This is a true story that has had a profound effect on me ever since I heard it when I was barely three or four years old!It did affect my perspective on life and my view on missions.This has been taken from 'The torch of life' by Dorothy Clarke Wilson,a book on the biography of Dr.Ida Scudder,the founder of one of India's biggest mission hospitals.
(It was the year 1890.Sixteen year old Ida had come to visit her missionary parents in Vellore, India and take care of her mom who was sick. She couldn’t wait for her vacation to get over so that she could go back to the feel of fresh, clean air and to the warmth of a comfortable living in the US.)
"Surely we don’t have to stay here!”she exclaimed."We don’t belong,and they don’t want us. Can’t we go home the first thing in the morning?"
Uncle Jared looked at her."What is your name,child?",he demanded sternly.
“You know what my name is,”she answered."Ida".
“Ida what?”
“Ida Scudder.”
“And what does the name Scudder signify?”
Ida gave him a cool smile.
"The name Scudder,"she replied glibly, “maybe derived from the Latin word scutari,which means shield bearers,or it may come from the Anglo-Saxon ‘scudari’,meaning to scud along before the wind.In either case-"
“In either case,it is not a name for cowards .The shield bearer does not wear his implement of defense on his back.He who scuds before the wind runs ahead of the obstacle,not away from it. I assume the granddaughter of Dr.John Scudder the First has been told the story of her forebears?”.
"You assume correctly, brother," replied Dr.John II promptly."But it would do no harm to tell her again".
Ida listened. Uncle Jared had a way with words."The first Dr.John,her grandfather, a successful New York physician, picking up a pamphlet in the drawing room of a wealthy patient back in 1819,reading about ‘The Claims of Six hundred millions’, determining inspite of his father’s protests to offer himself as the first medical missionary to go out from America to a foreign country.Harriet Scudder,his beautiful young wife,sailing cheerfully with her husband and two year old child on a 6 month voyage to faraway Ceylon,burying that child on a stopover in Calcutta ,bearing and burying two others within the next 18 months;then,as the years passed,not only working dauntlessly beside her husband but raising ten more children,eight sons and two daughters."
As her uncle talked ,Ida saw them all afresh,those eight sons of her grandfather.All but one of them (who had died while a student in theological school)returned to India after their education in America in their father’s footsteps….Henry,William,Joseph,Ezekiel,Jared,Silas and John.
"Our father had no horse and carriage," Uncle Jared said."He sometimes went by palanquin, usually on foot. He travelled constantly. On one tour he went to the Nilgiris and over them and down into the Mysore forests on the other side.He had narrow escapes from wild animals. He was taken sick with jungle fever.Someone brought word to our mother ,and she felt she must go to him.She hired bearers with a tent and provisions and,taking her small son,set off,travelling day and night through the jungle.Her bearers ran off and left her.Alone that night,she heard the tread of wild elephants,the growls of tigers drawing near,then receding.In the morning,the bearers returned ,and she went on.She found our father there in the forest and brought him back.Did you ever hear that story, Ida Scudder?”
“Yes”, Ida replied, gazing steadily up at her uncle.
He turned on her with fierce intensity."And do you think the sons of John Scudder-or his granddaughters-should turn tail and run when faced with hostility?"
But Ida would not be forced into a mold.She was a Scudder,yes,but she would choose for herself what shield to bear and what winds to run before. And they would not be laden with the dusts and rains and fires of India. But God had a beautiful purpose for Ida…a purpose that would be revealed by’three knocks in the night’.(to be continued)
-From The torch of life by Dorothy Clarke Wilson
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