February in global missions history: It happened today!
On this date in world evangelism outreach
TL;DR: Explore a day-by-day February calendar of significant events in Christian missions history. Discover missionary milestones, ministry launches, acts of courage, and stories of faithfulness—from the founding of Trans World Radio to the persecution of Richard Wurmbrand. Each day's entry offers inspiration, historical insight, and a deeper appreciation for God's work among the nations.
- In February of 1597, 26 Japanese Christians were crucified for
their faith in Nagasaki.
- In February of 830, Scottish missionary Erluph died at the hands of pagan Vandals in what is
now Germany.
- In February of 1946, - Missionary Aviation Fellowship purchased its first aircraft.
- In February of 1807, Robert Morrison sailed from Britain to become the first Protestant
missionary to China.
"So since we stand surrounded by all those who have gone before, an enormous cloud of witnesses,
. . ."-- Hebrews 12:1 (VOICE version)
Living out Acts 1:8 — Events, locations, people, and movements in world
evangelism
- February 1, 1801 -- Titus Coan, missionary to Hawaii, was born at Killingworth, Connecticut
(d. 1 December 1882, Hilo, Hawaii). He was educated at the Auburn (New York) Theological
Seminary and sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The
religious awakening that began in 1837 in Hawaii is attributed to his preaching. His writings
include Adventures in Patagonia and Life in Hawaii.
- February 2, 1911 --
During a morning devotional hour at Central Texas College near Waco, a teacher, Eliza George,
had a vision of black people from Africa passing before the judgment seat of Christ. They were
weeping and moaning, "But no one ever told us You died for us." Two years later, Eliza George
left her teaching position and headed to Liberia.
- February 3, 865 -- Ansgar, the
first archbishop of Hamburg and called the "Apostle of the North," died.
- February 4, 1786 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, preached from 2
Corinthians to "a great number of Indians and white people" at Green's Harbor, Newfoundland.
Marrant's cross-cultural ministry would lead him to take the gospel to the Cherokee, Creek,
Catawar, and Housaw Indians.
- February 5, 1597 -- Twenty-six Japanese Christians were crucified for
their faith by General Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Nagasaki, Japan. By 1640, thousands of Japanese
Christians had been martyred.
- February 6, 1834 -- Ludwig
Ingwer Nommensen, the "Apostle
of the Batak," was born on the island of Nordstrand in northwestern Germany. While ill at age
12, Ludwig vowed to become a missionary. Educated at the Rhenish Mission Society
seminary, Nommensen went to Sumatra in 1861, where he trained missionaries, lay brothers, and
deaconesses. He also established institutions for training teachers and pastors and developed a
contextualized church order. His works include a translation of Old Testament stories and the
entire New Testament into the Batak language.
- February 7, 1933 --
Danish missionary
Lars Peter Larsen, who had been in India for 44 years, spoke for the last time to the United
Theological College. Six weeks later, he left India to return to Denmark. Larsen had
begun his missionary service under the Danish Missionary Society and then became secretary of
the YMCA in India. For a time, he headed up the United Theological College, and then he
finished out his four and a half decades in India working in Bible
translation.
- February 8, 1847 --
African-American Robert Hill was appointed to accompany some white missionaries to Africa for the purpose
of assisting them. On December 17, 1846, they sailed out of Providence, Rhode Island, headed for Africa. On this day, February 8, they arrived in Monrovia, Liberia.
- February 9, 1717 -- The cornerstone for the first Lutheran church building in Tranquebar, South India was laid.
- February 10, 830 -- Erluph, Bishop of Werden, died at the hands of pagan Vandals. This
Scotch-born missionary was evangelizing in Germany when he was killed.
- February 11, 1952 -- Burdened for
Spain, Paul E. Freed founded Trans World Radio. While visiting Morocco, he discovered an
open door for the establishment of a missionary radio station. Dr. Freed's father, Dr. Ralph Freed,
a veteran missionary, went to Tangier to set up operations. On February 22, 1954, the Voice of
Tangier began broadcasting over a 2,500-watt transmitter. Within two years, the station was
broadcasting programs to 40 countries in more than 20 languages. Then, in 1959, the Moroccan
government nationalized all radio stations. So, in 1960, what is now Trans World Radio moved
across the Strait of Gibraltar to Monte Carlo, where it began broadcasting from a transmitter
building constructed during World War II for Nazi propaganda purposes.
- February 12, 1843
-- Joseph Hardy Neesima was born in Yedo (Tokyo), Japan. Originally named Neesima Shimeta, he had become
acquainted with the Bible as a boy. In 1864, he made his way to Hakodate and stowed away on
board a schooner to Shanghai, China. He eventually reached the U.S. on a ship owned by
Alpheus Hardy, of Boston, Massachusetts. Hardy sent "Joe" (the name given to the young
Japanese by the ship captain) to Amherst College and then to Andover Theological Seminary.
Neesima was pardoned for leaving Japan illegally and, in 1871, became an interpreter at the
Japanese Embassy in the U.S. Three years later, he was sent back to Japan as a missionary by the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He founded Doshisha College and
Theological School (now a university) in Kyoto in 1875. He taught at the school until his death
in 1890.
- February 13, 1904
-- Theodore Karl Naether, pioneer Lutheran missionary to India since 1894, died of bubonic
plague in Krishnagiri, India.
- February 14, 1946
-- Missionary
Aviation Fellowship purchased its first aircraft: a red 1933 four-place Waco biplane
- February 15, 1386 -- Jagiello, king of the Lithuanians, was baptized. His conversion, the
condition of an alliance with Poland, marked the end of established paganism in Europe.
- February 16, 1817
-- Azariah Smith, missionary to Armenia and Turkey, was born in Manlius, New York (d. 3 June 1851). He was
educated at Yale College (New Haven, Connecticut) and studied medicine in Geneva, New York.
Ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1842, Smith served with the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions from 1842 to 1851.
- February 17, 1643 -- John Campanius, Lutheran missionary to the American Indians, arrived
in America on the Delaware River.
- February 18, 1781 -- Henry
Martyn, missionary and Bible translator in India, was born in Truro, Cornwall, England
(died 1812). He sailed for India in 1805 as an Anglican chaplain for the East India Company.
Martyn began his mission work in Dinajpur in 1806. He translated the New Testament into
Hindustani and Persian, the Psalms into Persian, and the Prayer Book into
Hindustani. In Persia, where he went for health reasons, he translated the New Testament into
Arabic. On his way back to England in 1812 via Asia Minor, he died at Tokat at the age of
31.
- February 19, 1776
The first baptism of an Eskimo by a
Lutheran pastor took place in Labrador.
- February 20, 2000 -- A heart attack claimed the life of Marilyn Lewis, a volunteer at the
United States Center for World Mission who had helped lay the groundwork for their African
American Mobilization Division. A school teacher in Pasadena, CA, Marilyn often spoke of her
desire to serve as a missionary in Brazil, reaching the descendants of those who had come from
Africa. Just prior to her unexpected death, Marilyn had written an article in which she issued a
call to action: "Just look at an African-American church today, and you can see testimony
to our new era: richly decorated, air-conditioned sanctuaries with carpeted floors are now quite
common. Many drive to church in the latest model cars. Today, instead of working the tables at
restaurants, many African Americans own them. God has
blessed us. Now, it is time for African Americans to bless the world through evangelization efforts.
In the past, many African Americans cried because they could not become involved in missionary
work. But now the doors are wide open, and we are without excuse."
- February 21, 1945 -- Eric Liddell,
the Scottish Olympian whose story is told in the film Chariots of Fire, died in
occupied China of a brain tumor. In 1925, Lidell had joined the staff of the Anglo-Chinese
Christian College in Tientsin, China (his birthplace). Captured by the Japanese invaders in 1942,
Eric Liddell passed away in a concentration camp just before he would have been freed.
- February 22, 1880
-- Moses Ladejo Stone was ordained as a minister in the First Baptist Church, Lagos (originally
known as the American Baptist Church) by William W. Colley. Colley, an African American,
may well be the only person to have been commissioned as a missionary by both a
white-administered missionary-sending agency and a black-administered missionary-sending
agency. Colley began his missionary career in 1875 when he was appointed by the Southern
Baptist Foreign Mission Board to serve in West Africa as assistant to W. J. David, a white
missionary from Mississippi. In November of 1879, Colley returned to the United States
burdened by sparse black involvement in international missions, especially in Africa. As Colley
traveled back and forth across the country, he urged black Baptists to form their own sending
agency. Colley was the primary force in the founding of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention
(BFMC) in 1880.
- February 23, 303 -- Roman Emperor Diocletian began a fierce persecution of Christians.
- February 24, 1840
-- Evangelist George Brown, who established the Heddington mission station in Liberia, reported organizing a
church among the Pessah people. The breakthrough came because of the conversion to Christianity of two kings --
Baopgo and Peter -- together with 34 of their people after a "God-palaver."
- February 25, 1940 -- Death of
Mary Mills Patrick (born 1850), American missionary to Turkey, Greece and Armenia. In 1871 she had been sent by the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to teach in an eastern Turkey mission
school. In 1875, she began teaching at the Constantinople Women's College. Her leadership kept
the school open through the Balkan Wars, the Turkish Revolution and World War I. She retired
as president of the school in 1924 and wrote a history of the college in 1934.
- February 26, 1981 --
Three Anglican missionaries detained in Iran since
August of 1980 were released.
- February 27, 1907
-- The Lutheran Foreign Mission Ladies Aid Society was organized.
- February 28, 1807 -- Robert Morrison sailed from Britain to become
the first Protestant missionary to China. When he died 27
years later, Morrison had baptized only 10 Chinese. However, his pioneering work (including a
six-volume dictionary and a translation of the Bible) greatly helped those missionaries who came
after him.
- February 29, 1948
-- Richard
Wurmbrand, who would later found Voice of the Martyrs, was arrested by Communist
authorities in Romania.
-- Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
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