Favorite Quotes

God, I pray, light these idle sticks of my life and I may burn up for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one like Yours, Lord Jesus.
Jim Elliot, 1948. The Journals of Jim Elliot

Missions is one hungry man telling another hungry man where to find food.
Dr. Jack Scallions

Doing God?s will is never hard. The only thing that is hard is not doing His will.
Oswald Chambers

“In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been”
Robert Moffat

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart”
Bob Pierce, World Vision founder

“People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives … and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.”
Nate Saint

“‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.
William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

“I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.?
Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals.
Robert Moffat

Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there, Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to him of many. -
J. Hudson Taylor

Life is pitiful, so familiar, suffering and pain so common, yet I would not be anywhere else. Do not wish me out of this or in any way seek to get me out, for I will not be got out while this trial is on. These are my people, God has given them to me, and I will live or die for Him and His glory.
Gladys Aylward

Here I am, Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort in earth, or earthly comfort: send me to itself, if it be but in Thy service and to promote Thy kingdom.
Frances Xavier

I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls to Christ.
David Brainerd

“I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China?I don’t know who it was?It must have been a man?a well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing?and God looked down?and saw Gladys Aylward?And God said - “Well, she’s willing.”
Gladys Aylward

“It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.”
J. Hudson Taylor

?When the glory of God himself saturates our preaching and teaching and conversations and writings, and when he predominates above our talk of methods and strategies and psychological buzz words and cultural trends, then the people might begin to feel that he is the central reality of their lives and that the spread of his glory is more important than all their possessions and all their plans.?
John Piper

?When I left England, my hope of India?s conversation was very strong; but amongst so many obstacles, it would die, unless upheld by God. Well, I have God, and His Word is true. Though the superstitions of the heathen were a thousand times stronger than they are, and the example of the Europeans a thousand times worse; though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all, yet my faith, fixed on the sure Word, would rise above all obstructions and overcome every trial. God?s cause will triumph.?
William Carey

What shall we do about these s? Will we be able to bear them? If I do not bear them I put in prison another fifty or sixty men whom I know, because that is what the Communists wish from me, to betray those around me. And here comes the great need for the role of preparation for suffering which must start now. It is too difficult to prepare yourself for it when the Communists have put you in prison? I remember my last confirmation class before I left Romania. I took a group of ten to fifteen boys and s on a Sunday morning, not to a church, but to the zoo. Before the cage of lions I told them, ?Your forefathers in faith were thrown before such wild beasts for their faith. Know that you also will have to suffer. You will not be thrown before lions, but you will have to do with men who would be much worse than lions. Decide here and now if you wish to pledge allegiance to Christ.? They had tears in their eyes when they said, ?Yes.? We have to make the preparation now, before we are imprisoned. In prison you lose everything. You are undressed and given a prisoner?s suit. No more nice furniture, nice carpets, or nice curtains. You do not have a wife any more and you do not have your children. You do not have your library and you never see a flower. Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains. Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasure of life beforehand.
Richard Wurmbrand

One day Joseph, who was walking along one of these hot, dirty African roads, met someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. Then and there he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The power of the Spirit began transforming his life; he was filled with such excitement and joy that the first thing he wanted to do was return to his own village and share that same Good News with the members of his local Tribe. Joseph began going from door-to-door, telling everyone he met about the Cross of Jesus and the salvation it offered, expecting to see their faces light up the way his had. To his amazement the villagers not only didn?t care, they became violent. The men of the village seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire. He was dragged from the village and left to die alone in the bush. Joseph somehow managed to crawl to a waterhole, and there, after days of passing in and out of consciousness, found the strength to get up. He wondered about the hostile reception he had received from people he had known all his life. He decided he must have left something out or told the story of Jesus incorrectly. After rehearsing the message he had first heard, he decided to go back and share his faith once more. Joseph limped into the circle of huts and began to proclaim Jesus. ?He died for you, so that you might find forgiveness and come to know the living God?, he pleaded. Again he was grabbed by the men of the village and held while the women beat him, reopening wounds that had just begun to heal. Once more they dragged him unconscious from the village and left him to die. To have survived the first beating was truly remarkable. To live through the second was a miracle. Again, days later, Joseph awoke in the wilderness, bruised, scarred?and determined to go back. He returned to the small village and this time they attacked him before he had a chance to open his mouth. As they flogged him for the third and probably the last time, he again spoke to then of Jesus Christ, the Lord. Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him began to weep. This time he awoke in his own bed. The ones who had so severely beaten him were now trying to save his life and nurse him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ.
John Piper, Let the Nations be Glad

According to government statistics, we are spending annually in this country six hundred dollars for luxuries for every dollar we spend for missions. We spend in America more for tobacco in a single year than both the United States and Canada have spent for missions since white man discovered America.
?Oscar Lowery

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”
John Piper

“The door showed no signs of opening but Adoniram felt that it might, if he persevered…Someday he would turn the key in the lock, the bolt would slide back, the door would swing wide on its hinges and he would open the way to the conversion of all Burma. But the key was the language. He must study, and study, and study. He resolved to work harder than ever before.”
Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore:The Life of Adoniram Judson

“Notwithstanding present difficulties and dangers, it is to be remembered that this work is not yours or ours, but the work of God. If He give light, the religion will spread. Nothing can impede it.” - A challenge given by new converts to Adoniram Judon when tried to leave the Rangoon mission for another post- He stayed.
Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore:The Life of Adoniram Judson

“Happy is the missionary who goes to a country where the Bible is translated to his hand.”- A. Judson’s journal
Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore:The Life of Adoniram Judson

“The motto of every missionary whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be “devoted for life”. “- A. Judson’s journal
Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore:The Life of Adoniram Judson

“He would never see his native land again, of that he was sure. But although he felt sadness, he had no regrets.”
Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore:The Life of Adoniram Judson

“…the things that mean the most…spiritual things…mean a lot more in the tough places.” - Nate Saint’s journal
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p.77

“The Lord has given me no desire to preach but I’d like someday to be able to tell someone who has never heard….Please pray that I’ll be kept from useless side tracks.” - Nate Saint’s journal
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p.77

“You know lots of things are like that- they feel nice, or they look nice but they don’t help us get the job done. They hold us back so we need to get rid of them. The job that the Lord Jesus Christ has for you and me is not an easy one. If you want to serve Him, if you want to help win others to Christ, you will have to choose one thing or another.” - Nate Saint’s journal
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p.157

…Nate flew her (his sister Rachel) out over the jungle. He pointed out the location of Auca territory…the tribe that had never heard of Christ: “There’s your tribe, Sis, just beyond that ridge”
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p. 203

Written in Nate Saint’s journal as he reflected back on Roger Youderian’s amazing hike to reach a remote tribe so that a wounded man could be rescued. Roger covered 18 miles of jungle in just six hours.
“Suppose he had given up. Suppose he had strained a little less. He was hungry. Suppose he had taken time to eat. I recalled his stories of the war…the jump into the unknown over France. I pondered the steel-like tenacity of the purpose that characterizes the fellow. What is the drive behind that sort of performance? What is it? What can take a happy-go-lucky prewar lad and forge him into a man capable of that marathon? Well, Roger was a soldier more than a paratrooper. He was convinced that the cause was worth dying for and therefore put no price or value on his own life. He was trained and disciplined. He knew the importance of unswerving conformity to the will of his Captain. Obedience is not a momentary option…it is a die-cast decision made beforehand.”
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p.232

“As we have a high old time at Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance…Beyond the smiling faces of Bethlehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha.” - Nate Saint’s journal
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p. 272

“If God would but grant us vision, the word “sacrifice” would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ.”- Nate Saint’s journal
Russell T. Hitt, Jungle Pilot, p.272

Favorite Books

The Journals of Jim Elliot
by Elizabeth Elliot

Through the Gates of Splendor
by Eliszabeth Elliot

Safely Home (best fiction book I have ever read)
by Randy Alcorn

To the Golden Shore: the Life of Adoniram Judson
by Courtney Anderson

Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor

On Being a Missionary
by Thomas Hale

The Chronicles of Narnia
by CS Lewis

Desiring God
by John Piper

Let the Nations be Glad
by John Piper

A Hunger for God
by John Piper

The Pursuit of Holiness
by Jerry Bridges

The Pursuit of God
by AW Tozer

Operation World (praying through the countries of the world)
by Patrick Johnstone

Every Young Man’s Battle (I must for every single man)
by Steven Arterburn and Fred Stoeker

Point Man: How a Man Can Lead His Family
by Steve Farrar

Disciplines of a Godly Man
by Kent Hughes

Jungle Pilot
by Russell T. Hitt

Believing God for His Best: How to Marry Contentment and Singleness
by Bill Thrasher