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Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa\u2014to what was then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to go out from the main mission station and take the gospel to a remote area.<\/p>\n
This was a huge step of faith. At the village of N\u2019dolera they were rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to go half a mile up the slope and build their own mud huts.<\/p>\n
They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. The only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood\u2014a tiny woman of only four feet, eight inches tall\u2014decided that if this was the only African she could talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And in fact, she succeeded.<\/p>\n
But there were no other encouragements. Meanwhile, malaria continued to strike one member of the little band after another. In time the Ericksons decided they had had enough suffering and left to return to the central mission station. David and Svea Flood remained near N\u2019dolera to go on alone.<\/p>\n
Then, of all things, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the primitive wilderness. When the time came for her to give birth, the village chief softened enough to allow a midwife to help her. A little girl was born, whom they named Aina.<\/p>\n
The delivery, however, was exhausting, and Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria. The birth process was a heavy blow to her stamina. She lasted only another seventeen days.<\/p>\n
Inside David Flood, something snapped in that moment. He dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old wife, and then took his children back down the mountain to the mission station. Giving his newborn daughter to the Ericksons, he snarled, \u201cI\u2019m going back to Sweden. I\u2019ve lost my wife, and I obviously can\u2019t take care of this baby. God has ruined my life.\u201d With that, he headed for the port, rejecting not only his calling, but God himself.<\/p>\n
Within eight months both the Ericksons were stricken with a mysterious malady and died within days of each other. The baby was then turned over to some American missionaries, who adjusted her Swedish name to \u201cAggie\u201d and eventually brought her back to the United States at age three.<\/p>\n
This family loved the little girl and was afraid that if they tried to return to Africa, some legal obstacle might separate her from them. So they decided to stay in their home country and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry. And that is how Aggie grew up in South Dakota. As a young woman, she attended North Central Bible college in Minneapolis. There she met and married a young man named Dewey Hurst.<\/p>\n
Years passed. The Hursts enjoyed a fruitful ministry. Aggie gave birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time her husband became president of a Christian college in the Seattle area, and Aggie was intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage there.<\/p>\n
One day a Swedish religious magazine appeared in her mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course, she couldn\u2019t read the words. But as she turned the pages, all of a sudden a photo stopped her cold. There in a primitive setting was a grave with a white cross-and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD.<\/p>\n
Aggie jumped in her car and went straight to a college faculty member who, she knew, could translate the article. \u201cWhat does this say?\u201d she demanded.<\/p>\n
The instructor summarized the story: It was about missionaries who had come to N\u2019dolera long ago…the birth of a white baby…the death of the young mother…the one little African boy who had been led to Christ…and how, after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. The article said that gradually he won all his students to Christ…the children led their parents to Christ…even the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred Christian believers in that one village…<\/p>\n
All because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood.<\/p>\n
For the Hursts\u2019 twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the college presented them with the gift of a vacation to Sweden. There Aggie sought to find her real father. An old man now, David Flood had remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his life with alcohol. He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in his family: \u201cNever mention the name of God-because God took everything from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
After an emotional reunion with her half brothers and half sister, Aggie brought up the subject of seeing her father. The others hesitated. \u201cYou can talk to him,\u201d they replied, \u201ceven though he\u2019s very ill now. But you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aggie was not to be deterred. She walked into the squalid apartment, with liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the seventy-three-year-old man lying in a rumpled bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPapa?\u201d she said tentatively.<\/p>\n
He turned and began to cry. \u201cAina,\u201d he said, \u201cI never meant to give you away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all right Papa,\u201d she replied, taking him gently in her arms. \u201cGod took care of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man instantly stiffened. The tears stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of Him.\u201d He turned his face back to the wall.<\/p>\n
Aggie stroked his face and then continued, undaunted.<\/p>\n
\u201cPapa, I\u2019ve got a little story to tell you, and it\u2019s a true one. You didn\u2019t go to Africa in vain. Mama didn\u2019t die in vain. The little boy you won to the Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted just kept growing and growing. Today there are six hundred African people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life…<\/p>\n
\u201cPapa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old man turned back to look into his daughter\u2019s eyes. His body relaxed. He began to talk. And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he had resented for so many decades.<\/p>\n
Over the next few days, father and daughter enjoyed warm moments together. Aggie and her husband soon had to return to America\u2014and within a few weeks, David Flood had gone into eternity.<\/p>\n
A few years later, the Hursts were attending a high-level evangelism conference in London, England, where a report was given from the nation of Zaire (the former Belgian Congo). The superintendent of the national church, representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the gospel\u2019s spread in his nation. Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, madam,\u201d the man replied in French, his words then being translated into English. \u201cIt was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born. In fact, to this day your mother\u2019s grave and her memory are honored by all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He embraced her in a long, sobbing hug. Then he continued, \u201cYou must come to Africa to see, because your mother is the most famous person in our history.\u201d<\/p>\n
In time that is exactly what Aggie Hurst and her husband did. They were welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers. She even met the man who had been hired by her father many years before to carry her back down the mountain in a hammock-cradle.<\/p>\n
The most dramatic moment, of course, was when the pastor escorted Aggie to see her mother\u2019s white cross for herself. She knelt in the soil to pray and give thanks. Later that day, in the church, the pastor read from John 12:24<\/a>:<\/span> \u201cI tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.\u201d He then followed with Psalm 126:5<\/a>:<\/span> \u201cThose who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.\u201d<\/p>\n This is an excerpt from Aggie Hurst, Aggie: The Inspiring Story of A Girl Without A Country<\/a><\/span> Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1986.<\/p>\n Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa\u2014to what was then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-discipleship","8":"wp-image-borders","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JOHN-12-24.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bgnN-5Wc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22831,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22828\/revisions\/22831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"image_pdf\"](\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/pdf.png\" "\\"View")
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