James O. Fraser

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Outram Fraser (* 1886 probably in St Albans , Great Britain ; † September 25, 1938 in Baoshan , China ) was a British Evangelical missionary among the Lisu people in the Chinese province of Yunnan . As a member of the China Inland Mission , he worked as an evangelist, Bible translator, Bible teacher, and church planter. For the literacy of Lisu he developed the Fraser alphabet named after him .

resume

Childhood and youth

James Outram Fraser, was probably born in St Albans in 1886 . In St Albans he grew up with four other siblings. Because he was the third brother, he was later named "Elder Brother Number Three" by the Lisu. His father, a Scottish Canadian, was a successful veterinarian and devoted Methodist . His parents separated in his teenage years and the mother moved to Letchworth Garden City with their five children . When James did something he showed dogged perseverance. As a boy, he once cycled 320 km without dismounting. He was very musically gifted, so that he gave his first piano concerto in London at the age of 20 . But he was also very talented technically and mathematically, so that he studied engineering at Imperial College in London. Completion of this degree would have opened up the best prospects for him, but it was during this time that a Christian tract came into his hands that would change his personal life plans. The tract asked what we would answer to Jesus Christ if He returned now and asked us why the gospel still hasn't reached millions of people . By this question he felt personally challenged to contribute to the fulfillment of the missionary command of Jesus and after completing his studies applied for the missionary service of the China Inland Mission founded by the China missionary Hudson Taylor .

Beginning time in missionary service

At the age of 21, James Fraser began his one-year candidate period at the headquarters of the CIM (China Inland Mission) in London. His application had been turned down twice because of an ear infection and wasn't accepted until the infection went away. He left for China at the age of 22. At the language school in China he was selected for this province by the missionary John McCarthy, who had been working in Yunnan for a long time . His first place of residence was the city of Tengyue near the border with Burma . There he came into contact with members of the Lisu people and immediately felt drawn to them. The Lisu were called "ape people" by the Chinese and lived in mountain regions that were difficult to access. Once when he was invited to a festival in a Lisu village, he began to write down sentences from the Lisu language. However, since excessive alcohol was consumed during the festival, further communication was not possible.

After getting Carl Gowman to work for him, he made trips to the Lisu villages with him and his Chinese cook. Although he could not yet speak the Lisu language, he still preached the Gospel to them through the mediation of those who understood Chinese. Some even turned away from their demon worship by breaking off the shelves dedicated to the demons and declaring that they now worship Jesus. But when Fraser was no longer there and a number of Lisu fell ill, they attributed the disease to the vengeance of the demons and turned back to the old demon worship. After these disappointing experiences, Fraser and Gowman were visited by Ba Thaw, a Karen from Burma who spoke fluent English and Lisu. He encouraged her and supported her in teaching the Lisu.

At the suggestion of the head of the mission in Shanghai , he went on a six-week inspection tour to explore the tribes and the mountainous region. He also came to the Kachin area . His message of Jesus Christ was gladly heard by the Lisu and some wanted to turn away from their belief in demons. This trip made him want to continue working in the field. The mission leadership, who originally wanted to move him to another area, finally respected his request.

The inspection trip as well as his previous experiences had shown him the enormous difficulties of his task. So he wrote to his mother at home and asked her to gather around a group of Christians who should pray regularly for his work. He in turn provided this group with information from his missionary work through regular letters. After another inspection tour he moved to a place in the Lisu area. But since his message was met with indifference here, he began to doubt whether he was really on the right track. He got into depressive thoughts and at times even thought of suicide . Then he received a copy of the Christian magazine "The Overcomer" by mail from England, which drew his attention to biblical principles that helped him out of his condition.

The breakthrough

Fraser continued to study the Lisu language and developed an alphabet for it known as the Fraser alphabet . In 1914 he moved his base to Tantsah. In 1915 he traveled to the Geis couple in Burma. Here he received help from Mr. Geis and Ba Thaw in working out the alphabet. During this stay, he also decided to pray for the conversion of hundreds of Lisu families. When he returned to Tantsah, he had to struggle not only with external but also internal resistance. Discouragement, indifference and impatience can be found in his diary entries. Few Lisu had so far responded to his message by destroying the demon shelves and getting baptized . He received encouragement and help from reading the magazine “The Overcomer”, which was sent to him. He found the articles by Jessie Penn-Lewis particularly helpful .

When, after five months of work in Tantsah, he saw no significant effects, he was ready to write to the head of the mission and request that he be transferred to another field. Before he did so, he wanted to make one last trip through the Lisu villages. On this trip there were now families in one village after another who gave up their worship of demons and wanted to become Christians. At the end of his journey, 129 families (approx. 600 people) had turned to Jesus Christ in faith. At this time Ba Thaw also came back, who took over the further instruction of the new converts .

James Fraser had other responsibilities. So he had to teach the young Christians the basics of the faith and motivate them to adopt a new lifestyle. This included stopping growing opium and taking part in binge drinking. On behalf of the British government, he compiled a Lisu handbook which, in addition to a description of the history of Lisu and its customs, also contained Lisu grammar and a Lisu-English dictionary.

First home leave

In 1922 he went to his mother's home. Through his reports from the work in China, he was able to motivate even more people to pray for this work. On his return trip, he also visited the USA and Canada. When he promoted the mission among the Lisu at a mission conference in Canada, Isobel Kuhn heard him , who decided to go into this work. His charisma at the conference was so great that one visitor claimed he could still feel it there a year later.

Work in Gansu

When Fraser returned to China, the mission leadership did not send him back to the Lisu, but to the Chinese province of Gansu because his skills were needed there more urgently. He was given the task of preparing a report on the state of the missionary work and the political unrest. He supported the work there until 1927. Then all foreigners had to be evacuated from this area due to an anti-foreigner movement.

Return to the Lisu

After a few months at the headquarters in Shanghai, he returned to the Lisu. In the meantime, various young missionary couples had taken over the work here. B. also the Kuhn couple.

In October 1929 he married Roxie Dymond, 19 years his junior, daughter of the Methodist missionary Frank Dymond. In the following years the couple had two daughters.

After suffering from severe typhoid fever, he and his family went on holiday to see his mother in 1934, who saw him again on her 79th birthday. They then traveled to Canada, where they were greatly influenced by the 76-year-old, already blind Jonathan Goforth . Goforth had been a missionary in China himself.

Fraser took over the mission of Yunnan. Later, when the job was found to be too extensive, the leadership was split and he took over the leadership of West Yunnan.

He helped the Cooke couple with the translation of the New Testament into the Lisu language, the completion of which he was still to see. A full edition of the Bible in Lisu did not appear until 1968.

End of life

Fraser's wife was just pregnant and was due to give birth to their third child at the end of the year when he suddenly had a headache on September 21, 1938 and had to go to bed with severe brain malaria. There was no adequate medical help in Baoshan, so he died on September 25th.

Mission Methods

Regular personal prayer as well as prayer support from home were of central importance to him . When faced with trouble, his prayer was, “If that obstacle is yours, Lord, I will accept it; but if it is from Satan, then I reject it because of the completed redemption on Golgotha. "

Fraser didn't want the locals to become dependent on the missionaries, so he advised them, "Don't stay anywhere too long."

The Lisu who had become Christians were encouraged to send out and fund their own people to spread the gospel among their people.

Complete love among the staff was more important to him than evangelism. He therefore made trips of several days to restore disturbed relationships.

literature

  • Eileen Crossman: James Fraser, the mountain climber of God Translated from English by Kirsten Dollen, 2nd edition. Christian literature distribution, Bielefeld 1996, ISBN 3-89397-332-X (English Mountain Rain )
  • Isobel Kuhn: Those looking for me - In der Arena , 4th edition, Brunnen Verlag, Gießen and Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7655-3984-8 ( By Searching, In the Arena )
  • Isobel Kuhn: People of the Second Mile , Verlag der St. Johannis-Druckerei C. Schweickhardt, Lahr-Dinglingen 1988, ISBN 3-501-00373-0 (English Second-Mile People )

DVD

  • James O. Fraser - The Breakthrough, 32 Min, FSK without age restriction, EAN: 4010276401278

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the English Wikipedia, London is given without any evidence. However, this may be incorrect as the home of the St Albans family was.
  2. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 217
  3. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 13
  4. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 13
  5. Jump up ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 14
  6. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 12
  7. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 11
  8. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 12
  9. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 17
  10. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 18-19
  11. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 22
  12. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 23
  13. Jump up ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 28-29
  14. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 35
  15. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 52-60
  16. Jump up ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 60-67
  17. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 69
  18. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 70–73
  19. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 73-74
  20. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 78
  21. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 80
  22. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 820
  23. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 111
  24. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 115–116
  25. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 117
  26. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 120
  27. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 130
  28. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 131
  29. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 142-143
  30. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 190
  31. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 209
  32. ↑ Kuhn: Those looking for me - In der Arena (1998), pp. 50–56
  33. ↑ Kuhn: People of the Second Mile (1988), p. 31
  34. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 213
  35. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 215
  36. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 216
  37. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 220
  38. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 229
  39. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 240
  40. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 237-239
  41. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), pp. 246–247
  42. ↑ Kuhn: Those looking for me - In der Arena (1998), p. 55
  43. ^ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 222
  44. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 225
  45. ↑ Crossman: James Fraser, Der Bergsteiger Gottes (1996), p. 231
personal data
SURNAME Fraser, James O.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fraser, James Outram (real name); Older brother number three (name among the Lisu)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Christian missionary (Protestant) in China
DATE OF BIRTH 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: St Albans , UK
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1938
Place of death Baoshan (Yunnan) , China