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So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. Rom. 10:17, RSV.
Here are lots of different ways of hearing the Advent message. That is the lesson we learn from the entrance of Seventh-day Adventism into the tropical world bordering the Caribbean.
Things got started in 1883 when an Adventist in New York City persuaded a ship captain to deliver a bundle of printed material to Georgetown, British Guiana. The captain's delivery style left much to be desired but it did the trick. Flinging the parcel out on the wharf, the good man deemed that he had fulfilled his obligation. Meanwhile, a bystander gathered a few of the papers as they began to scatter. He not only read them, but shared them with his neighbors.
Several of them began to observe the Sabbath, and one woman sent copies of the rescued Signs of the Times to her sister in Barbados. Here they reached a woman who years before had told her children that the true Sabbath would be restored.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Caribbean, Mrs. E. Gauterau, who had been converted to Adventism in California, returned in 1885 to her native Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras. After she had shared her faith for six years, the denomination sent Frank Hutchins to care for the people she had influenced. The Sabbath schools, in the Pitcairn spirit, provided him funds to build a mission schooner (the Herald) to spread the Advent message along the Central American coast.
In Antigua it was Mrs. A. Roskrug, who had accepted Adventism in England, who began to plant the seeds of a church upon her return to her native island in 1888. Before long an Adventist book sold in Antigua found its way to Jamaica.
The Adventist message in Mexico got its start in 1891 with an Italian-American tailor who became a colporteur. Not finding anything to sell in Spanish, he peddled English copies of The Great Controversy.
It appears from these stories that God is able to employ just about anyone or any method to spread His message. He can even use us if we are willing.
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