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| Frank Laubach |
Frank Laubach, famed “Apostle to
the Illiterates” and Protestant mystic, made his first tour of Latin America in
1942, to promote his literacy program. While in La Paz, he stayed in the home
of Quaker missionaries Howard and Julia Pearson. Quakers had been using his “each-one-teach-one”
method in their own adult education program, so there was a natural contact.
As I was recently reading through
the personal letters of Julia Pearson in the George Fox University archives, I
came across a hand-copied section of a journal that Laubach kept while in La
Paz. Pearson had probably asked his permission. It gives a fascinating impression
of Andean Quakers in 1942, some 16 years after the founding of that very
meeting in La Paz. Although Laubach writes in the third sentence, “There was
nothing Quaker about it,” I beg to differ. The “strangeness” is cultural; the
heart of the worship is profoundly Quaker. Following are excerpts:
“December 21, 1942
“Tonight I had a spiritual
experience which will echo thru the rest of my life. It was the Aymara prayer
meeting in the Quaker church. There was nothing Quaker about it. After a long
talk—which I did not understand—by the Aymara pastor, the congregation knelt to
pray. Every one prayed aloud at the same time. It began with a murmur; then
women’s plaintive wails began to be heard above the rest and presently they
could be heard weeping. I heard the terrible cry of the ages rising to God from
broken hearts; and behind them I heard the bitter cry of anguish of all the
illiterates in the world. The oppressed, the blind, the hopeless and I began to
say, ‘Lord, aren’t you going to do something about these tragic people?’ I heard in my heart the answer, ‘I have done
something. I have sent you.’ As I write these words, I am weeping with
gratitude and resolve and pity and I think I understand better after this
night’s experience how Christ feels…3 nights before Christmas
“December 24, 11:00 p.m.
“I am just home from the most fascinating
Christmas program in my whole life. Over 300 Aymara Indians in this Quaker
church gave a perfectly wonderful program. Their ordinarily poker faces were
wreathed in smiles. I have never seen a more striking illustration of the power
of the gospel to transform people than this evening’s revelation. One could
almost tell how many months or years each person present had come under the
influence of the gospel. Here were women with babes over their backs wobbling
Indian squaw fashion yet shaking hands like dear sisters. I think the most
unforgettable number was a song by about fifteen men and 8 or 10 women. One
girl, daughter of a highly educated man, formerly pastor of the church, looked
like a queen. Beside her stood young women, awkward, shuffling, embarrassed to
the point of pain and yet beginning to enjoy Christian life.
“These Friends are working a
modern miracle among the Indians of La Paz. The church is located in the center
of the Indians. There are literally thousands swarming the streets so that an
automobile has to creep along constantly sounding the horn. Perhaps because my
heart is so much with these Indians, I feel that this Christmas Eve is the
climax of my first visit to S.A.
“….This evangelical church of the
Friends, wholly controlled by the Indians themselves, is far more strict than
we are at home. They allow not even lipstick. Tonight as I write the Indians
carousing in the street present a sharp contrast to these stern, puritanical
Quakers!
“December 25
“Christmas morning. ‘Friend’ Pearson
woke me at 6:30 to enjoy their Santa Claus. It was delightful to see little
Donald open the packages and hear him shriek with delight at every new
surprise. He got many presents: drawing sets, a ship and torpedo boat which
blows it up, a rotary printing press, puzzles, but the thing he loved most was
a repeater pistol! He is out trying it on chickens now! Even being a Quaker
does not take war out of the boy of nine.
January 3, 1943
“This afternoon I attended the
Sunday meeting in the Quaker church in front of the house where I am staying.
The pastor seemed very slow, awkward & shy. He talked about Paul’s doctrine
of salvation thru faith. Two men came forward and knelt at the altar. Then all
knelt and prayed aloud at the same time. I did as well as the rest. I think if
I ever again have a mission church I shall start that custom. One fairly fells
the presence of the Holy Spirit. Some of the women cried as they prayed. Then
they all stopped by common consent and the two men at the altar arose and
testified. One had an eye nearly gone, trachoma I suppose. As he testified to
the free gift of salvation, he broke down and shook while he held his
handkerchief to his face. Then everybody began to testify. I told them in
Spanish about these wonderful days in the Pearson house, and the power of the
Holy Spirit was so great in that meeting that I had difficulty in restraining
the tears. When I had finished, the pastor translated my poor Spanish into
Aymara. Here was a church full of people who did not depend upon the minister
but made the meeting their own by prayer and testimony. It was marvelous to see
the Spirit working in these humble people—marvelous and wholesome, a humbling
experience for me…. I saw afresh what these words mean: ‘My thoughts are not
your thoughts…for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my thoughts
higher than your thoughts and my ways than your ways.’ I had to sink my college
education and realize that in God’s sight these simple people, true to their
convictions, were better than I have been, were more highly esteemed than I
was. I wonder why Jesus had not said, ‘How hardly shall they that have a
college education enter into the kingdom of heaven.’… It was delightful to
realize, here this afternoon, that God prized these dear illiterate Indians
exactly as highly as he did me.
“The marvelous change he has
wrought upon them is brought in relief—stark and unmistakeable relief—by the
drunken carousers across the fence, one of whom is making hideous shouts. I am
not blaming those drunken Indians. They find their pleasure in liquor—until
they become intoxicated with the Holy Spirit. It will be one or the other.”
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