Angels Among Us

Acts 18
1 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth;
2 and found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome,) and came unto them.

Missionaries are God's angels.

They come to my church once in a while, to exhort, to edify. And whatever sacrifices they make, are ignored. The efforts of these missionaries are the mysterious workings of God and the Spirit.

And I really don't understand missionaries and their sacrifice.

My mother-in-law gave me a book, so many years ago, "The Baptists And The Bible." And there was a passage about William Carey, the first Baptist missionary to India. It's a story I will never forget, and it, somehow, shaped my spiritual life. Here's the story:

About The Sacrifice Of William Carey's Wife, From Wikipedia
Dorothy Carsey had refused to leave England, being pregnant with their fourth son and having never been more than a few miles from home; but before they left they asked her again to come with them and she gave consent, with the knowledge that her sister Kitty would help her give birth.

More About Carey's Wife His son Peter died of dysentery, causing Dorothy to suffer a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered.

And Finally
Dorothy Carey died in 1807. She had long since ceased to be a useful member of the mission, and in fact was actually a hindrance to its work. John Marshman wrote how Carey worked away on his studies and translations, ".while an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of most distressing excitement, was in the next room."

I've been posting here for quite awhile. This is the first post that is not edifing. This post was painful to write.

And I just don't understand....