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Reformation Sunday
Acts 1:8
Barbrooke Grubb
Barbrooke Grubb was born on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1865. The Grubb family had long been members of the Anglican Church in a country dominated by the Presbyterians. By the time Barbrooke Grubb died in 1930 he was acknowledged as one of the greatest missionaries of all time. On this Reformation Sunday we want to examine the life of a man who can spur us to greater missionary commitment.
What were the factors that led Grubb to devote his life to missionary work among savage tribes? From childhood Grubb had acquired a thirst for travel and adventure. He liked reading books about pirates, travelers, and explorers. Besides the books, the great missionary movement of the 19th Century swept him up. There have been many times in history when the Church has sent out missionaries, but no age provided them to the degree of the 19th Century Evangelicals. The Protestant Reformation is our heritage and a central plank in that heritage is our missionary outreach and commitment. Moreover, Grubb loved the Church as a youth. He taught Sunday School, participated in a men’s Bible Study, and did outdoor preaching. Grubb’s Bishop recognized his talent, and licensed him as a Lay Reader, assigning him to assist the vicar.
Obedience to God’s Word was certainly another motivation for Grubb. Jesus tells us, “Go and Baptize the nations.” The message of the ascension is: “You shall be witnesses to me to the end of the earth” (Matthew 29:18; Acts 1:8). Every corner of the globe must surrender to the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Every person must worship Him. Evangelicalism has always been strong on missionary involvement and Grubb was part of that movement.
At the age of 19 Grubb joined the South American Missionary Society. This was the Anglican agency that sent missionaries to South America. Allen Gardiner was the founder of SAMS in 1845. Its purpose was to evangelize the dozens of isolated tribes of South America. Tragically, Gardiner and six other heroic companions died of starvation in 1851 in a harbor on the southern tip of South America. The mission agency sent Grubb to the Falkland Islands. The British flag flies over these cold southern islands that lie off the coast of Argentina. In 1886 the ship set sail from Scotland and landed at Montevideo, Uruguay several months later. Grubb was fired with enthusiasm, but it would be two months until the next ship sailed for the Falkland Islands. Time was redeemed. He spent five hours a day studying Spanish and three hours reading the Bible, theology and scientific studies.
Grubb finally made it to the Falkland Islands and began his work among the Yahgan Tribe. He was assigned to teach and catechize the boys. For nearly four years Barbrooke labored faithfully. His diet consisted of mutton, fish, and penguin eggs. During his stay on the Islands a missionary family named the Bridges visited. They stopped there on their way to Tierra del Fuego. This family had two daughters and Barbrooke fell in love with Mary. One thing led to another and the two got engaged. Unfortunately the wedding would have to wait. Why?
Bishop Stirling wanted Barbrooke to replace Mr. Robbins in the Chaco region of Paraguay. Robbins had tried to make contact with the Indian groups and establish a mission work, but the blistering heat, the swarms of insects, and the loneliness were too much for him. Besides that Robbins was a married man and could find no way to have his wife and children join him. He resigned. Since the Falkland Islands and Paraguay were in the same diocese it was easy for the Bishop to have Grubb and Robbins trade places.
Grubb sailed to Buenos Aires, Argentina. From Buenos Aires he boarded smaller boats heading up the Rio de la Plata, to the Rio Parana to the Rio Paraguay, stopping in Asuncion and finally landing in Concepcion, Paraguay. Concepcion was located on the east bank of the Paraguay River; the Chaco lay on the west side of the river. The difference couldn’t be starker. Along the eastern bank of the River Paraguay could be seen a multitude of city lights; across the river dark forests loomed against the sky, a lonely Indian campfire shone through the trees. On one side, the river steamers docked at busy wharves; on the other, gourds were rattling, and Indians chanted exotic songs.
I backpacked the Northern Chaco twice in 1983 and 1984. It was a flat, hot, spiny low forest punctuated by tall beautiful bottle trees. We saw armadillos, jaguars, foxes, monkeys, snakes, ostriches, tapir, koati, and deer. Roads and footpaths were greatly to be preferred through the thorn-laden brush; otherwise, a machete was necessary to slash one’s way along. For example, the Caraguata, or water plant, has hook-shaped thorns that tear at unprotected flesh. Yet this plant contains a pint of water if you know how to strain it out. The first time I was in the Chaco, torrential rain turned the place into a tropical cactus swamp. The second time, 100-degree temperatures made it bone-dry and dusty. We had heard rumors of primitive Indians still wandering around and we came upon a small storm shelter. No Paraguayan would have constructed such a thing. Two years later, in 1986, an untouched tribe of Ayoreo Indians killed five Christian Indians with spears and bush knives. They later converted to the Bible faith. The Christian Indians we met in the Chaco were wonderful. The Mennonite missionaries and the New Tribes missionaries have taken over the work Barbrooke Grubb initiated, and have done a splendid job. There is a big difference between the Indians who have converted to Christ and those who haven’t.
If the Chaco remains a remote area today it was much more so at the time Barbrooke Grubb arrived in 1889. Traveling up the river north from Concepcion Grubb found two tribes of Indians, called the Lengua and the Sanapana. They lived in groups of twenty or forty persons. Sometimes these Indians crossed the river to seek work from the Paraguayan ranchers. The Indian men were clothed in blankets and the women in deerskins. They slept in crude shelters made of branches stuck in the ground and covered with grass. Half-starved dogs and a few hens roamed here and there. The filth created an intolerable stench. Most of them were dedicated to drunkenness and begging. Grubb decided to love the unlovable. He built a shelter on the bank of the river near them. Learning their tongue would be important.
But the tribes were nomadic, sometimes they were present; sometimes they weren’t. They would vanish for long periods, hunting or gathering. Grubb knew that to be effective he would have to contact the thousands of Indians living deep in the forests untouched by civilization. First he tried to penetrate the land using streams and rivers. That didn’t work. The rivers were so choked up with tree trunks and floating brush that there was no way for a boat to nose her way through the tangle. Alligators made canoeing dangerous. Several times Grubb had to defend himself with an axe or spear.
At this time Barbrooke met an elderly Danish surveyor named Pedro Freund. This man taught Grubb many things. He showed him that it was possible to get used to the searing heat, the insects, and the loneliness of the Chaco. With myriads of mosquitoes biting his hands, head, face and body, Freund would stand calmly holding his surveying instruments, and unperturbedly jump out of the way of poisonous snakes. But Grubb rejected Freund’s military methods. Anytime Freund ventured into the Chaco he took a minimum of fifteen fully armed and trained soldiers.
Grubb plunged into the heart of the Chaco unarmed. It was his policy to travel unprotected to show his friendliness and to prove that he had no fear. On his first long trip he took five Indian guides. They fled as soon as they approached an Indian village. Alone Grubb walked up to the village beating off the dogs with his whip. Then he hung his mosquito net under a tree to sleep the night with them.
The Indians were so astonished at the fearlessness of their visitor that they forgot to be suspicious. This must be a great white chief who knows even more things than their own wizards and witchdoctors. They decided to find out how easy it would be to take advantage of him. In the middle of the night two of them sneaked up and started pulling away articles of property from the pile on which he was sleeping. Everything was breathlessly still. Then Grubb let loose with one of the loudest war-whoops he could, and they ran away terrified. The rest of the night he slept in peace. Little by little, Grubb learned their language, habits, and beliefs.
For the next six years Grubb wandered over the Chaco trying to locate the various indigenous groups. Over and again he would set out alone for the wilds, perhaps going a hundred miles without seeing a soul, surviving on venison, fox-meat and insects. At night the Indians would often sleep next to smoky fires in order to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Grubb would sit up and converse with them. They played a sport similar to field hockey; he would sometimes play with them. Barbrooke found out they liked wrestling; he would come into a village and challenge all comers, and usually end up the winner. The Indians would sit around in a circle and smoke a communal pipe. Barbrooke would accompany them. At their festivals they painted themselves up, put feathers in their hair, and danced. Grubb did the same, singing and dancing around the fire night after night. For Grubb, there was no necessity that the Indians become tea-drinking Englishmen. Like everybody else he ate only once a day, and with his bare hand dipped out the repulsive food from a greasy clay pot used in common by the whole tribe. On some journeys, thirst drove him to drink from puddles with mudfish rotting in them, or green, slimy water that even the horses refused to touch. Mosquitoes, ticks, deer flies, fleas, sand gnats, lice; all these things worried him. Nevertheless, Barbrooke Grubb enjoyed these exploratory visits among the Indians. They were the happiest years of his life.
But above all Grubb was concerned for the spiritual state of these indigenous peoples, their eternal welfare. He prayed that they would understand his presentation of the Gospel of grace in Christ and accept it. Churches were needed so that the Indians could learn about Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. Churches were needed so that they could receive the sacraments and worship in their own language. Churches were needed to replace the hideous witchcraft that kept them spooked and ignorant.
The Lengua lived in perpetual fear of magic. Theirs was a terrifying world, created by a beetle. There was no god – only vampires, spirits, holy dogs and magic. Only by burning his shelter and his animals could a man’s soul be liberated. The corpse’s bones were then smashed up, to prevent him walking as a ghost. The wizards earned their authority though grueling weeks of initiation: eating raw snakes and bats and swallowing poisons. Grubb wrote to his fiancé Mary, “The wizards are evil and must cease to exist. I must declare open war on them.”
Which cultural features most required change? Infanticide. Mothers would nurse their babies for about five years. If they had another baby during that time they would kill it. It was too difficult to feed another mouth. Twins were immediately buried alive. Even after birth, a child had to be sustainable; if it became ill or lost a parent, it was clubbed to death with a bone-axe. Consequently, parents rarely had more than three children. Adults too had to pull their weight. If they were too feeble to keep up with the clan on their hunting trips they were either smothered or buried alive. Then there were the lesser sins: stealing, drunkenness, lying, laziness, no concept of private property, and a total lack of future orientation. If an Indian were cold he would rip the door off his hut and throw it in the fire to stay warm.
How could a missionary convert these nomads? It was a daunting task. More missionaries were needed and Grubb convinced the bishop and the mission agency to send a few more. Missionary houses and stations were needed and these were built first along the river and then deeper into the interior of the jungle. Teaching and catechism classes were needed and he brought in linguists to translate the Bible and teach the Indians to pray and worship the Triune God. Slowly but surely some of the young people began to understand the Gospel message and surrender their lives to the Lord. The strategy was to build a large mission dwelling, plant gardens, dig wells, and put a trading post. This attracted the Indians. They could trade their animal skins and blankets for needles, hoes, pots, mosquito nets and other such things. Bible teaching would be made available at these posts. Some of the Lengua and Sanapana Indians began to attend Church. A small number began to believe. They got together on their own and prayed; sometimes in the Church other times in a quiet place in the forest. They created their own Morning Prayer liturgy. These developments thrilled Grubb.
In June of 1899 Bishop Stirling arrived and baptized Philip and James, the first of their tribe to accept the Christian faith. The next year many of the Lengua Indians themselves saw the need for a church and they built it. The new church was inaugurated and consecrated with six more baptisms.
However, just when the work seemed to be gaining momentum the witchdoctors started their fiercest attacks. The Chief of the Wizards arrived from one of the worst centers of witchcraft. He brought with him ten other witchdoctors and threatened to get rid of the missionaries. On a former occasion this chief had pulled three cats from a boy’s stomach. Thus, he was called, “The Father of Cats.” Frightening things were going on at night. The Father of Cats had sent his people around the village while it was pitch black, ripping palm fronds off the roofs of the huts and making noises. The village was trembling with fear.
Grubb had been away for the first week these things were going on. When he finally arrived he called in one of the ruffian suspects. He showed him his Winchester rifle and cartridges and quietly informed him that as soon as he heard the frightening noises around the huts that night he was going to start shooting that direction to scare away the spirits. The night ghosts didn’t visit that night, nor ever again. Grubb then confronted the Father of Cats. He told him that instead of intimidating the missionaries, he had better go and produce some more kittens. Furthermore, Grubb decided that each of the disturbers of the peace should be punished. The culprits should give two sheep a piece as compensation for the annoyance they had caused. When the decision was communicated to the offenders, they all agreed to pay, except the Father of Cats. He sent a message to Grubb saying that he was a great chief, as well as Grubb, and refused to bring two sheep. Grubb immediately sent a messenger to say that he was sorry that he had overlooked the fact that he was so great a chief, and as such must therefore bring three sheep. The Father of Cats finally paid his three sheep and a nice chandelier was bought for the Church with the proceeds.
Grubb didn’t elude every danger. The Indians took dreams seriously. An Indian convert named Poet had a dream one night in which he learned he must kill Grubb. The two traveled far out into the bush and while Barbrooke was looking the other way, Poet shot him with an arrow. The head passed beneath his shoulder blade, smashed a rib and penetrated his lung. First Grubb had to pull out the arrow that he could barely grip with his thumb and two fingers. Then he walked to the river and dunked himself several times in order to keep from fainting. With his remaining strength he made his way to a footpath and passed out. Fortunately, another Indian happened to be going by and carried him to the nearest village. His problems weren’t over though; Lenguas believe that if a man dies during darkness, his spirit will haunt them forever. They decided that Grubb wouldn’t survive and that he should be buried before sunset. Grubb was now laughing for his life. He offered to go on an ostrich hunt with them. That helped him get the reprieve he needed for the night and he miraculously made it back to the mission station days later. Grubb never fully recovered from his wounds.
Barbrooke had not seen Mary Bridges, his fiancée, for twelve years. The wedding was arranged to take place in Buenos Aires. They got married and immediately traveled by steamboat to Asuncion where they stayed a few days, then on to Concepcion and the mission outpost. God blessed them with several children.
Favored by God’s grace, the number of baptisms increased, the churches prospered, superstition waned, the lives of the Lengua people improved. More mission stations were built. Secular anthropologists like to romanticize about the lifestyle of nomadic Indians untouched by Christianity, but the reality is undeniable: life before Christianity was harsh and short. The person who couldn’t keep up on the long marches was killed. Babies were smothered by sand; the people gripped by fear.
Grubb brought in horses and cattle and taught the Indians to ranch. The Indians learned how to build permanent homes. Grubb taught them horticulture and how to save money. He brought in nurses to treat the ill. Young men were instructed in logging and carpentry. The girls learned washing, ironing, sewing, cooking and baking. Grubb even set up a theatre where the Indians could perform skits, songs, and plays in the evening. His ministry was a balance of Church-centered worship and cultural transformation.
Barbrooke Grubb became famous in South America. They called him “the Pacifier of the Indians.” In 1900 the Argentine government offered him the central Chaco land between the River Bermejo and River Pilcomayo if he would attempt to pacify the fierce Toba Indians. Grubb missed that opportunity but in 1911 moved to the Embarcacion area of Northern Argentina (where our mission team worked in 2004). From 1911 to 1923 the Grubb family labored in Argentina. In 1923 Grubb returned to Scotland and in 1930 he died. During the 20s and 30s he was recognized in the Protestant world as one of the greatest missionaries of all time. Today few people have ever heard of him. The books about Grubb are out of print.
Barbrooke Grubb gave his all to obey Christ’s command to baptize the nations and carry the Gospel to the end of the earth. This has been the Church’s mission since Jesus ascended into Heaven. We have no choice but to be involved in this ministry. True, we are already in a mission field in Southern California, but we can’t limit our vision to California. Foreign missions are an essential facet. The Holy Spirit creates in the people who do global mission a desire to serve more significantly in their home churches. Hence, missionary involvement will strengthen our parish as we become increasingly missionary-minded. We should give to and help send missionaries. Once we get financially stable at St. Luke’s we should allocate more money for overseas missions. To the extent we become a missionary parish, to that extent we will benefit spiritually.
This next month a missionary family named the Smiths may come and make a presentation. Russ and Heidi Smith are Anglican missionaries to Chile. We need to learn about the ministry of families like this; that is why I invited them. Young people should plan to do internships in a foreign culture: one or two years learning a different language, and serving in the Church. Help send our mission teams to Mexico and Argentina with your prayers and money. We have a message of hope. Jesus transforms! The Lord changes lives and cultures. Barbrooke Grubb proved that.
Let us pray.
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