December 30 Today in OPC History

On this day in 1940, the Committee on Foreign Missions assigned missionaries Henry and Elizabeth Coray to promotional activities for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church on the Pacific Coast of the United States. Just four months earlier, the Corays had ended their furlough in the United States and set sail to return to their missionary labors in Manchuria. They had arrived in Harbin at the end of September, but immediately thereafter the U.S. Department of State recommended the withdrawal of all American missionaries due to the worsening world condition. The Corays might have stayed as their fellow missionaries Bruce and Kathy Hunt did, but the Coray children were seriously ill and in need of medical attention. Consequently, the Corays left for Kobe, Japan on November 23 and eventually arrived back in the United States. Henry and Elizabeth Coray would never return to the mission field. Pursuant of his assignment, Mr. Coray organized an Orthodox Presbyterian Church at Long Beach, California. He would pastor First OPC in Long Beach from 1941-1955.

Picture: Betty Coray in 1999 holding a picture of herself in Manchuria as an OPC missionary during the late 1930s.