James Fraser now faced a period of unwelcome practical responsibilities and frequent interruptions. The lessons he learnt are worth studying.
James longed to get back to Tengyueh and share his experiences with Mr and Mrs Embery. He needed someone to share it all with. How deeply he valued their friendship and loving advice. It was a real grief to him now to hear that these senior colleagues of his were to be sent to Tali (达利) and his letters showed how painful he found the experience.
In his diary he wrote:
“Had it been possible for someone else to go to Dali, the Emberys would not have been asked to do so. But the shortage of workers is so great that no other arrangements could be made. As far as matters here are concerned, it means I am single-handed and must remain so indefinitely. I have the responsibility of looking after our comparatively large premises, as well as the much weightier responsibility of preaching the gospel alone now. So it is no small load that has fallen on my shoulders.”
His present situation was in every sense against the grain. He did not enjoy housekeeping and looking after the premises. Endless small items of business cluttered up the time he wanted for language study, and he was having to learn to be perpetually inconvenienced for the sake of the gospel. Defeat at this stage of his life might have led to spiritual stagnation in all the years ahead.
In his diary he wrote:
“I feel somehow that my best opportunity for Chinese study is gone forever. Interruptions, visits and attention to details absorb a good deal of my time. But I am finding out that it is a mistake to plan to get through a certain amount of work in a certain time. It ends in disappointment, besides not being the right way to go about it in my judgment. It makes one impatient of interruption and delay. Just as you are nearly finishing, somebody comes along to sit with you and have a chat. You might hardly think it possible to be impatient and put out when there is such an opportunity for presenting the gospel, but it is. It may be just on mealtime, or you are writing a letter to catch the mail, or you are just going out for needed exercise before tea. But the visitor has to be welcomed, and I think it is well to cultivate an attitude of mind which will enable one to welcome him from the heart and at any time. No admittance, except on business, scarcely shows a true missionary spirit.” (Taken from Mountain Rain, a biography of James O. Fraser, by Eileen Fraser Crossman.)
Paul’s similar experience of “perpetual inconvenience” is recorded at the beginning and the end of the book of Romans. Romans 1:13: “Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now.”
Romans 15:22: “This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.”
And even when Paul did come, it was as a prisoner in chains, narrowly escaping death at least three times. Not exactly the kind of visit he’d planned. But that did not stop him.
Acts 26:30-31: “Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house (in Rome), and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.”
