"Dr. Helen Roseveare was an English Christian missionary to the Congo from 1953 to 1973. Helen Roseveare went to the Congo through WEC International and practiced medicine and also trained others in medical work. She stayed through the hostile and dangerous political instability in the early 1960's. In 1964 she was taken prisoner of rebel forces and she remained a prisoner for five months, enduring beatings and being raped. She left the Congo and headed back to England after her release but quickly returned to the Congo in 1966 to assist in the rebuilding of the nation. She helped establish a new medical school and hospital (for the other hospitals that she built were destroyed) and served their until she left in 1973.
Helen Roseveare was born in England in 1925. She became a Christian as a medical student in Cambridge University in 1945. She continued to have strong links with the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union and was designated as the "CICCU missionary" during the 1950s and 1960s. Since her return from Africa, she has had a worldwide ministry in speaking and writing. She was a plenary speaker at Urbana three times. She is now retired and lives in Northern Ireland. Her life of service was portrayed in the 1989 film Mama Luka Comes Home." From the Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
This series of sermons was given in Three Hills, AB (Canada) at Prairie Bible College. It is a wonderful series, and is partially based on the following poem which forms the basis of a hymn:
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, I care not how,
But stir my heart in passion for the world!
Stir me to give, to go, but most to pray;
Stir, till the blood-red banner be unfurl’d
O’er lands that still in heathen darkness lie,
O’er deserts where no cross is lifted high.
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, till all my heart
Is filled with strong compassion for these souls;
Till thy compelling Word drives me to pray;
Till thy constraining Love reach to the poles
Far north and south, in burning, deep desire,
Till east and west are caught in love’s great fire
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, Thy heart was stirred
By love’s intensest fire, till Thou didst give
Thine only Son, Thy best beloved ONE
E’en to the dreadful cross, that I might live.
Stir me to give myself back to Thee
That Thou canst give Thyself again through me.
Stir me, O stir me, Lord, for I can see
Thy glorious triumph-day begin to break!
The dawn already gilds the eastern sky:
Church of Christ, arise! awake! awake!
O stir us, Lord, as heralds of that day,
For night is past, our King is on His way!
Mrs. Albert Head