The following account is the story of the trials of early missionaries to the Kurdish region, Justin and Charlotte Perkins.

When at last the young couple reached the Russian frontier, they encountered the first of repeated acts of harassment by Russian officials. For two weeks they were assigned to quarantine, "a hollow, on the bank of a small muddy brook." The scarce food was often unpalatable, the milk generally sour and the eggs "far more than stale." Baggage inspection in the Tsarist custom house, "complete with minute and ribald inspection of Charlotte's underwear," took a full day after this inspection, a drunken inspector directed that most of the luggage would have to go back to Turkey.

With no choice but compliance, the Perkinses parted with their baggage and wearily hastened on to the Russian-Persian border, seven days away. At the border they learned their passports must be sent to Erivan, through which they had passed five days earlier, to be endorsed. While a messenger took the documents, the Perkinses camped. "Clouds of sand" sifted through "every joint and seam of our tent, upon our beds, our provisions, and ourselves," Perkins recorded. By paying an exorbitant price, he and his wife managed to obtain "bread and melons, once in two or three days." After seven days of deepening despair, the messenger returned with the passports endorsed. They crossed the Persian frontier...Three days after their arrival [in Tabriz] Charlotte bore a daughter.

- Robert Daniel, as quoted in Robert Blincoe, Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from Kurdistan, pg. 39.

The following is Roger Cumberland's reflections on his supplying water to the city of Dohouk [sic], who up to this point depended on a "filthy little stream that meanders along beside it."

The people of the town were interested; many were skeptical about the possibility of making water run up-hill to our house. But it came - enough for us and a quarter of the town. The people gladly use all that is available...We did not invent the Water of Life, any more than we made the spring at the foot of the Kurdish mountains. And we do not force it down the people's throats, any more than we made our neighbor's drink pure water. No compulsion is needed, nor even advertising; pure water, physical or spiritual, is its own advocate. The need is to make it available; and that is the job of the missionary [emphasis added].

- Robert Cumberland, as quoted in Robert Blinoe, Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from Kurdistan, pg. 164.

The following is a letter Samuel Rhea wrote to his parents concerning his learning of the Kurdish language, and the worthiness of His work:

I am studying Koordish [sic]. I am every day brought in contact with Koords; and for our protection and security there it is important that I know their language. But my chief design in making myself familiar with their languages is that I may preach to them Christ crucified. If my poor life is spared, this I confidently hope to do. They too are immortal, and many among them numbered doubtless among God's elect ones to be gathered from the four winds of heaven. Oh, what a privilege to be the instrument of bringing a wild and savage Koord to the feet of the Lord Jesus! What sacrifices may we not gladly welcome to be thus honored. [emphasis added]

- Samuel Rhea, as quoted in Robert Blinoe, Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from Kurdistan, pg. 77.

"There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.

This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His ‘blood and righteousness’ alone that we can rest."

- B. B. Warfield, Works of B. B. Warfield, 7:113
HT: Justin Taylor

"Look at the cross; behold His precious Gift transfixed to it, and that by His own hand, and for your sins. Then look at your present circumstances, survey your needs, your trials, your chastisements, your bereavements, your heart-sickening, heartbreaking tribulations, and know that God still is love.If He had love strong enough, deep enough, to give you Jesus - to tear Him, as it were, from His bosom, and to transfix Him on yonder accursed tree for your iniquities - has He not love enough to bow His ear to your cry, and His heart to your sorrow? Will He not rescue you from this difficulty, deliver you out of this trouble, shield you in this temptation, supply this need, and support, succour, and comfort you in this grief? Oh yes, He will! doubt it not!The cross of Calvary is a standing pledge - standing until sin and guilt, need and woe, shall be known no more - that God, who ’spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him also freely give us all things’ necessary to our good, and promotive of His glory."

- Octavius Winslow, Morning Thoughts
HT: Of First Importance