"I Don't Want Your Jesus"
Evangelism in the Mysterious Mountains of Guilin
The information and stories below were shared with me by my good friend, Dan Bausum, a pastor in North Carolina and the grandson of the Robert Lord Bausum mentioned below.
Over twenty of Dan’s ancestors are buried on the mission field in Asia, including China. Pastor Dan's own daughter, Joy, passed away on the mission field in Malaysia back in 2010, due to sudden illness, at just 26 years old. You can find her touching story here.
Dan also graciously wrote the Foreword to The Memoirs of William Milne. Milne was Malaysia’s first missionary and Dan’s ancestors benefitted from his pioneering ministry.
PASS IT ON: FOUR GENERATIONS OF MISSIONARY SERVICE (Volume 2)
Robert Lord Bausum
Robert Lord Bausum left for China the first time in August, 1920, and came home to retire from Taiwan in December, 1955. They had departed Guilin in 1944 and were not allowed back. The following excerpts are from Robert’s book, published in the 1970s, and date back to his ministry in Guilin during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
It took one whole day to walk to the foot of the mountains though they looked so near!
The next morning we climbed the mountain. There was no road, so we followed the course of a mountain stream, tumbling and dashing down the hillside. It bent this way and that, so we waded across it at each bend, rather than following its winding bank. Each time we crossed, I picked up a pebble and put it in my pocket. The final count was twenty-six. (Often I would recount those pebbles so as not to stretch my story!)
By evening we had reached the head of the pass where a house stood. The owner had fallen and rolled down one of those steep hills injuring himself, so he was unable to be our host. However, he offered us a shed for the night if we would wait on ourselves. We gathered bundles of clean, dry rice straw from a nearby field. Part of this we laid out for a bed, and part we used to cover ourselves with-adding warmth to our too thin blankets. We slept very well.
The next day we traveled some of the most beautiful mountain paths I have ever seen…
Toward the end of my [second visit to these unreached mountain peoples], I sat on one side of the square table in Ah Shan's home (one of the few literate chiefs in the area), talking to him about the Gospel. We had gotten to where we were able to get to the heart of the problem now.
Suddenly Ah Shan leaned back and looked me squarely in the eye, and with a direct and frank tone which I shall never forget, said: "As I see it, I don't want your Jesus."
Of course I was floored and asked him for an explanation. He gave [it to me straight]:
Some years before, a man who posed as a preacher (a Baptist, too!) had come into those mountains and visited Ah Shan, among others. This Mr. U had not bothered to preach the Gospel, but was concerned with selling shares in the Si Nan Tang commercial venture many of our members were led into about that time.
Ah Shan bought some $30 worth of the shares, which were to make everybody rich. The years had passed and no interest had been paid. Now he was informed that even the capital was lost. And, so, he concluded: "If that's the sort of business your Jesus does, I don't want Him."
An hour or so later, after patient explanation and reasoning, he corrected his statement to:
"As to your Jesus, I won't say for the moment; but so-and- so's Jesus, I don't want."
I could get no farther with him that year. That honest, cutting remark has stayed with me all these years, and the wound has been opened hundreds of times as I have seen the sorry example many church members are for the unbelieving to see and be repelled by. . .
Preaching in the formal sense of the word as we in America know it was not easy. If I stood up to preach, they would stand up, too, out of courtesy. Sometimes they would walk about to look over my shoulder or feel the cloth of my coat, etc. So we came to depend largely on sitting-and-talking- question-and-answer-type of preaching.
On [one] particular evening (in a new village), we sat about the fire, as it was cool. One by one the people got up and left, as they wished, until there were about half a dozen young men still with me. I was very pleased to have that sort of an audience.
The hours passed and their interest and questions seemed endless. I began to feel tired and sort of hoped they would soon excuse themselves. But they stayed on, and since their questions were sensible, I was still grateful.
When I got really tired, about one or two in the morning, I got up, stretched, and walked into the room where I was to sleep and sat down on the bed. The young men rose as I did, followed me, and squatted about on the floor or such benches as were handy.
Thus the hours dragged by. I would drop asleep between questions and rouse up to try and give a sensible answer to a question I had half heard. Eventually I lay back on the pillow and even stretched out; but the young men were still asking their questions.
Suddenly a rooster crowed-loud and long. As if it had been a signal, the young men rose, remarked quite matter-of- factly, "Time to go to bed," and walked out. I had known it was time to go to bed for quite a while!
And yet, as I look back on that incident, I find only a sense of gratitude that they were so interested, and a feeling of regret that I was so tired. It was true that I had walked all day; but that was my one and only chance to tell them about Jesus, likely their only chance to hear!
My duties in Kweilin kept me quite busy, but I continued to be burdened for my mountain friends. Sometimes my blood would boil when I remembered the sorry business of Pastor U. I had asked Ah Shan to let me have the certificates for the shares he had bought, that I might try to recover his money. He had done that-trusted me to that extent. However, I had had no success. The business had gone completely bankrupt. I considered giving him the money out of my own pocket, but instinctively knew that would be an insult to him.
Suddenly, in 1933, Ah Shan showed up in Kweilin. He had come on other business, but of course he looked me up. During his stay, he was in our home several times, and also attended church services. He was much impressed with the church and the witness other missionaries and Chinese Christians bore. He began to see the message in its perspective.
(Did you ever stop to think how sort of "disconnected" - suspended in midair - the message of the Gospel would be to one who had never heard it?)
When it was time for Ah Shan to return to the mountains, he invited me to go back with him. Although I had not specifically planned to go at this time, I quickly made arrangements to do as he requested. A few days later we began the long walk back to his mountain home.
It took four or five days we didn't hurry. Often I would stop in a village or market and preach for a while. Soon I found Ah Shan standing off to one side handing out tracts as I preached. He would explain things I was saying to those who gathered around him. He was preaching even before he made a confession!
You can get a lot said in four or five days, walking all day every day with just one friend. We talked all day long and into the nights as we rested in Chinese inns. By the time we got home to Lu La, there wasn't much I hadn't said, nor many questions he hadn't asked.
Soon after arriving in Lu La, we sat talking one day. Quite naturally, as if accepting an offer under discussion, Ah Shan said to me:
"I understand now. I want your Jesus."
Those words were worth waiting four years to hear. We discussed the meaning and form of baptism, what a church is and why. You'd be surprised how many things there are to discuss!
On a memorable morning, the news went out over the mountain grapevine that a wonderful thing was going to happen below the great log bridge at Lu La. Ah Shan was going to accept the God of the foreign visitor, who by then had become well known throughout the community. Ah Shan was going to be baptized-whatever that meant!
You may be sure that nobody bothered to go to the field that day. They came from several villages. There must have been a thousand or more who gathered on the bridge and along both banks of the river. Few of them came very close, for they were just a little afraid, and very much awe-struck. But a number of the chiefs came near, and we talked. They all knew me, and I knew them by their "personal names" of course.
Then I walked out into the water a few feet, raised my voice!, and slowly and as loudly as I could, explained sentence by sentence what we were about to do. After prayer, I led Ah Shan out a little ways and baptized him. I think that baptism was the nearest to the original model I have ever seen. I felt awed and humble, myself.
The rest of this visit was spent in explaining to many interested and curious friends just what was meant by that strange ceremony.
By this time I had come to feel quite a part of the household of Ah Shan. [He] invited me to go with him to the mountain above where he lived. He was going to take a vacation for about a month; but I would only stay one day with him.
We climbed the mountain slowly, taking several hours…When we arrived at Ah Shan's vacation home, we rested for a bit. Then Ah Shan went out to prepare traps to catch birds.
Wooden basins were placed every ten or fifteen feet down the hillside, then connected with lengths of bamboo prepared as pipes to carry water. The top basin was connected directly with a natural spring. Thus the water began from the top, flowing through the connecting bamboo "pipes" and thus filling all the basins down the line.
Next a small stick was dipped into a sort of sticky sap from a certain tree, and laid across each of the wooden basins. Now the trap was ready.
Birds migrating south would light in the treetops, and seeing the water in the basins, would come down for a drink. (He had carefully covered the open streams with leaves, so that the water in his traps was most readily available.) The birds would light on the sticks, not realizing that they were covered with the sticky sap, then after drinking, when they tried to fly away, they would flop hopelessly over into the water and drown.
Ah Shan had brought along a bag full of rice. The birds were his meat. He would do nothing but relax for a month- catching birds to eat with his rice. I asked him if he did not need to go home now and then to see after the place. He looked at me in the strangest way and said:
"But, I have a wife!"
I know when I am answered, so I changed the subject!
