Jonathan Goforth-The Epic Power of One Letter

By Mary Vee
Year: summer 1920

Jonathan Goforth-61 years old

Jonathan Goforth's Journal

My name is Jonathan Goforth. My wife, Rosalind, and I are missionaries in China. In all the years I have been here, I have never desired to do anything else with my life than to tell the people in China about the living God who loves them. 

The year is 1920 and life is prosperous in much of the world, except here in north central China. I'm so sad to say that due to weather there has been a terrible famine here. Between thirty and forty million people are starving.

We don't have the technology that you have in modern days. It hasn't been invented yet. One of the biggest problems we face is letting those who could help know about a need. A letter takes time to get across the ocean. And that is only one letter in one language. Millions of starving people need a lot more help than what one letter could do. 

All the missionaries working in the area stopped their normal work to care for the physical needs of the starving people. I went too. Rosalind couldn't go with me. She was ill.

What I didn't know at the time was what she did while I was gone.

 This is a Mimeograph machine. Photo Courtesy

God gave her the idea to quickly write a letter, not to any one person, but to anyone who could read it. She then took it to a neighbor who had a mimeograph machine. Hah, you don't know what that is, right? Well, in our days we could etch, carve letters into a sheet with a purple substance. That purple sheet was placed on a drum with a handle. We turned the handle causing ink to fill in the carved areas and print the words onto paper. This is what we used before copy machines. 

Any way, Rosalind made 150 copies. Then she took those copies to every foreign missionary in the area that she could find. Those missionaries then translated the letter into other languages. Within 24 hours the letter had been mimeographed, distributed to local missionaries, translated into many languages, and sent out to the world.

In an amazing amount of short time, money arrived from all over the globe to help feed the starving people. Food was bought in areas not affected by the famine and sent to the hungry people.

And because the money came to the missionaries who then bought and delivered food, the Chinese people began to trust them and listen to their messages about the One True Living God who loves them.

Remember Changte is a central big city in this area where the starving people lived. We set up tents for the people to gather. Even with the bitter cold temperatures of winter, the people, thankful because of the help, came to hear about a God who loved them. Over three thousand people placed their believe in the living God during that winter.

All from a letter that God asked Rosalind to write when she was ill.

Wow! I am continually amazed at what God can do. 


Jonathan has many stories to share. Come back each Monday to find out what happened next.



Resources Used for This Series
Being, Janet, and Geoff Benge. Jonathan Goforth: An Open Door in China. Seattle. WA: YWAM Pub., 2001.Print
Doyle, G. Wright. Builders of the Chinese Church: Pioneer Protestant Missionaries and Chinese Church Leaders. Eugene Oregon: Pickwick Pub, 2015. Print.
Goforth, Jonathan, and Rosaline Goforth, Miracle Lives of China, London" Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1931, Print.
Goforth, Jonathan. "By My Spirit" Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1942. Print
Goforth, Rosalind. Climbing; Memories of a Missionary's Wife. Chicago: Moody Pub, n.d. Print
Goforth, Rosalind, How I Know God Answers Prayers; The Personal Testimony of One Life-time, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1921. Print
Goforth, Rosalind. Jonathan Goforth. Minneapolis, MN: Bethan House, 1986. Print
Goforth, Rosalind, How God Answers Prayer: The Mighty Miracles of God from the Mission Field of Jonathan Goforth. USA: Revival, 2016. Print Original copyright not stated.
Jackson, Dave, and Neta Jackson. Mask of the Wolf Boy: Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1999. Print.
McCleary, Walter. An Hour with Jonathan Goforth: A Biography. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1938. Print.
Meloche, Renee Taft., and Bryan Pollard. Jonathan Goforth: Never Give up. Seattle, WA: YWAM, 2004. Print.

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