Missionaries

Missionaries in History

In the 12th century, Raymond Lull, a medieval scholar and missionary, traveled to north Africa and worked with the Muslim population. Lull is noteworthy for going to a region that no one else was willing to visit and is reportedly the first missionary to the Muslims. David Brainerd was an 18th-century missionary to native people in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. His many journals were read widely in the colonies and his writings informed the colonists of life among the indigenous Americans.

William Carey served as a missionary to India during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Carey founded the English Baptists Missionary Service and is considered by many historians to be the creator of modern missionaries. Another prominent early 19thcentury missionary to India and Persia was Henry Martyn of Cambridge University. Martyn is described as being humble and self-effacing, bright and spiritual, and a strong advocate of the people he served.

Ann Hasseltine Judson is reported to be one of the first missionaries from America to work overseas. In the early 19th century, she and her husband represented the American Baptist Mission in Burma. Another American missionary of the late 19th century was Hudson Taylor, who traveled to China and is credited with founding the China Inland Mission.

A review of the activities of the missionaries over the past few centuries reveals three important points: 1) the number of missionaries has increased significantly over time, 2) the reach of missionaries has expanded to every continent, and 3) the focus of their work has gradually shifted from primarily conversion to Christianity to the direct alleviation of poverty in all its forms—hunger, education, employment, housing, and virtually all of the socioeconomic deficits experienced by the poor.

Modern Missionaries and Poverty

In recent years, the Women's Missionary Union (WMU), a Southern Baptist organization, has been furthering the efforts to combat one of the developing world's severest problems: access to safe drinking water. The WMU's ministry, “Pure Water, Pure Love,” has the goal of providing people with clean drinking water through a water filtration system and the delivery of fresh water supplies to those in need. The WMU is also active in the fight against world hunger.

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