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PDF Minka and Margaret - The Heroic Story of Two Nurses Captured in the Jungle

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On April 23, 1974, missionary nurses Minka Hanskamp and Margaret Morgan were kidnapped by bandits in Southern Thailand. It was thought they might be released after a few days but several months later their bodies were discovered in the jungle. When they moved to Southern Thailand to care for leprosy patients and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with ethnically Malay Muslims, they knew the risks posed by bandits and insurgents. But the call of God and the love of Jesus compelled them.

To learn more about the lives of these humble servants of God and the opening of leprosy and evangelism work in Southern Thailand from the 1950s to 1970s, check out the book “Minka and Margaret” by Phylllis Thompson. Click below to download a PDF of the full text of the book. For readers of Portuguese, this book has been translated into Portguese as Sereis Minhas Testemunhas with an additional chapter recounting mission in Southern Thailand in the years following their death.

Download book Minka and Margaret (full text) PDF

Grave of Missionaries Margaret Morgan and Minka Hanskamp

เขียนโดย Karl Dahlfred.

Video ~ Evangelism, Home Visitation, and Open Air Meetings in Thailand (1932)

In this 1932 movie clip, we see American Presbyterian missionaries and Thai co-workers conducting rural evangelism, home visitation, open-air evangelism at Ban Phachi train station in Ayuthaya province, and an open air church service. From 1840 to 1940, the vast majority of Protestant missionaries in Thailand were American Presbyterians.

This clip is excerpted from "Siam, Land of the White Elephant”, produced in 1932 by the Publication Department of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church (USA). For more information and to view the full 34 minute video, click here.

Don't See the Video? Click Here to Watch on You Tube

เขียนโดย Karl Dahlfred.

That Time That The Bell Tower at First Church Chiang Mai Was Used as a Gun Turret

During World War II, Japanese troops seized church properties in Thailand, including schools and hospitals. The bell tower of historic First Church, Chiang Mai was used to mount an anti-aircraft gun. Though some institutions stayed open, Thai Christians were under intense pressure during the war and needed to meet quietly in private homes since public worship was banned.

The building in this drawing is the original church building (google map location) which is currently used by a Christian school. It was drawn from the memory of Kru Sanoh Chikarat (ครูเสนาะ ชิกรัตน์), an art teacher at the Prince Royal's College in Chiang Mai who was a student at the time of the war. The bell tower was built with only a deck until it was topped off with roof and a cross in 1923. During the Japanese invasion, troops removed the roof and cross in order to mount the gun. After the war, the roof and cross were replaced and remain to this day. In the late 1960s, the congregation of First Church moved to a building just up the street (google map location).

Photo 1st church Chiang Mai WW2 church tower gun turret for Japanese

Image Source: Historical Hall at First Church Chiang Mai, Thailand

เขียนโดย Karl Dahlfred.

Evander McGilvary's Translation of Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts into Lao (1895)

For a few short years in the early 1890s, Evander McGilvary (son of pioneer missionary Daniel McGilvary) worked in the Chiang Mai area of what is today northern Thailand. But at the end of the 19th century, the people of that area were linguistically and culturally Lao and McGilvary's primary ministry task was translating the New Testament into the Lao language. He never completed that task due to his 1894 resignation from ministry which I have written about in "Evander McGilvary in Northern Thailand: An Honest “Heretic” and the “Conservatives” Who Wanted to Keep Him," Journal of Presbyterian History 100, no. 1 (Spring / Summer 2022): 4-19.

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When I did the research for that article, I learned that McGilvary hoped to continue working on that translation when he returned to the United States. However, I never saw evidence of how far he got in his translation. When looking for images of Evander McGilvary recently, I found that he actually got pubished his Lao translation of Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts. And it has been digitized! You can find it at the Hathi Trust via this link and I have also attempted to embed the document below. Print copies can be found via WorldCat.

เขียนโดย Karl Dahlfred.

"An Appeal for Sound Missionaries in Siam" by Boon Mark Gittisarn (December 29, 1949)

In the late 1940s, the Protestant churches in Thailand were in transition. American Presbyterian missionaries who had left during the war had returned and expected to pick up where they left off in 1941. However, they failed to sufficiently account for the wishes and expectations of Thai Christian leaders who had overseen their own churches for many years during the missionaries' absence during the war.

Boon Mark Gittsarn was one of those Thai leaders who was not content for missionaries to call the shots. Boon Mark left his denomination, the Church of Christ in Thailand, and resigned his pastorate at Second Church in Bangkok to start a new, independent church simply called Bangkok Church. The American Presbyterian Mission, which had founded and was heavily invested in the Church of Christ in Thailand, was headed in an ecumenical and modernistic direction that de-emphasized evangelism in favor of schools, hospitals, and development work.

But Boon Mark was all about evangelism and had strongly fundamentalist leanings. As indicated in the article below, at the end of 1949, Boon Mark connected with the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), an organization started by American fundamentalist Carl McIntire in direct opposition to the World Council of Churches. This connection provided for Boon Mark an avenue to amplify his complaints about the American Presbyterian Mission to a broader American Christian (fundamentalist) public who would have been sympathetic to his concerns. The article below was written by Boon Mark and appeared on page 4 of McIntire's newspaper, "Christian Beacon" on Dec 29, 1949.

เขียนโดย Karl Dahlfred.

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