Killing the Snake in the Garden

When they served as Christian Reformed World Missions missionaries in Sri Lanka, Rev. Roger and Edna Greenway worked among diverse ethnic groups that had a range of cultural practices and beliefs.

For example, since there was no one language, they needed to be be at least familiar with three different languages during their time in what was at then known as the country of Ceylon.

Then there were the cultural barriers — one coming in the form of a belief in reincarnation, according to a story written by Calvin College history students Aubrey Vander Woute and Nathan Slauer.

Vander Woute and Slauer are among the Calvin history students who have written stories about CRWM missionaries as part of the agency’s 125th anniversary celebration.

In their story, they recount how a cobra appeared in the sandbox where the Greenway’s daughter, Kathy, played.

“Concerned for his daughter’s life and safety, Roger killed the snake. When he did this, many people gathered around and leaned over the fence to watch him shoot the serpent,” the students write.

Their story is the first to be posted on the CRWM website, highlighting the work of CRWM missionaries over the years.

Stories on different missionaries will be posted over the next several weeks. Videos will also be made available.

In the story about the snake in the sandbox, Greenway recalls how those who gathered around the fence to see him shoot the cobra were not happy.

To them, he was committing murder. The people strongly believed someone had died and had been reincarnated into that cobra.

They told the missionary that he should have chased the cobra out of his yard. But Greenway replied that the snake then would have harmed someone else. But what he said did not change their minds.

Although they faced ethnic and cultural tensions, the Greenways experienced God’s grace and  goodness in their mission work. They kept very busy, speaking about, living out and drawing people to the Christian faith.
 
In the end, says the CRWM story, their diligence and hard work paid off. Roger said, “It is a  tough place in which to be a Christian today. Yet the churches are growing. Praise the Lord.”

During CRWM's anniversary the agency has unveiled a commemorative painting, published a book of historical photographs, and is holding various events to mark the anniversary.

Along with the story on the Greenways, there is second one on Rev. Bill Van Tol and his wife, Laura, who served as missionaries in Nigeria for many years including during a time of civil war.

Stationed in the Setri area at one point, they were asked to evangelize and plant churches among the largely Muslim and/or animistic Jibu and Daka people.

The Van Tols came to see that that would not be easy and would require a from-the-ground-up approach, keeping in mind the question of  how would Jesus would have responded to the circumstances.

“These peoples would not so easily relinquish their traditions to the Christian faith, but that did not impede the Van Tols in their calling to serve them with the love and understanding that Christ himself would have enacted,” write Brigman Rees and Katy Potts in their story.

Dealing with shamans, witch doctors, and Muslim community leaders over the rest of their years of service in Nigeria, the students write, Bill and Laura Van Tol “analyzed and studied the people they were attempting to evangelize.

“If they were to truly love this community like Christ would, they  needed to understand what love actually meant to, and how it was acted out by, the Nigerians.”