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Henry Martyn was born in Truro, Cornwall, England, and he was only two years old when his mother died from tuberculosis. (His sisters followed their mother to an early grave and by the time he was 28, he was the only member of his family still surviving.)
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Reclusive Student
Henry was a gifted student, and the ease with which he was able to learn, tempted him to avoid hard work and he gained a reputation for idleness. He was not popular and his small physique invited bullying by other boys. To protect him from bullying, the teachers placed him under the protection of another boy, who had an enduring Christian influence on his life.

​​Conversion
While studying at St. John’s College, Cambridge, Henry got into arguments and fights. On one occasion he threw a knife at a fellow student. At this time his father died and his sister began intensive intercession for her wayward brother. A lecturer and another student challenged Henry about his relationship to the Lord, and he began reading The Bible. As Henry was converted to Christ, he also achieved great success in his academic studies, but now in the light of his conversion experience, Henry observed: “I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to find that I had grasped a shadow.”

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Adoniram and Ann Judson had the distinction of being America’s first foreign missionaries. Adoniram Judson was the son of an austere Congregational minister. Adoniram learned to read by age three. From the beginning it was clear that he was destined for an exceptional life.

​Conversion
When he entered Brown University on Rhode Island, he became enchanted with Deism and unbelief and slipped into a restless life. After graduation he wrote for the stage in New York. Then he chose to head West for the frontier. En route, at an Inn, he listened all night to a man dying in the next room. In the morning he was shocked to learn that the deceased man was one of his closest companions at college, an outspoken unbeliever who had opposed the Gospel of Christ vehemently. Adoniram knew that Jacob Eames was lost, but he also recognised that the same was true of himself. The West lost its allure, he turned his horse around and enrolled at a Theological Seminary. He was converted to Christ there, in 1808.

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"The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner." William Cameron Townsend.
 
From the Battlefield to the Mission Field
William Cameron Townsend was one of the most influential mission leaders in the last century. Born in California in 1896, raised in a Presbyterian Church, he was inspired to join the Student Volunteer Movement after hearing missionary John Mott speak at Occidental College in Los Angeles. In 1917, as William Townsend prepared to join the army and participate in the war, he was challenged by a missionary on furlough to make the Great Commission his priority and go to the mission field instead of the battlefield.
 
Does God Speak My Language?
He departed for Guatemala, August 1917, with a Bible Association that sold Spanish Bibles in the field. He had almost completed his first year of service in Guatemala when one of the Kaqchikel Indians approached his table, looked at the Spanish Bible and asked "If your God is so smart, why doesn’t He speak my language?" Cameron was shocked to learn that although this man lived in Guatemala, he was one of the 200,000 Kaqchikel people who spoke no Spanish. The cutting comment of this Indian so troubled Cameron, that he dedicated the next 13 years of his life to translating the Bible into their language.

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Stepping Stones to Success
Some years ago, George and Alec Gallup undertook an exhaustive investigation as to what makes some people more successful than others. Using the polling techniques that have made them famous, the brothers researched and wrote a book on Success. One of their conclusions: Successful people read.
 
Foundations for Constructive Conversation
George Gallup found that reading was essential because it "makes a person ready to converse… these people have a broad knowledge… and more information with which to make evaluations and decisions."
 
Gym for the Mind
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Books are minds alive on the shelves. By taking up one of these books and opening it, we can hear the voices of people far away in time and space. By reading we can hear great people of long ago speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart.

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It is impossible! It cannot be done! Do not be ridiculous – what difference can one person make?”

Have you ever encountered these reactions? Anyone who embarks on a challenging enterprise – especially those determined to end legal abortions, eradicate pornography, establish a Christian school or Christian Teacher Training College, stop the ongoing slave trade in Sudan, work for national Reformation and Revival or evangelize a Muslim nation – will encounter those people who seem to believe that they have “the gift of criticism” and “a ministry of discouragement!” ​​