The Good Soil

On Kids Radio, John Avery Whittaker presents the true story of Dr. William Leslie, a medical missionary who arrived more than a hundred years ago in Banza Manteke, in what was then the Congo Free State in Africa, a land occupied by the often cruel Belgian army.

The story opens with Dr. Leslie stepping off the train and immediately standing up to four soldiers who are bullying a young boy named Patrice over a stolen hat. A missionary's daughter named Clara Hill comes to his defense before the soldiers' commander, Captain Renaud, who mockingly tells Leslie, in effect, that the doctor may show the people the love of Christ while he shows them the power of the king. Grateful Patrice insists on carrying the doctor's bags, declaring that no one has ever stood up for him before. At the mission, Patrice admires the gold lettering on Leslie's Bible, a farewell gift from his mission agency. Leslie tells him that what is inside is even more beautiful: "Inside are the words of life." He promises to teach Patrice to read so the boy can know them for himself. But when Leslie says he would like to visit Patrice's home, Vanga Village up the Quilu River, the boy is horrified, warning that cruel men live there and even the soldiers fear to go. Clara, meanwhile, must leave the next day to join her father, though she and William part with obvious fondness.

Two years pass. Leslie's clinic thrives, and he forms an unlikely friendship with Captain Renaud, but he laments that people come for medicine, not for God. Then Patrice collapses at the mission, burning with smallpox. Leslie quarantines the area and begs Renaud to send medicine up the Quilu to Patrice's village, but the captain refuses to risk his men for people he calls savages. Leslie nurses Patrice through the fever, lays his own treasured Bible beside the boy, and prays over him. When Patrice wakes, Leslie tells him the Bible is now his. Then Leslie himself collapses; he was never inoculated against smallpox. He wakes four days later to find Clara at his bedside, summoned by Renaud, and learns that the recovered Patrice has volunteered to carry the medicine upriver himself. Renaud marvels that for some people Christ's love is greater even than a king's power, and Leslie wonders aloud whether his friend is talking about Patrice or about himself. The epidemic is averted, and after a year of courtship William and Clara marry.

Years of faithful work follow, with children and with Patrice serving alongside them, yet the mission never seems to grow. Like the seed in the parable of the sower, the word doesn't take root; people take the medicine but turn away because of persecution or the worries of daily life. Then one day Patrice arrives beaming: Mobutu, the leader of his village, wants to thank Leslie for the medicine and hear the words of life. The Leslies move their whole family upriver, and Mobutu has a hut built for them. But when Captain Renaud's soldiers arrive escorting the Leslie children, everything collapses. Mobutu has seen these very soldiers enslave his people downriver and calls Leslie a liar who brings good news with one hand and chains with the other. Renaud admits his past, saying he is not a Christian but is no longer the man he was, and that he now desires peace, but Mobutu will not believe him. He drives the family out with the terrible words, "Go, or we will kill you." Heartbroken, Leslie cries out to God, asking why. Soon afterward the mission's financial support is pulled, the Leslies return to America, and William dies nine years later believing his life's work was a complete failure.

But Whit continues the story, quoting a wise man: "God is the great weaver of our stories, and he loves cliffhangers." Eighty years later, on a missions trip to the Congo, Whit hears of Leslie and sets out with his guide, Jeff Lewis, flying, canoeing across the Quilu, and hiking miles of jungle to find Vanga Village. A young English-speaking man who has been tracking them leads them to a great hut at the village center, and Whit spots a cross above its door. The man brings out a cloth-wrapped bundle: a Bible with gold lettering reading "Dr. William Leslie." The young man's name is Patrice, and he is the grandson of the boy Leslie saved. He explains that after the Leslies were driven out, Mobutu died in a clash with a rival village, and his grandfather began teaching the people from this Bible. Hearts changed, believers multiplied, and churches were planted, eight of them along thirty-four miles of river, each writing its own songs about Christ's love. Though Dr. Leslie never saw the harvest on earth, the seed he planted in one small boy yielded a bounty beyond anything he imagined. As Whit reminds his listeners, "We never know which soil will become the good soil."