterrupted success to the
end of the age."
June 28, 1810 — Four young men—Adoniram Judson, Samuel Mills, Samuel Nott, and
Samuel Newell—walked six miles to present to the General Association of the Congregational
Ministers of Massachusetts a formal resolution in which they offered themselves for missionary
service. The following day, the association approved the resolution and authorized the creation of what became the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first organized foreign mission society in the United States.
"As Samuel Mills and his friends challenged the status quo and encountered obstacles,
God's Spirit burst forth even more broadly and powerfully than they had imagined."
— Jim Butkus, Northwest Nazarene University graduate student
June 29, 1900 — Missionaries to China with the Swedish Holiness Mission, in addition to some Chinese Christians, were killed by Boxer agitators. The event, which happened in northern Shanxi province near the Great Wall, was known as "The Soping Slaughter."
June 30, 2003 — Time magazine ran a cover article on missionaries going to
the 10/40 Window area.
