The Healer of SHillong

Review of the Healer of Shillong

Seventy years have passed since I was first introduced at Primary School to the concept of Missionary Service Overseas. We met a ’real’ missionary who had served in N.E. India and who was at the time a local minister, whose daughter attended the school. We came to admire famous names like David Livingstone and Albert Schweitzer and were introduced to what seemed remarkable work among poverty-stricken peoples in far off lands. Some twenty years later, as a member of the Presbyterian Church of Wales Mission Board, former missionaries – people like Revs. T.B. Phillips, T.M. Thomas, E.W.Thomas, Dr. G.P. Roberts and Miss G.R. Roberts- became colleagues with their stories and experiences creating renewed curiosity about overseas mission.

In those far gone days, naturally, one had no understanding of the raison d’etre of mission, the mechanisms for appointing, training, supporting and funding those serving abroad. Yes, the Mission Collection, the monthly Mission Prayer Meeting and the Ladies Mission Auxiliary were appropriately announced in our church. Mission seemed to be about persons going and doing ‘good things’ as Christians in distant lands, and in our case N.E. India in particular. From the early days of the ‘The Welsh Mission’ in N.E. India publicity involved reproducing letters from missionaries in Y Drysorfa and Y Goleuad, the Society’s Annual Reports and bulletins like Glad Tidings and eventually, from 1921, Y Cenhadwr. By these means there was direct communication between ‘the field’ and church members in Welsh pews describing the daily labours of missionaries, notable events such as Synod meetings or celebrations, new missionary arrivals, new initiatives taken in ministry, teaching or medical work. Communication was intended to encourage participation in the Mission largely through prayerful and financial support. Sixty years after the closure of the field to Europeans the enterprise as a whole has become merely a distant memory for those who were the youth of the fifties and a largely a forgotten story for subsequent generations.

Welsh life has been refashioned over the past half-century. Churches and chapels have closed following the dramatic decline in membership. The legitimacy of the faith has been questioned when faced with the marvels of science and technology or the challenges of a virulent humanism in the name of freedom. Physical activity has largely replaced faith as a source of human ‘wellbeing.’ The crossing of national boundaries and movement of peoples have widened horizons and given coinage to words like ‘multiculturalism, multifaith, which for many questions the primacy even the validity of our own spiritual heritage. Mission particularly in the sense of ‘conversion’ has lost it urgency and its morality questioned following the demise of the British Empire. Yet, however diminished, suspect or discarded the words ‘Christian mission’ may be today it cannot be denied that they form part of our story, our heritage. But more - they encapsulate our contribution to the world beyond Offa’s Dyke. Whatever negatives may be employed to describe the Mission Movement there were real blessings. Mizo visitors to Wales constantly remind us of their head-hunting past before ‘you came to us and civilised us.’ Khasis speak about the blessings of education albeit Western by orientation. All speak of a life changing faith which enhanced perspectives and brought with it healthcare and human dignity. Neither should we forget the cost in sacrifices made by the missionaries in terms of separation from children and families, financial hardship, loneliness, the dangers to health through local diseases and even death. What was the motive, the inspiration and the sustaining power? There can only be one answer - the conviction that ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whoever believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ Constrained by that self-giving love of people they went and served

Much has been written in recent times about this venture, which extended from the Khasi Hills in the west to the borders of Myanmar in the east, from the plains of Bangladesh to the North Cachar Hills, by both church and secular historians. Some like Nigel Jenkins out of curiosity others like Andrew May seeking historical clarity about missionaries and empire and a search for a distant relative. The Reverend Dr. Ben Rees, writing from a Church perspective, has made a very valuable and lasting contribution in seeking to reconnect Wales with its own story. Vehicles of Grace and Hope, (2003) a most informative volume, edited by Rees, contains thumbnail portraits of Welsh missionaries in India from 1800-1970. In 2016 he published Josiah Hughes: The Reluctant Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Missionary of22 Malacca - the story of one of the four early Welsh Calvinistic Methodist missionaries who served under the London Missionary Society. In 2016 he also published The Healer of Shillong a volume on the pioneering medical missionary Rev Dr Hugh Gordon Roberts in preparation for the centenary celebrations in 2022 of the Shillong ‘Welsh Mission Hospital.’ These volumes are very readable and necessary reading particularly for Welsh Presbyterians and those interested in the ‘glorious works of God.’ His current volume introduces readers to the Welsh Mission on the Khasi-Jaintia Hills, on the Bangladeshi Plains/Cachar Hills and in Mizoram. He considers the achievements of Thomas Jones, the pioneer of the mission and a review of Andrew J. May’s volume Welsh missionaries and British imperialism. The significance of the volume lies in the overview it offers of the Mission Field, outlining significant events in it development leading to the establishing of what is known by today as ‘The Presbyterian Church of India .’

This volume like the others is readable, informative and at times passionate about our Welsh story, our contribution on the global stage.

Dafydd Andrew Jones , Cardiff ( Secretary of the Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church of Wales from 1978 to 2015 ) , 7 January 2021.