Posts with the category “peaceweavers”

Amy Carmichael - India's Amma
by Larry Ashlock on March 22nd, 2024
On 16 December 1867, in the village of Millisle, County Down, Ireland, a tiny babe was born to a young miller and his wife, David and Catherine Carmichael. They named her Amy Beatrice. She was the eldest of seven siblings and helped her parents raise them. She attended grade school in the hamlet and later attended Harrogate Ladies College for four years. She was five-foot tall, brown-eyed, and a b...  Read More
Dirk Willems: Loving His Enemy to Death
by Larry Ashlock on February 23rd, 2024
Dirk Willems was born in a small village called Asperen, Netherlands, about 1540. He was an Anabaptist, believing in salvation through Jesus Christ and a public declaration of His Lordship through believer's baptism.He believed that the true church was composed of born-again believers, that membership was voluntary, that discipleship was their goal, and that the government had no right to dictate ...  Read More
Jan Comenius and the Unity of the Brethren
by Larry Ashlock on January 27th, 2024
One of the most brilliant sons of the Church is a man almost nobody remembers today, although he belongs indisputably to the whole Christian church.His name is Jan Amos Comenius, a follower of Jan Hus of Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia), the martyr burned at the stake in 1415 for his preaching. Hus taught that God's Word should be read in the language of the people, instead of Latin. He also preached ...  Read More
Greg Boyle and the Homeboys
by Larry Ashlock on November 2nd, 2023
We live in a war-torn world. We are eyewitnesses to war within countries, war within regions, war within communities and families, and war within human hearts. This month, we spotlight a contemporary PeaceWeaver, who has spent his life addressing the causes, preventing, and halting war. For two decades, Greg Boyle has rescued young men and women from the ravages of soul-deep conflict. He is the Fo...  Read More
Madame Guyon: Woman of Prayer at the French Court
by Larry Ashlock on October 18th, 2023
“Surrender yourselves then to be ledand disposed of just as God pleases,with respect both to your outwardand inward state.”* Most historians date the close of the Reformation to the year 1648. Luther in Germany, Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland, Latimer and Ridley in England, and the Anabaptists in many parts of Europe, all had addressed errors they found in the Catholic tradition. Protests also...  Read More
Florence Kelley: Guardian of the Children
by Larry Ashlock on September 15th, 2023
In early America, during the 17th and first half of the 18th century, most children led rather predictable and routine lives. They lived at home in rural homesteads and farms, working with their families in self-sufficient units. They raised gardens and crops and livestock, and made their living from their land. Every child grew up with family chores and responsibilities.Between the Revolution and...  Read More
The "Five Generations Rule": Lessons from a Christian Family
by Larry Ashlock on July 2nd, 2023
Every once in a while, a whole family will come to the notice of the general public for its distinguished and extraordinary service. The Edwards are such a tribe in the Christian story. We present this group of parents and siblings as fine examples of child-rearing through troublesome circumstances. Timothy and Esther, who were Congregationalists, produced devout followers of Christ through the fi...  Read More
The “Harvard Computers”: Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s Expanding Universe
by Larry Ashlock on May 20th, 2023
The "Harvard Computers," as they were called, were a team of brilliant women who observed, charted, and processed astronomical data at the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between 1877 and 1919. Edward Charles Pickering directed this hand-selected team until his death in 1919, and then Annie Jump Cannon became its director. From the beginning, the women were challenged to make sens...  Read More
Edgar James Helms: The Man of Goodwill
by Larry Ashlock on May 3rd, 2023
Just nineteen days after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved individuals during the Civil War, a child was born in a small, rugged, logging camp to William and Lerona Sherwin Helms, near Malone, upstate New York, not far from the Canadian and Vermont borders. Remarkably, that tiny son’s life was set upon a trajectory that would help millions of people to be freed f...  Read More
The Church of the Savior
by Larry Ashlock on April 10th, 2023
Marjory Bankson wrote a compelling history of a small and innovative ministry that began in 1946 in Washington D. C. Engaging its community for almost eighty years, it is still strongly rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and bears fruit in the people He came to redeem. On Sunday, 5 October 1946, Gordon and Mary Cosby met with seven others to begin Church of the Savior (CoS) as "a local expressi...  Read More
Clara Barton Stone: The Red Cross's Angel of Peace
by Larry Ashlock on February 26th, 2023
The Christmas baby, given the grown-up name of Clarissa (Clara) Harlowe Barton, was born December 25, 1821, in North Oxford, Massachusetts, more than two hundred years ago. Her father was Captain Stephen Barton, an Indian Wars veteran, leader of his town, and owner of a farm. Her father inspired in his daughter both a strong patriotism and a broad interest in helping others. Her mother, Sarah Ston...  Read More
The Grenfell Legacy of Courageous Service
by Larry Ashlock on January 30th, 2023
Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was born on February 1865, at Parkgate, Cheshire, England to his parents - Algernon Sydney Grenfell, an educator and hospital chaplain, and Jane (Hutchinson) Grenfell. Grenfell grew up in the English countryside, swimming and fishing in the River Dee and hunting local birds along the river's banks.At fourteen, Wilfred attended the Marlborough College in Wiltshire, a board...  Read More
C. S. Lewis: In the Solitude . . . God
by Larry Ashlock on November 26th, 2022
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was born in Belfast, in Ulster, Ireland, the second son of Albert James and Florence Augusta Hamilton Lewis. His mother was the daughter and great-granddaughter of priests, and his elder brother Warren, or Warnie, was his best chum. As a babe, he was baptized by his mother's father in St. Mark's Church, Dundela. He named himself when he was...  Read More
Hilda of Whitby
by Larry Ashlock on November 12th, 2022
Early Church Father Ambrose reports that Easter in 387 was observed in Gaul (France) on 21 March, in Italy on 18 April, and in Alexandria, Egypt, on 25 April. From the 4th century onward, factions of the Church debated the proper dating of Easter. It took a great deal of diplomacy to handle these matters. Hilda of Whitby, a princess and Abbess of a famous monastery, negotiated this very question i...  Read More
John and Mary Williams: Polynesia's Messengers of Peace
by Larry Ashlock on September 9th, 2022
If one takes the A10 road north from London, and drives through Stoke Newington, Stamford Hall, and Seven Sisters, one will come next to Tottenham, which was a tiny village in the late 18th century and home to the Williams family. John was born in June of 1796 to parents devoted to God. He was a good student in grade-school and, in 1810 at fourteen years old, was apprenticed for seven years to Eno...  Read More
“Sir Great Heart” of Texas Baptists
by Larry Ashlock on September 9th, 2022
The wagon creaked slowly, trundling its way through an East Texas pine forest in the summer of 1859. Overhead, the towering trees swayed in the light breeze and provided dappling shade from the oppressive sun. The twenty- six year-old, Tennessee-born-pastor, Robert Cooke Buckner (1833-1919), did not mind the heat. He and his soul-mate wife, Vienna, and their two little girls, were headed west in s...  Read More
The “Famine Pots” of Ireland
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
In 1845, the population of Ireland numbered almost eight million. The Irish were an industrious, hardy people, exporting to England their livestock, peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey and even potatoes. However, when the Irish potato crop failed that year and the next, large parts of the population, particularly in the west of Ireland, were left destitute. Irish Qu...  Read More
Elisabeth Schmitz of Berlin: Conscience of the Church
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
On 9-10 November 1938, Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses, and killed almost 100 Jews. In the aftermath of what was called Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies since 1933, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler (18...  Read More
James Henry Rushbrooke: Baptist Champion of Peace
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
“Peace” seemed to be the middle name of the babe born that sunny day in Bethnal Green, east London, on 29 July 1870. Son of devout Anglican parents, James Henry Rushbrooke was brilliant, thoughtful, and became known as a careful reconciler of differences, even as a child. When James was fifteen years old, he began attending Westbourne Park Chapel with his aunt each Sunday and soon made a professio...  Read More
George W. Carver: “African American Leonardo”
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
In the year 1864, on a 240 acre farm near Diamond Grove, Missouri, George was born to his mother Mary and father Giles. He had a sister and a younger brother too, and they were all enslaved by Moses and Susan Carver. When George was an infant, his father died. He and his mother were then kidnapped by rustlers and resold in a neighboring state. Mary was never seen again, but George, small and frail...  Read More
Mickey Leland: Flying into the Storm to Help
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
It is generally held that Mickey Leland was one of the most effective spokespersons for hungry people in the 20th century. How did this young man, born and raised in obscurity, become such a globally-recognized figure for this cause?Born to George Thomas and Alice Rains Leland II in Lubbock, Texas in November of 1944, “Mickey,” as his maternal grandfather called him, was a third generation namesak...  Read More
Deacon Laurence: Guardian of the Church’s Treasures
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
Brother Laurence (225-258) was one of seven deacons in the Early Church in Rome, in charge of the church’s treasures and the distribution of funds for the poor. But when Valerian took the throne and began persecuting Christians, hundreds died and serving the poor became more difficult. And when Valerian’s director of pagan religions demanded that Laurence turn over all of the church’s resources, L...  Read More
The Faces of Persecution: Resolve, Gratitude, and Joy
by Larry Ashlock on May 25th, 2022
Carlos is a friend of ours. He lives in Cuba. Every two or three weeks, he is summoned to the police station to be interrogated for his role as pastor in his city. Every day, he and others are followed, they have had phone and computer accounts tapped, their mail is read before they receive it, and their cell phones are confiscated when they arrive at the police station. Carlos sends out prayer re...  Read More
Georgian Baptists: Crossing Ancient Boundaries
by Larry Ashlock on October 25th, 2021
Could it be possible that a single church’s response of forgiveness in crisis turned an entire nation toward peace? The answer is yes, and a work not new to Malkhaz Songulashvili, who has led the Baptists of Georgia (former Soviet Republic) to model reconciliation in their war-ravaged nation for years. Generations of the Republic of Georgia’s citizens have lived through the World Wars, with their ...  Read More
Samuel Stearns and Roenna Clark Day: Founders of the “The Lone Star” Mission
by Larry Ashlock on October 25th, 2021
One bright day on 23 August 1835 in the village of Homer, New York, about thirty miles south of Syracuse, near Lake Ontario, a young bride greeted her soon-to-be husband, Samuel. They entered the little Homer church together to take their vows and began a legacy that has endured until the present day. The handsome young groom, Samuel Stearns Day, was born in a hamlet in Ontario, Canada, in 1808 to...  Read More
Belle the Beloved: Living Legend of the Lisu
by Larry Ashlock on October 25th, 2021
In March of 1901, a tiny girl-child was born to a Presbyterian lay preacher and his wife in Toronto, Canada. Her grandfather had been an ordained Presbyterian minister. Even so, with all of these generations of good models and devout home life, Belle did not know Jesus personally. She entered college, and her professor sneered at her belief in God and the Bible, proclaiming that no enlightened per...  Read More
The Wightmans: A Legacy of Generational Ministry
by Larry Ashlock on October 25th, 2021
Early in 1612, Edmund was arrested for preaching “that the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord’s supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they are now practiced in the Church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part.” Later historians noted that “they found him guilty of many heresies, some of wh...  Read More
Dr. Ida Sophia Scudder: Physician, Healer, and Woman of Peace
by Larry Ashlock on October 25th, 2021
 Ida Sophia Scudder (December 9, 1870 – May 23, 1960) was born into the famous Scudder family. Her grandfather, Rev. Dr. John Scudder, Sr., had been the first American medical missionary, and had served as a doctor in Panditeripo, Ceylon, India with the Reformed Church in America. His seven sons, all born in India, became missionaries too. The youngest son, John Jr., married and soon became Ida’s ...  Read More
Thomas Paul, Extraordinary Leader Among Baptists
by Larry Ashlock on October 25th, 2021
Born and reared in the north as a free black during the Revolutionary War in America, Thomas Paul heard the cry for freedom. He became one of the most ardent supporters of “soul-liberty” that America has ever known. While all but forgotten today, the legacy of this pastor, church planter, abolitionist, and missionary, still echoes, both from pulpits and in the hearts of freedom-advocates across th...  Read More
Mildred Beatrice McWhorter: Houston’s Mother Theresa
by Larry Ashlock on March 31st, 2021
"Miss Mac," as she was affectionately known for most of her adult life, was born 26 June 1930 to Rev. Rufus Alexander and Stella Eley McWhorter, on her farm near Centralhatchee, Georgia. She attended school there, worked hard in the fields of her family’s cotton farm, and did heavy chores every day. She was a member of the Baptist church her father pastored and, when Mildred was thirteen, she real...  Read More
“Song of Peace” in “The Year Without Summer”
by Larry Ashlock on February 27th, 2021
Pastor Josef Mohr (1792-1848) was a December babe, born in Salzburg, Austria, where he was reared to love Christ and his Church. As a young man, he entered the seminary, where he was ordained in 1815. He then began to minister to the villagers in several hamlets nearby. His work was intense, for there was unending misery in those days.A string of volcanoes had been erupting in Asia for many years ...  Read More
Spafford and Bliss: Extended Tragedy, Eternal Hope
by Larry Ashlock on February 27th, 2021
In 1871, Horatio Spafford (1828-1888), a devout Presbyterian church elder and prosperous businessman, was living comfortably in Chicago with his wife Anna, and their four young daughters. At their home in a north side suburb, the Spaffords hosted and financially supported many guests. Horatio had been active in the abolitionist crusade and their cottage was a meeting place for activists in the ref...  Read More
Muriel Lester: England’s “Mother of World Peace”
by Larry Ashlock on February 27th, 2021
Muriel Lester was born in Leytonstone, Essex (now in east London), on 9 December 1883 into a prosperous Victorian shipbuilding family. Her father Henry owned a shipyard in Blackwall Docks to the south on the Thames River, on the Isle of Dogs. It was her family's company that built the barge that carried Cleopatra’s Needle, an ancient Egyptian obelisk, dated 1450 BC, to London when it was given as ...  Read More
Lillian Trasher: Egypt’s “Nile Mother”
by Larry Ashlock on November 30th, 2020
Lillian Hunt Trasher was born on 27 September 1887 in Jacksonville, Florida, and was reared in Georgia. Early in her life she put her faith in Jesus Christ and determined to live for Him, moving from her Roman Catholicism to a Pentecostal-Holiness tradition. She attended Bible college for a term, worked in an orphanage under the supervision of Miss Mattie Perry in North Carolina, and was soon enga...  Read More
Deborah: Indominable Witness of God's Peace
by Larry Ashlock on November 30th, 2020
Little Adeyemi was born in 1888 into a family who worshiped Orisa-oko, the god of harvest of the rural province of Oloisaoke, near Ogbomoso, in the Oyo State of Nigeria. The family worshiped and displayed the python snake prominently as a part of this worship and, as a child, Adeyemi was dedicated to marry a priest of Orisa-oko someday. As a young girl, she became an ambassador for the worship of ...  Read More
"Father Murrow" of the Creeks, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminoles
by Larry Ashlock on September 27th, 2020
Joseph Samuel Murrow was born to a Methodist pastor and wife, John and Mary Badger Murrow, on 7 June 1835 and was reared in a devout home. He trusted Christ at age nineteen and joined the Baptist church nearby. Joseph was called to preach and trained for the ministry at Mercer University. At age twenty, he was ordained the same year he proposed and married his bride, Nannie Elizabeth Tatom, of Ful...  Read More
Bernard & Hildegard
by Larry Ashlock on August 21st, 2020
Between the years 1000 and 1250 several new Christian groups arose in Europe. Men and women, young and old, streamed to settle with others in new communities of faith. Here they lived calmly, prayed intentionally, found joy in simple work, and spent time with God. They had known too much greed, selfishness, injustice, politics, and lifeless worship. They now longed instead to think purely, to expe...  Read More
Obedience and Blessing: Judsons, Newells, and Rice
by Larry Ashlock on June 29th, 2020
On 17 June, 1812, some 208 years ago, the brig Caravan sailed into the harbor at Calcutta, four months after embarking from Salem, Massachusetts. Its safe arrival was remarkable, for war seemed to be everywhere, threatening its passage. Napoleon and his French army, menace to all of Europe, was suffering defeat at the hands of the Russians. South Americans were rising in force to follow Simon Boli...  Read More
Flourishing in the Silence: Our Solitude Sanctuaries
by Larry Ashlock on May 21st, 2020
It was twenty years ago this spring that I set off for England. I had the glorious gift of spending almost a year away in study. I lived sixteen miles northwest of Oxford, in the Cotswolds, in a small hamlet called Field Assarts. Tucked along a bend in the road, my rural crossroads had a beautiful parish church and a clutch of lovely, honey-colored stone houses, surrounded by verdant green fields,...  Read More
Hilda of Whitby and the Dating of Easter
by Larry Ashlock on April 23rd, 2020
In the past two weeks, Christians have celebrated Christ's resurrection all across the world. Many of us celebrated Easter on 12 April of this year, and many others, mainly Orthodox Christians, observed Easter on 19 April. Why is this so? Western Christianity uses the Gregorian Calendar and celebrates Easter on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April, within about seven days after the astronomical ...  Read More