Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Swan, missionaries, lost a dear little ten-month-old son in far-off Africa. Revisiting the spot years later, he wrote: “As soon as I got a few quiet moments, I stole away alone to the spot of sacred memories where we laid to rest our darling little Reggie fourteen years ago. As I walked down the path I read again the familiar words, ‘Reginald Tremere Swan. Taken to be with Christ, Age 101/2 months.’ Heaven seemed much nearer than usual.
“As I stood again on the mounds that marked the sites of what were our temporary dwellings then when we first came with the light of the gospel to the dark Ochilonda, then upon the mounds of our more primitive home and the first meeting room, and my eyes rested upon the numerous dwellings of the native Christians. Oh, what memories crowded in upon me as I lingered amidst these surroundings.”
How blest and how privileged to be the child of parents who know the love of God! When that love is experienced by the natives, it makes them loving.
“Yes,” said one old man, “that man is saved, and why do I know it? Why do I know it is daybreak without even looking out from my dark hut to see if there are streaks of dawn? I know by the singing of the birds at sunrise. Their music gets into the blackness of my house, without my even looking out to see if the eastern sky is glowing with the rising sun. So it is with a Christian and his new heart. I cannot get in, past skin and bone, to inspect, but the new heart comes out in song like the birds at sunrise.”
ML-11/19/1978