#494 - The Saviour of Kurdistan

The Saviour of Kurdistan

  Knee deep in the waters of the upper Tigris stood a poor Kurdish washerwoman plying her vocation. Although her pay was but a pittance, she wrought daily at her hard task for her own livelihood, for the education of her bright little boy, and for charity. In the winter, when blocks of ice from the streams in the Taurus Mountains came floating down the river, she still was there, laboring with strong arms and a stronger love.

  The missionary from Kharput, making his annual visit, saw in his congregation a face that fascinated him. In it suffering and sorrow and hope and patience and passionate devotion seemed to have wrought their perfect work. At the close of the meeting he said to the native pastor: “Bring that woman to me.”

  In mean attire and trembling, the woman stood before him, holding with one hand her little boy. The missionary spoke Armenian; she understood Kurdish. He addressed her through the native pastor.

  “Mother, do you love Jesus?”

  “I do,” she said, “I do.”

  “How much would you give to Him?” asked the missionary.

  “Oh, missionary,” she cried, “I have nothing! Yet all I earn I give, saving only enough for good for this little boy and myself.”

  “Would you give your little boy?” he asked.

  “He is my all – my life!” she cried.

  “Think well of it to-night and pray,” said the missionary. “I return to Kharput to-morrow.”

  And the widow went out, sobbing: “My only son, my Thomas!”

  The remaining hours of the missionary's visit were very busy ones, and when the morning came and his horse was saddled, he had forgotten about Thomas. He reproached himself afterward, but it was true – he forgot. The journey was long. The mountain full of brigands. There was so much of preparation for the journey, so much of necessary adjustment of the work of the mission, so much of admonition, direction and advice, that Thomas and his mother, with the wonderful light in her eyes, passed wholly from his mind.

  But just as he was about to start, the group of mission workers and converts who had assembled to bid him farewell divided to make room for her to approach him – and there was the mother and Thomas.

  At the missionary's feet she laid the little bundle of clothing on which she had worked all night. She laid one hand on her boy's head, and with the other pointing upward, said two words: “Thomas – Christos.” Then she went back to her lonely home. But not to a narrowed or mournful life; hers was the joy of one who had made the supreme sacrifice.

  Thomas developed all those powers which the missionary had discerned in promise on his face, and has seen in full development in the face of his mother. He led the class. He advanced by leaps and bounds. He was valedictorian at his graduation. He pushed straight on in his Bible study, and when he graduated he went back to his old home, where the mother waited for him, and then far beyond into the Kurdish mountains to a town which, for its Christian faith in early ages, had been named Martyropolis. There he began anew the preaching of a Gospel that once made its followers faithful unto death, and they call him “The Prophet of Kurdistan.”

  The black year 1895 came round, and with it the awful massacres. Many thousand Christians gave their lives for their faith. Eight hundred of the members of the churches located close to him perished. Twenty-seven teachers and preachers died at their posts; Thomas was shot and cruelly cut, and left for dead. With bleeding wounds and borken bones and a fractured skull they bore him fifteen hours' journey – two long days – to where he could have the protection of a British consul and the care of a European surgeon. And Thomas, against all probabilities, recovered.

  Back he went into the mountains where he had worked before. He gathered the scattered, frightened Christians and inspired them with new courage and hope. He protected the widows; he fed the orphans. He gave himself without fear or fatigue to a work that brought new life to crushed and broken hearts. The sacrifice of his own mother bore its abundant fruit in the comfort he brought to hundreds of widows and orphans, and the called him the saviour of Kurdistan.--Selected.

Illustrative Anecdotes for Preachers, Sunday School Teachers, and the Family Circle. Henry M. Tyndall. 1925. #494 (Pages 264-265).

[for information on “The black year 1895,” look up “Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895)” in Wikipedia or elsewhere.]