May in Christian Missions History: Daily Events and Missionaries

TL;DR:
Discover a significant event in Christian missions history for every day in May. This timeline highlights missionaries, mission organizations, Bible translation, evangelistic outreach, and pivotal moments in global Christianity—from the founding of the American Bible Society to Gideon Blackburn's appointment as a missionary to the Cherokee Nation.

On This Date in World Missions History

"Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses . . ." — Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

Noteworthy May Events in Christian Missions and World Evangelism

May 1, 1873 — David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary, physician, and explorer whose writings generated widespread Western interest in Africa and overseas missions, died in present-day Zambia.
May 2, 1797 — Anson Gleason, who spent 40 years as a missionary to the Choctaw, Mohegan, and Seneca tribes, was born in Manchester, Connecticut.
May 3, 2000 — After years of making it very difficult for Christians, the Cuban government began allowing them to evangelize openly for six weeks (May 3-June 13, 2000). Events included stadium rallies, street outreaches, and house-to-house visitations. Obtaining permission to build church buildings was still quite difficult. Most evangelicals still met in unregistered house churches. Pastors were arrested, beaten, and jailed, and those who eluded arrest were often threatened with loss of employment.
May 4, 2003 — Gracia Burnham's book, In the Presence of My Enemies, came out. The book relates the kidnapping and imprisonment she and her husband endured at the hands of Filipino Muslim extremists. Missionaries to the Philippines since 1985, Gracia and Martin Burnham, were the focus of prayers across the United States and around the world from their kidnapping in May 2001 until their rescue 376 days later. Gracia Burnham emerged from the rescue attempt alive, but her husband and Filipino nurse Deborah Yap were killed in the gun battle.
May 5, 1834 — John Dunbar left Ithaca, New York, for Nebraska, where he was being sent by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions to the Pawnee Indians. Dunbar, who was born in Massachusetts (March 4, 1804), was a graduate of Williams College and Auburn Seminary. He finally arrived at Bellevue, near Council Bluffs in October.
May 6, 1816 — The American Bible Society was organized.
May 7, 2003 — A bomb exploded outside the home of a Christian missionary couple in Lebanon, killing a neighbor who came to their aid. The device was placed outside the ground-floor apartment of veteran Dutch missionary Jakob Griffioen and his German wife. Griffioen was well-known in the neighborhood and had recently been active in distributing Christian books, leaflets, and compact discs (CDs) during book fairs.
May 8, 2004 — "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" was shown during the Wheaton College Alumni Weekend. This film, which included footage from the Wheaton campus, chronicled the story of the Waorani people and the missionaries — Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian — who gave their lives trying to reach them with the gospel. Some members of the men's families continued the Amazon jungle mission in love and reconciliation.

"Not long after I had become a Christian, it really struck my heart that people like Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian would willingly die so that people might come to know Christ." — David H., Northwest Nazarene University student
May 9, 1760 — Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, the founder of the Unitas Fratrum (Moravian Brethren Church), died in Herrnhut, Germany (b. 1700). By the time of his death, the Moravians (who themselves only numbered in the hundreds) had sent out 226 missionaries around the world.

"The Moravians' example shows us the reality of what true obedience can look like." -- Louis G., Northwest Nazarene University student
May 10, 1845 — The Southern Baptist Convention established a Board of Foreign Missions with headquarters in Richmond, Virginia.
May 11, 1887 — Missionary Ion Keith-Falconer died in Aden, Arabia.
May 12, 1996 — The search for survivors in the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in a Florida swamp was called off. Among the 110 people who died was Carlos Gonzalez, a young man who had spent two years in the U.S. preparing for missionary work in his native Venezuela.
May 13, 1917 — An early Mother's Day observance was held in Japan through the influence of the Association for Mothers in Japan, which American Methodist missionary Mira E. Draper had helped form. At first, Mother's Day was observed by only a small number of people, but awareness of the observance gradually spread throughout the country.
May 14, 1858 — Robert and Elizabeth Clark were married in England. A month later, they sailed for India. Earlier, while still single, Robert had become the first missionary to the Afghans. Then, during a furlough, he met Elizabeth Mary Browne and had fallen in love with her.
May 15, 1946 — Missionary Ruth Dech arrived in Benque Viejo, British Honduras (now Belize). She would give 40 years of missionary service there and in Costa Rica.
May 16, 1875 — Birth of Matilda Smyrell Calder, who spent two years as a missionary teacher in Turkey and then two years as a traveling secretary for the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. In 1906 Calder went to China where, in 1913, she founded Ginling College.
May 17, 1817 — Heinrich August Jaeschke, Moravian missionary to Tibet, was born in Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany.
May 18, 1896 — Church Missionary Society missionaries Samuel Zwemer and Amy Wilkes were married in Arabia. Samuel arrived there as a missionary in 1890 and served with Amy until 1913, when they transferred to Egypt (1913-1929). From there, Zwemer went to Princeton Theological Seminary, where he taught from 1929 to 1952. Zwemer wrote over fifty books and hundreds of articles. He founded the Moslem World, a missionary periodical, and served as its editor for thirty-five years. Zwemer died in 1952 at age eighty-four.
May 19, 1926 — Belgium's King Albert granted the Evangelical Free Church Mission an official legal charter to do missionary work in the Congo.
May 20, 1865 — Veteran missionary Edward T. Doane and his second wife, Clara, sailed from New York for the Caroline Islands of Micronesia aboard the steamer Golden Rule. The Doanes worked on Ponape under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions until 1873, when Mrs. Doane's poor health necessitated a transfer to Japan. After his second wife's death, Edward T. Doane returned to the Caroline Islands. During the 1887 Spanish occupation of the area, Doane was taken to the Philippine Islands as a prisoner. He was eventually released and returned to Ponape.
May 21, 1891 — George Louis Williams was ordained a Congregational minister in Oberlin on May 21, 1891, just five days before marrying his classmate Mary Alice Moon. Under the appointment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, George and Alice Williams sailed for China on July 29, 1891. During their years in Taigu, George provided care for opium addicts at the local opium refuge, one of several medical clinics established by the missionaries. Alice worked alongside Lydia Lord Davis (1867-1952), teaching Chinese women to read and developing close ties with several Chinese Christians. In 1899, Alice's mother was in failing health, and the Taigu mission faced serious financial difficulties. Alice and her three daughters returned on furlough to the United States. George Williams was to follow, but he was killed at Taigu on July 31, 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion. The Chinese Boxers killed all thirteen members of the "Oberlin Band." They also destroyed the missionaries' personal property and mission buildings.
May 22, 1937 — Robert B. Ekvall (1898-1978), missionary among the Tibetan nomads, published part one of an article on the life of A.B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Ekvall was born in China, where his parents were missionaries. After his graduation from The Missionary Training Institute in Nyack in 1923, he returned to China. There, he began Tibetan language study at Taochow and started work among the Tibetan nomads. In 1938 Ekvall and his wife returned to America to write the 50-year history of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, as well as a book on missionary work in Tibet. During their furlough, he studied Sanskrit and cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, focusing on Tibetan nomads.
May 23, 1932 — Amid the Great Depression gripping America, U.S. President Herbert Hoover wrote to what is now New York Theological Seminary expressing hope that the school "shall continue its interdenominational work of training Bible-inspired preachers, teachers, missionaries and other Christian workers. No institution doing the work this Seminary is doing should be allowed to fail, particularly in times like these." The school's missionary graduates include Hallie Covington (Korea), Marian Farquhar (Sudan), Clark Offner (Japan), Frederick Stock (Pakistan), Carol Wilson (India), and Bulgarian national Nikola Nikoloff, the founder of the Bulgarian Pentecostal Union.
May 24, 1931 — Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, known as "Mother Teresa," took her initial vows as a nun in India. Agnes was born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire and now the capital of North Macedonia, on August 26, 1910, to parents of Albanian descent. At 18, she left her parental home in Skopje and joined an Irish community of nuns with missions work in India. After a few months of training in Dublin, she was sent to India. Following the taking of vows, she began teaching at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta.
May 25, 1892 — Isaac Stringer had responded to a call for missionaries to work among the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta region. The two-month trip from Toronto to Fort McPherson, Stringer's destination for his first Arctic assignment involved various modes of transportation. Stringer had set out by railroad on May 16 and by this date — May 25 — had reached the end of the railroad at Edmonton. From there, he faced 2,000 more miles of winding trails and torturous streams. Before leaving Edmonton, Stringer purchased a year's worth of supplies from the Hudson's Bay Company. Knowing communication possibilities beyond Edmonton would be very limited, he also sent telegrams to friends and family.
May 26, 604 — Augustine, missionary to England, died. In 596, he was sent with 30-40 of his monks to evangelize the English. By the time the monks reached southern France, they were so frightened by stories of the brutality of the Anglo-Saxons and the dangerous nature of the Channel crossing that they wanted to return to civilization. Augustine managed to convince them not to turn back. They were welcomed by King Ethelbert of Kent. Ethelbert's wife Bertha, the daughter of the king of Paris, was already a Christian. Within a year of the missionaries' arrival, the king himself was baptized.
May 27, 2003 — On the front page of this day's New York Times was an article titled "Seeing Islam as 'Evil' Faith, Evangelicals Seek Converts." The article's author noted: "Evangelicals have always believed that all other religions are wrong, but what is notable now is the vituperation. . . . Enmity between Christianity and Islam dates as far back as the Crusades, the fall of Byzantium and the reconquest of Spain." In the June 2 "Letters to the Editor" section, Rudolph Gonzalez of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board responded:
"I take issue with your characterization of our efforts as including 'vituperation.' Southern Baptists have historically championed the rights of all people to believe and practice as their consciences dictate. We reject all methods of evangelism that involve coercion, bribery, or threat. Though we may disagree with Islam's essential doctrines, our missionaries do not regard Muslims as 'evil' people. Southern Baptist medical missionaries and relief workers have demonstrated nothing but unconditional love for Muslim people. In the last year, that love cost several of them their lives."
May 28, 1924 — William Haas (born 1873), founder in 1920 of Baptist Mid-Missions, died of a fever at Bangassou (in present-day Central African Republic) where Baptist Mid-Missions had established its first African outpost.
May 29, 1954 — Missionaries Don and Adeline Owens arrived in Seoul, Korea.
May 30, 2003 — Harvest Partners, a ministry of the Church of the Nazarene, announced that it has surpassed the 25-million viewer mark in showings of the JESUS film around the world by Nazarene film teams.
May 31, 1803 — Presbyterians appointed Gideon Blackburn as a missionary to the Cherokee Nation. He was their first missionary to Native Americans.