Profess Christ
Corrie ten Boom, a 53-year old Dutch watchmaker, was released from a Nazi concentration camp due to a clerical error the week before all women her age were sent to their deaths. She spent over thirty years afterwards travelling to 60 countries as a “tramp for the Lord,”–lecturing about her experiences and giving fascinating Bible lessons.
My writing mentor, Jamie Buckingham, a book author and pastor, helped her write “Tramp For The Lord” in the early 1970s. After spending a day interviewing her, he’d sometimes share with me– a newspaper feature writer—what he wrote to hear my feedback. One morning over breakfast as we discussed her latest story, Jamie cried. Other times we laughed at her amazing adventures while travelling the globe to speak about Jesus.
Here is one of my favorite Corrie stories from “Tramp For The Lord” book:
She was headed to India to speak at a conference of missionaries in Vellore. But upon her arrival in Bangkok she was told the next plane to Vellore did not leave for three days, meaning she’d miss the opening meetings. But she was informed that the airlines had made arrangements for her to stay in a hotel until then.
At the hotel, a kind Indian man assured her they had tried everything to get her to Vellore but she would just have to wait.
“Then we must pray that God helps them get me there,” she told him.
“Do you profess to be a Christian?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” she answered. “I am a professor of Jesus Christ. What about you?”
“I have been, but I am what you call a lost sheep,” he said, hanging his head.
“Hallelujah. Then you are just the one sheep for whom the Shepherd left the ninety-nine to find.”
They talked a while in the hotel lobby. Corrie led him back to the Lord. Then he told her, “I believe God kept you here just for me –for this reason.”
Corrie then asked him to pray for her that she would arrive in Vellore in time for the conference.
He told her to pray but he had some errands to tend to. Soon he was back. “I think God performed your miracle. We found a plane going to Vellore by a different route. Get your bags.”
When she asked if he arranged it, he admitted that he did. “But don’t thank me. I must thank you for bringing me back to the Shepherd.”
They rushed to the airport and discovered that the plane should have left long before. Panting, she climbed the steps to the airplane.
“Ah, Professor, we were afraid we would have to leave you,” the stewardess said.
“Professor?” Corrie questioned.
“Oh, we know all about you. Our hotel agent told us you are an important professor from Holland who has to give significant speeches in Vellore. That is why we held the plane on the ground until you arrived.”
Corrie took a seat by a window and could see the once-lost sheep grinning and waving. She waved back.
She thought, “Surely God not only had a special reason for keeping me in Bangkok, but He must have an equally important reason for wanting me in Vellore.”
And He did. The next morning after the meeting, an English woman missionary who looked very sick asked Corrie to pray for her healing. She said she was not going to tell her what was wrong until after the prayer. Corrie put her hands on the woman’s head and prayed for her to be healed in the name of Jesus Christ.
“Now I will tell you my sickness. I have leprosy,” the woman said.
Corrie was glad she did not know the name of the woman’s illness when she prayed for her. But she knew God is the Healer, not Corrie. She often wondered what happened to that missionary. Five years later when Corrie was back in India one afternoon there came a knock on her hotel door. There stood the same woman–only Corrie didn’t recognize her at first. She looked so healthy.
“The Lord wonderfully healed me. The doctors say I am absolutely healed of leprosy,” she told Corrie.
Corrie almost shouted her praise. “Thank you, Lord. You are always ready to meet our needs, even when our faith is small.”
Now isn’t that a wonderful story? Those of us who profess Jesus as our Savior and Lord can also be labeled, “professors of Christ.” I hope you are one too.
“Tramp For The Lord” was published in 1974. I treasure my copy– autographed by Corrie, Jamie, and Ellen, who was Corrie’s nurse-travelling companion. And I smiled a lot as I reread it this week. I can almost hear Corrie, in her adorable Dutch brogue, tell again those exciting stories at the church Jamie Buckingham pastored in Florida.
Every April I think of Corrie who died on her 91st birthday– April 15, 1983! What a story she had to tell of redemption and forgiveness found in knowing Jesus.
Scripture: [Jesus said] “Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news (the Gospel) to every creature (of the whole human race).” (Mark 16:15 AMP)
Note: Corrie ten Boom and her family helped rescue hundreds of Jews from certain death by the Nazi SS by hiding them with Christians in the countryside or in their own home. A fellow Dutchman betrayed them, her family members were imprisoned, and both her father and sister died there. After surviving the Holocaust, she started a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors. And of course, she travelled the globe preaching on the power of forgiveness.
Footnote: This story adapted from: “Tramp for the Lord” by Corrie ten Boom with Jamie Buckingham, (published by Christian Literature Crusade and Fleming H. Revell Company, 1974), 123-126.
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