News and Events
Fools for Christ - PNG Martyrs and Bill Armstrong |
| Posted by Mark Hood on 9th June, 2008 |
What does Christ focused gospel ministry look like?
Last Sunday we heard two powerful testimonies of gospel ministry: as we heard of the New Guinea martyrs - fools for Christ who gave their lives in 1942, and William (Bill) Armstrong, who gave his life in 50 years of faithful service at St Mark's Camberwell.
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Commemoration of the PNG Martyrs
Excerpt from Commemoration of the PNG Martyrs, sermon delivered by Canon Donald Johnston at St Peter’s Eastern Hill, 7 September 2003
"Greater love hath no one than this ..." Today we commemorate twelve brave Martyrs of PNG. In 1942 the Japanese invasion threatened all the sacrificial work of our missionaries to establish the Church that country. Despite the threat, Bp Philip Strong radioed to the Mission Stations: "We cannot leave… Many already think us fools and mad… If we are fools, we are fools for Christ's sake". Christ's fools!
May Hayman from Adelaide, trained as a nurse in Melbourne and Canberra. May went to PNG and was nursing the patients at the Mission Station at Gona. This station had only been established in 1929, thirteen years before. Three missionaries were at Gona as the tensions of war increased – Fr James Benson, Sister May and the newly arrived teacher, Mavis Parkinson. The first thought of these young women was for their newly converted brothers and sisters, still tender in their faith. How could they possibly leave their charges! Sr May thought of her patients. She said to her Bishop: "What will the sick do if I move from here?" Mavis Parkinson said: "What will happen to my pupils." So they stayed, until the very moment the bullets and shells fell and the Japanese soldiers landed on their beach.
Together with the villagers, they forced their way inland through almost impenetrable bush. They found temporary refuge in a Christian village, keeping up their spirits by writing letters home – letters of amazing spirit and courage and wit which, miraculously, survived to be delivered. More to save the people who sheltered them than for any other reason, they attempted to get through the Japanese patrols and achieve what was almost impossible, to make their way over the mountains to Port Moresby. They were betrayed and handed over to the enemy. The two young women were kept for a night in a coffee hut. They were taunted and proffered food which was then withdrawn. In the morning they were blindfolded, led to a plantation where shallow graves had been dug and there they were bayoneted.
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So when you come to St. Mark's you should notice the imperative of the stained-glass windows - namely:
Christ before us in his ministry of life, death, resurrection and ascension;
Christ behind us, risen in transcendent power and glory;
and Christian witnesses beside us (in the windows along both sides of the church), a cloud of witnesses who have given themselves in the ministry of the gospel of Christ.
In what way is Christ calling you?
In what way is Christ calling the people of St. Mark's?