Heathens Miraculously Prepared
for Christianity

Amazing examples from around the world of God working in the lives of heathen (non-Christian) peoples and preparing them, often hundreds of years ahead of time, for the coming of Christianity.




African prophets

The Gedeo were an Ethiopian tribe of about a half-million people. They believed in Magano, the good, all-powerful, Maker of everything. And yet few of them prayed to Magano. They were more worried about trying to please an evil spirit, for fear that he would harm them. They felt they did not know Magano well enough to be free from this evil spirit. One day, however, a Gedeo man, Warrasa, prayed that Magano would show himself to the Gedeo people. Warrasa then had a vision in which he saw two white strangers put up tents under a certain sycamore tree near Warrasa’s hometown, Dilla. Later they build shiny-roofed houses. Warrasa had never before seen tents or houses like this. A voice told him that these men would bring a message from Magano. During the next eight years other Gedeo prophets said that strangers would soon arrive with a message from Magano. At the end of 1948, missionaries Brunt and Cain planned to live far from Dilla but problems with the government forced them to decide on Dilla. So two white men put up tents under that very sycamore tree Warrasa had seen in his vision. Things continued to take place just as Warrasa had seen in his vision. Today there are tens of thousands of Gedeo Christians. (54-56)

(Of course, there’s nothing special about being white. It’s just that at a certain time in the past, for some people, it was white people who first brought them the news about Jesus.)

Things similar to what happened among the Gedeo have happened to many other groups of people around the world, says missionary, Don Richardson. – It is true to say that thousands of Christian missionaries down through history have been surprised by the joyful welcome given them from even among some of the earth’s hardest to reach people. All of these people fully expected the coming of missionaries bringing a message about the true God. (56) Richardson has recorded some of these stories in a book mentioned below. Numbers in brackets refer to page numbers from that book.

An amazing pony

For hundreds or even thousands of years, the Wa people in Burma had told children of their very old belief that one day a ‘white brother’ would bring them a copy of the book about God that they had lost. In the 1880’s, Pu Chan, one of their tribesmen, caused several thousand of his people to stop killing people and worshipping evil spirits. He said the true God would soon send the ‘white brother with a copy of the lost book’ that their whole tribe had been waiting for. He told them that if the brother learned that the Wa people were doing evil things, he might not give them the book of the true God.

One morning Pu Chan got ready a Wa pony, and told some of those who believed him to follow the pony. He said that the true God had told him that at last the white brother was near. God would cause the pony to lead them to him. The pony started walking. Surely it would simply stop at the nearest stream. To the disciples’ great surprise, it kept going. On and on it went for about 200 miles over mountain trails and down into the city of Kengtung, then turned into the gate of a missionary’s place and headed straight for a well in the ground. The people following the pony looked all around. No white man. No book. Hearing sounds in the well, they peered in. From the dry well a white face smiled at them. Did he have a book from God? Yes! Before long about 10,000 Wa people had given their lives to Jesus. (87, 102-104)

Dreams and visions

Years before he had heard of missionaries, Adiri, a native in Dutch Guiana (now called Suriname, South America) had dreams and visions in which he was shown heaven and hell, was made aware of his sin and apparently became a spiritually new person. Near death because of illness, One appeared to him calling himself the person goes between God and man, and telling Adiri to go to missionaries for more teaching.

(Source: The Missionary Review of the World, July, 1896: 519-523, referred to in Strong’s Systematic Theology: 844)

You might say, ‘Ah, but missionaries were involved!’ Yes, for two reasons. First, if this had happened centuries before missionaries came, we would never have heard about it. In other words, who knows how many times such things have been happened in the past? Second, would God have let Adiri in ignorance of so many other spiritual truths when missionaries were so close?

The Lisu (China)

In southwestern China several hundred thousand Lisu expected a white man to one day arrive with the book of the true God written in their own language. The amazing thing is that as at that time there had never been a written form of their language. Of course, it happened and they became Christians. (89, 105)

Saved from drowning

The Camaroons lived in southwestern Africa. Long before the arrival of missionaries, many of them were caught in a storm while fishing. When his canoe turned over, the chief did not know to whom he should cry for help. Reasoning that the god of the hills could not help, and that the evil spirit would not help, he prayed to the ‘Great Father’ to save him. Immediately his feet touched the beach. He was one of the few in the party who did not drown. He brought his people together and recounted the story, ending with the words, ‘Now let all my people honor the Great Father, and let no one speak a word against him, for he can save us.’ From then on he became known as a man of peace, making every effort to prevent arguments and bloodshed.

The chief’s son related the story to missionary Alfred Saker, saying, ‘Why did you not come sooner? My father thirsted for the knowledge of God.’ (Strong’s Systematic Theology, page 843)

Saker reported this in England in 1879.

At last!

In 1795 an English diplomat in Burma received an usually friendly welcome from the Karen people. They asked if he was the ‘white brother’ they had been expecting for countless generations. If he were, he would have with him a book that their forefathers has lost. It was written by Y’wa, the Great God, and it would free them from their oppressors. The diplomat shook his head.

Burma was home to about 800,000 Karen people and living in perhaps a thousand of their villages were people they regarded as prophets of the God they called Y’wa. These special teachers kept reminding the people that the ways of the evil spirits that most of them followed were not the ways of Y’wa and that one day they must fully return to Y’wa’s ways. They strongly opposed idol worship, and the Karen people refused to become Buddhists even though for hundreds of years people had wanted them to become Buddhists. (73-77)

Here is one of their hymns:

The all-powerful one is Y’wa; him we have not believed.
Y’wa created men a very time ago;
He has perfect knowledge of all things.
Y’wa created men at the beginning;
He knows all things to the present time.
O my children and grandchildren!
The earth is the treading place of the feet of Y’wa,
And heaven is the place where he sits.
He sees all things, and we are known to him.

And another:
Y’wa formed the world in the beginning.
He appointed food and drink.
He appointed the ‘fruit of trial.’
He gave detailed orders.
Mu-kaw-lee tricked two persons.
He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of trial.
They obeyed not; they believed not Y’wa . . .
When they ate the ‘fruit of trial,’
They became subject to sickness, aging, and death . . . (78)

In 1816 a Muslim met some Karen people. He was not very light skinned but they discovered that he had a book he said was from God. The people were so interested that he gave it to them as he left. For twelve years they treated that book with great respect and kept looking for the teacher who would one day give them understanding of what the book said. (76)

At last the white man they had been expecting came, opened the book and found it was not a Muslim book but a Christian one – the Book and Common Prayer and the Psalms. The missionary told them it was indeed a good book from God, who alone should be worshipped. Their faces lit up, but darkened again when he explained they should not have worshipped the book. The tribesman who had gained honor as keeper of the book gave up his status and became a humble follower of Jesus, along with tens of thousands of his people. (95)


Source: Numbers in brackets refer to pages numbers in Don Richardson: Eternity in their Hearts Revised Edition CA, Regal, 1981, 1984

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