She was a popular speaker at Urbana Student Missions Conferences attracting upwards of 18,000 students. She was the plenary speaker at Urbana three times in her retirement years. What attracted college students to this diminutive, white-haired lady from Northern Ireland? Surely, her refreshing candor had something to do with it. There was no sugar-coating success or hiding failure on the mission field. Helen Roseveare (1925-2016) went to the Congo (now Zaire) in 1953 as a medical missionary doctor. She built a 100-bed hospital from scratch and founded an orphanage for children of leprosy patients. She was, by all accounts, capable and strong-willed, threatening her male colleagues. Tensions with a newly appointed male boss who tried to curtail her leadership initiatives didn’t help matters. She went home to Ireland on furlough depleted and convinced she needed to find a doctor-husband to work with her and side with her in power struggles. She even identified a young doctor who seemed to fit the bill, but the relationship never materialized. She returned to the Congo as a single woman, now in charge and finding ministry falling into place. A civil war erupted in 1964 and rebels took control of the hospital she was leading. She was held as a prisoner for five months and brutally raped. She felt utterly alone as though God had abandoned her. At her lowest moment, she read Paul’s letter to the Philippians and the words jumped off the page, “My God will supply all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4.19). “God met me there,” she wrote. “He was utterly there. He comforted me so completely. My pain was swallowed up in privilege.” Christ’s sufficiency to meet every need became her signature message for the remainder of her ministry. She returned to Ireland in 1973 to care for her ailing mother and train a new generation of mission leaders. She spoke to a student missions conference at age 87 on the theme “Stir Me.” Stir me to go, give and pray is the focus of today’s prayer:
Helen Roseveare
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, I care not how,
But stir my heart in passion for the world!
Stir me to give, to go, but most to pray;
Stir, till the blood-red banner be unfurl’d
O’er lands that still in heathen darkness lie,
O’er deserts where no cross is lifted high.
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, till all my heart
Is filled with strong compassion for these souls;
Till thy compelling Word drives me to pray;
Till thy constraining Love reach to the poles
Far north and south in burning, deep desire,
Till east and west are caught in love’s great fire.
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, Thy heart was stirred
By love’s intensest fire, till Thou didst give
Thine only Son, Thy best beloved ONE
E’en to the dreadful cross, that I might live.
Stir me to give myself back to Thee,
That Thou canst give Thyself again through me.
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, for I can see
Thy glorious triumph-day begin to break!
The dawn already gilds the eastern sky:
Church of Christ, arise! awake! awake!
O stir us, Lord, as heralds of that day,
For night is past, our King is on His way!
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.