June 08, 2016

The Evangel, a Yacht

Stephen Nichols
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The Evangel, a Yacht

Transcript

This is the story of a yacht. It was named The Evangel, and its story begins with Florence Young.

Young was born in 1856 in Hamilton, New Zealand, to a British family. Her father had left England to strike out on his own and make his mark. When Florence was a young lady, she was sent back to England for boarding school. Later, her father moved the family to Queensland, Australia, and there he and Florence's brothers established a large sugar plantation.

While in Australia, Florence Young met George Muller. Muller is famous for his orphanages and his mission work, and he had a profound influence on Florence. As she looked across the sugar plantations, she saw that many of the workers were Kanaka people. This term refers to workers who hailed from various Pacific islands and migrated to New Zealand, Australia, and other places to work on plantations and farms. Feeling a burden for the Kanaka people, she began to pray for them and hold Bible studies for them. This work eventually grew into the Queensland Kanaka Mission.

About this time, she met Hudson Taylor, the noted missionary who had established the China Inland Mission. Taylor was interested in bringing Young and other pioneering missionaries like her to China. So, in the 1890s, Young turned the Queensland Kanaka Mission over to her trusted lieutenants and went to China as a missionary.

Young wasn't in China long before the Boxer Rebellion broke out. It began in 1899 and lasted through 1901, and it involved Chinese people who were outraged at the Western and Christian influence in China. They called themselves the Righteous Fists of Harmony. During the Boxer Rebellion, many Westerners and Christians were persecuted and martyred, and many were forced to flee. In 1901, Young had to leave her work in China too.

She went back to Australia and continued her work with the Queensland Kanaka Mission. But then she felt called to reach out to the people of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago east of the island of New Guinea. In 1904, she purchased a yacht and christened it The Evangel. From 1904 through 1940, Young sailed her yacht around the Solomon Islands. Eventually, she established another mission, calling it the South Seas Evangelical Mission. She would pull into an island and have prayer meetings and Bible studies. She would identify some local leadership on the island. She would train them and then she would step aside and let them pastor a church. Then she would get back on the yacht and she'd head off to another island.

By the time of her death in 1940, the South Seas Evangelical Mission had evolved into the South Seas Evangelical Church, and it had nine thousand members, thanks in part to Florence Young and her yacht, The Evangel.