Year: summer 1933
Jonathan Goforth 74 years old
Jonathan Goforth's Journal
In all the years I have been in Asia, I have never wanted to do anything else with my life than to tell the people in China and as it turns out, Manchuria, about the living God who loves them.
It is 1933, I am 74 years old and want to do so much more for God.
Rosalind and I were happily doing God's work in China. We took more vacations. My kind of vacation. We returned to our first mission station in Changte and saw our friends. I spoke at 4 meetings every day. More than 800 people showed on average.
Each day was a blessing. Then one March day I felt this terrible sensation in my left eye, the only good eye I had. Everything became blurry. I called my wife Rosalind, who happened to be a nurse. She saw the problem was serious enough to go to a big city for help.
The doctor in Peking said I had a detached retina in my left eye. He operated several times, none of them helped. I soon realized that I was permanently blind in both eyes.
Going blind is a dramatic shock. A person no longer sees the daylight, or the moonlight. Time has to be thought of in a completely different way. I talked with God for several days looking for comfort. He reminded me I had read through the entire Bible over 70 times and memorized large passages.
Visitors came to see me. They ended up telling me about their troubles. Because I knew the Bible passages for memory I was able to tell each one a verse of comfort or advise.
I soon saw that I was not useless. I could still tell people about the God who loves them.
I saw that blindness could not rob me of my work for God.
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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