The Expanding Circle of Your Influence

Your life influences other people. Actions made one day are like a stone thrown into a pool. Gradually, expanding circles and ripples in the water reach further and further. 

I'm reminded of an (almost) forgotten hero. The ripples left by John Bates continue to spread, even today. John was born in 1805 in Bugbrook, England. William Carey, the amazing missionary to India, was a name well known in Bugbrook since John's father helped to support the work in India as a thatcher and hedge-trimmer. As a child, John read George Whitfield's writings and those of John Bunyan. In Sunday School, John memorized 60 to 100 verses a week. He was baptized at age 24 and became a pastor while working for a dry goods firm. His mind turned to foreign missions, and Jamaica was his first choice, but Ireland was closer to home. The ship he was to sail on to Jamaica sank with all lives lost. His first church experience in Ireland was miserable, for all nine women and one man left the church, leaving him a failure.

He married an Anglican, Sarah Stuart, and in 1841 he held his newborn daughter, Jane, in his hands and presented her to the Lord, wishing that she would become a missionary of the Gospel. In 1850, now a father of five, he immigrated to Iowa and began work as a pastor. In 1856, he visited Ontario, later moving to pastorates in Hamilton, Dundas, and St. George. Compelled by the need to train others, he began the Woodstock Ontario College. Always preaching about the need to share the Gospel, he became the first president of the foreign missionary society. The Bates home in Woodstock, an hour west of Toronto, was a busy place. Visitors read literature dedicated to overseas churches and were asked to place a coin in the mission offering box.

Jane Bates married A.V.Timpany. She served with him in Kakinada, India. When she returned to Canada, she promoted missions as president of the Women's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of Ontario and the West. The Timpany's daughter, Ethel, also went to India as a missionary. 

Jane Bate's younger sister, Mary, married John McLaurin. This family not only served in Kakinada, India, but initiated churches in many other Indian communities. Mary and John McLaurin begat three more missionaries. By 1924, about 400 schools and churches had been started along the eastern shores of India. (Information taken from "Our Heritage Becomes Our Challenge," Esther Barnes, pages 6,7.)

In 1875, John Bates went to be with the Lord. Exactly one hundred years later, in 1975, Cathie and I applied with Canadian Baptist Overseas Mission Board, CBOMB, to serve in Angola, Africa. At the time, I had no idea where the ripples had traveled between John Bates leaving England, going to Ireland, then Iowa, and then starting the mission. Someday, in heaven, I want to have a long talk to thank John Bates.