Heritage
He burned a Bible in front of his father, and three days later would not leave the house without oneHe burned a Bible in front of his father, and three days later would not leave the house without one
1 September 2026 · 4 min read
Heritage
Indian and Global South church history — the Thomas Christian tradition, missions history, indigenous worship, festivals and regional traditions.
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She could recite eighteen thousand verses of Sanskrit, and used it to argue for widows
Pandita Ramabai was orphaned by famine at sixteen, widowed at twenty-three, and went to England to train as a doctor. Deafness ended that. What she built instead at Kedgaon is still open.
He fed two thousand children a day and never once asked anyone for money
George Müller was a thief at ten and a fraud at twenty. Then he built five orphanages in Bristol, ran them for sixty years on donations he refused to solicit, and published his accounts so anyone could check him.
He saw a photograph of a boy his own age with leprosy, and gave India the next thirty-four years
Graham Staines was fifteen, in Queensland, sitting through a missionary's slideshow. What he built in Baripada afterwards is still standing.
An American wrote the Hindi grammar that Indian Civil Service candidates had to pass their exams on, and it is still in the issue
Samuel Kellogg learned the language because he was posted alone to a station outside Farrukhabad with nobody to speak English to. The book he produced gave its name to forty-four years of Hindi scholarship, and it is on sale in Delhi today.
In thirty years he made one convert, and that convert went on to do more than he did
David Livingstone is the most famous missionary Britain ever produced. By the measure he chose for himself he failed almost completely, and the most remarkable act in his story was performed by men whose names are on no gravestone.