When Locusts are a Blessing in Disguise

This Week in AG History–August 11, 1923
By Darrin Rodgers

Also published in AG-News, Wed, 13 Aug 2014 – 4:22 PM CST

Many missionaries tell stories about seemingly bad circumstances that God turned into a blessing. Hannah A. James, a single female who served as an Assemblies of God missionary to South Africa from 1917 to 1933, recounted such a story in a letter published in the August 11, 1923, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Hannah wrote that a swarm of locusts had descended upon their South African mission station. The locusts devoured a small wheat crop that she and her missionary colleagues had planted. Most readers probably would have seen the destruction of the missionaries’ food supply as a bad thing. However, Hannah related that the native South Africans “shouted for joy” when they heard the locust swarm approaching.

The locusts, it turned out, were a delicacy to the local palate. Local residents spent all night scooping the locusts into large sacks. They then scalded the locusts and dried them in the sun, a process which allowed them to be stored for months. Preparation of the dried locusts into edible food merely required them to be fried in fat or butter.

The missionaries made careful plans to provide for their dietary needs. But they discovered that God could upset those plans, and what they viewed as a calamity was viewed by others as a blessing. The missionaries probably would have preferred eating wheat rather than locusts, but the life of faith often stretches people beyond their cultural preferences.

Read the article by Hannah A. James, “A Plague of Locusts,” published on page 13 of the August 11, 1923, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

* “The Bible Evidence of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost,” by D. W. Kerr

* “From Prize Ring to Pulpit,” by Eddie Young

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. For current editions of the Evangel, click here.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

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Review: The Suffering Body

The Suffering Body: Responding to the Persecution of Christians, edited by Harold D. Hunter and Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. Waynesboro, GA ; Milton Keynes, UK : Paternoster Press, 2006.

“Suffering with Christ was not only the experience of the early churches but is that of many churches today. This volume presents up-to-date, global reflections on the different ways in which Christians suffer: from class discrimination to government persecution; from inter-religious conflict to tensions between different Christian groups. With a special focus on Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity, but also bringing perspectives from other Christian traditions into the discussion, this book provides both theological and practical insight.” — Samuel Kobia, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches

“An important and timely publication, the more so because it is edited by leading Pentecostal academics from the USA, where the role of suffering in Christian experience is often ignored and sometimes denied. A comprehensive theological, historical, and socio-political analysis of the role of suffering internationally, this is an important corrective to ‘health and wealth’ gospels and ideologies of power.” — Allan Anderson, Professor of Global Pentecostal Studies, University of Birmingham