What’s In Your Hand?
In 1921 David and Svea Flood, a young Swedish missionary couple, felt God calling them with their two year old son to the Belgian Congo. There they teamed with another missionary couple from Scandinavia Joel and Bertha Ericsson. David and Svea believed God called them to minister to the remote village of N’dolera. However, the village chieftain would not allow them to enter the village. He feared that Christian missionaries would offend their local gods. They built a small hut outside the village and spoke the gospel to everyone they met. After a year the only one that listened to the gospel message was a young delivery boy who the chief allowed to sell them eggs and chickens twice a week. That year Svea although sick with malaria gave birth to a baby girl they named Eina. Svea died only seventeen days after Eina’s birth. David buried his young wife on a mountainside in Congo. He was overcome with waves of grief. His grief turned to bitterness. His faith shaken, David left the mission field and returned to Sweden. He gave his newborn baby girl to Joel and Bertha. The Ericsson’s both contracted a mysterious illness and died only eight months later. An American missionary couple adopted Eina and moved with her back to the states. They renamed their little girl Agnes. Aggie’s adoptive parents loved their daughter and settled in South Dakota where they pastored a local church.
Agnes graduated from North Central Bible college in Minneapolis where she met and married Dewey Hurst. They dedicated their lives to Christian ministry and raised two children in a loving home. Agnes and Dewey served many years and God blessed them with a fruitful ministry. Dewy became president of a Christian college near Seattle. There were many families of Scandinavian descent in their community. Aggie found a Christian missions publication in her mail written in Swedish. Although she couldn’t read the flyer, she noticed a picture of a small white cross that marked a gravesite in a remote area. On the cross was inscribed the name Svea Flood. She recognized the name on the cross. Aggie drove to the college to meet with a professor she knew who spoke Swedish. She begged him, “Please tell me what the flyer says.”
Here is an excerpt from the biography, Aggie, The Inspiring Story of a Girl Without a Country: The instructor summarized the story: It was about missionaries who had come to N’dolera long ago…the birth of a white baby…the death of the young mother…the one little African boy who had been led to Christ…and how, after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. The article said that gradually he won all his students to Christ…the children led their parents to Christ…even the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred Christian believers in that one village…
All because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood.
On their twenty fifth wedding anniversary, the college where Dewey served presented Dewey and Aggie with a trip to Sweden. Aggie made plans to see her biological father. After Aggie had been born, David Flood left Africa, returned to Sweden, remarried and fathered four children. Aggie visited with her half brothers and her half sister and they emotionally bonded as long lost siblings. They told Aggie that their father had recently suffered a severe stroke. They warned her that even after fifty years he was still bitter over the death of his young wife in Africa. David Flood had turned his back on God and and whenever anyone mentioned the name of God, he flew into a rage. He had turned to alcohol and lived a life of despair.
Undaunted, Aggie found the squalid apartment where her father lived. She entered his bedroom strewn with empty liquor bottles and approached the bed where he lay suffering from the effects of his recent stroke. “Papa,” she said softly. David turned toward his daughter and began to cry. “Aina, I never meant to give you away,” he said.
“It’s all right, Papa,” she reassured him. “God has taken good care of me.”
David instantly stiffened at the mention of God. He said, “God forgot about all of us. I’m living in despair because of him.” He turned away from her, facing the wall.
She stroked his his face and continued. “Papa, I need to tell you a true story. You didn’t go to Africa in vain. Mama didn’t die in vain. The one little boy you led to Christ grew up and started a school in N’dolera. He taught the children there about Jesus Christ and they taught their parents about the gospel. Even the chief accepted Jesus Christ. Today because of the one little seed you planted, there over six hundred Christians who serve the Lord because you were faithful to follow God’s call for your life…
Papa, Jesus never hated you. Jesus always loved you.”
The old man faced his daughter, looking into her eyes filled with tears of love. His face began to soften as they reunited as father and daughter. By the end of the afternoon, he had reclaimed the faith he had forsaken decades before. They spent the next precious days bonding and encouraging each other before Ages and Dewey had to return to the states. Just a few weeks later, David passed into eternity.
Five years later, Dewey and Agness attended a Pentecostal conference in England. The speaker was the superintendent of the national church of Zaire, formerly known as the Belgian Congo. He spoke eloquently of the explosive growth of Christianity in Zaire where 110,000 people had recently been baptized for Christ. Aggie felt compelled to approach the speaker after his speech, “Do you know anything about David and Svea Flood? I’m their biological daughter. They were missionaries in the Belgian Congo in 1921.”
He responded in French through a translator. “Yes Madam. Svea Flood led me to Christ. I was the little boy who brought your mother food twice a week before you were born. I think I was the only one who believed their stories about the Bible. I remember her little girl named Eina and I’ve often wondered what became of her. I placed flowers on your mother’s grave not long ago. I thank God that because of her sacrifice thousands of people in Zaire have come to Christ.”
God called Moses to lead the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt to the promised land. God got his attention and talked to him from a burning bush that was not consumed. Moses protested, “I’m not worthy to lead your people. I’ve been banished from Egypt. I can’t even speak.” God asked Moses, “what’s in your hand?” Moses replied, “It’s a shepherd’s staff. God said, “throw it down.” Immediately it turned into a snake.
God works in mysterious ways. He uses the weak things of the world to confound the wise. What’s in your hand? God places his tools in our hands to do His work. When David Flood looked in his hand, all he could see was a dead wife, a baby girl he couldn’t care for, and a little delivery boy, the only one who listened to the Bible after a year in Congo. He couldn’t see what God had placed in his hand. Like God said to Moses, “what’s in your hand.” Moses saw a shepherd’s staff. It was the symbol of his profession. It was his identity as a shepherd. The Lord said to Moses, “throw it down.” Sometimes God asks, “what’s in your hand?” The next thing he says is “Throw it down, let go of it.” Our command is to throw down our identity and the things we hold dear. The staff in Moses hand represented his good life as a shepherd in the wilderness. What God saw in Moses hand was a staff that would represent the power of God to part the Red Sea…a staff that would bring forth the water of life in the desert.
God places in our hands tools for His purpose. He asks us, “throw it down, surrender it to me.” If you don’t relinquish it for God’s purpose, it will just be a shepherd’s staff. According to Ephesians 3:20, “now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.”
Two fish and five loaves in our hand adds up to seven. Two fish and five loaves in the hands of Jesus adds up to five thousand, miraculous food to feed hungry souls.
We’re tools in the masters’ hands. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do All in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the father by him, for it is God who worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure.
In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi:
Lord make me and instrument of thy peace…
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled, as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
And it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born again into eternal life.
Amen.
What’s in your hand? May we pray that we are instruments in God’s hands, fit for the master’s use,
Your brother in Christ,
Michael