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, 1837 — Arthur Tappan Pierson, missiologist, was born
in New York City (d. 1911). A graduate of Hamilton College and Union Presbyterian Seminary,
he pastored in New York, Connecticut, Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, as well as London,
England. An authority on missions with a vast body of work, Pierson edited the classic
Missionary Review of the World (1888). He died immediately after returning from
a trip to the Orient. A. T. Pierson's association with D. L. Moody and his Northfield Conferences
were the breeding ground for Pierson's determination to see the world evangelized in his
generation.
June 4, 1948 — Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC), founded in Shanghai in
1947 by John Broger and Bob Bowman, relocated to Manila in the Philippine Islands.
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, born February 3, 1726, in Germany, was commissioned for
Moravian missionary service in a Pennsylvania "colony" of single brethren. When they arrived at
Bethlehem, John Roth immediately began ministry among the Native Americans at Nain.
He learned the Delaware language. In due course, he was ordained, and in 1756, became
assistant to David Zeisberger, a veteran missionary in Ohio during the American Revolution and
the new nation's early years.
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 10-day Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World
opened in London. Participating were 1579 delegates of 10 different nationalities representing
139 denominations and societies—more than had ever been assembled under one roof. After a
century of British leadership, the conference marked the coming of age of North American
Protestant missions. Participants included historian Philip Schaff, A. T. Pierson, J. Hudson
Taylor, and even billionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt II.
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 — Goodbye to Frank Laubach, Apostle of Literacy. Laubach had become
aware of the importance of literacy while serving as a missionary among Maranao Moro Muslims
in the Philippines. Poverty and injustice crushed their lives. He decided that much of it could be remedied if only the people could read. 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 the Victoria Nyanza 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 1200
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. It was one of the last
moments in history when "worldwide Christianity" would mean Christian Europe and North
America reaching out to the rest of the world.
June 15, 1755 — African-American John Marrant, the future missionary to Native
Americans, was born in New York.
June 16, 1980 — Opening of Consultation on World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand.
The 800 participants hammered out 17 landmark reports on evangelizing such people groups as
the urban poor, Chinese peoples, Jews, Secularists, Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, Muslims,
nominal Orthodox believers, nominal Protestant Christians, and nominal Roman Catholics.
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 of 1864, Simonton took the lead in
establishing Imprensa Evangélica, a
semi-monthly evangelical newspaper.
June 20, 1880 — Death of Samuel R. Brown, the first American-appointed missionary to
Japan. Born in East Windsor, Conn., on June 16, 1810, Brown went first to China as a
missionary for nearly a decade. After a decade back in the U.S., he then sailed for Japan in 1859
as a missionary of the Reformed (Dutch) Church. He assisted in the Japanese translation of the
New Testament, which was completed just before his death.
June 21, 1851 — Lillias Horton Underwood (physician, missionary) was born. She went to
Korea in 1888 as a single Presbyterian medical missionary. In 1908, she wrote an account of her
first 15 years in Korea, titling it Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots or Life in
Korea.
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 the first Burman believer, Moung Nau, 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.
