December 25 Today in OPC History

On December 25, 1938, OPC missionary Henry Coray and his family celebrated Christmas with fellow Manchurian believers. Coray described the scene in the PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN:

It was great to be here to celebrate Christmas with friends. With peculiar joy I met for worship with my Manchurian brethren. The Christmas service was held in a private home. Like the primitive Christians we meet in humble dwellings and, for the present, are content that it should be so . . . there were about forty present, including a number of children. We listened to the reading of the sublime and ever-wonderful Christmas story. My evangelist led in prayer, after which we sang the same hymns that you GUARDIAN readers probably sang; "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," "Silent Night," "Joy to the World." The grand old hymns of the church have been translated into Chinese and the tunes retained so that the Westerner always has this point of contact with his Oriental brother. "Hsiung ti," that is, "this unworthy underling," then had the privilege of bringing the Christmas message from Luke 2:29, 30.

Picture: OPC Harbin mission in 1937 - Back row, Evangelist Kim, Rev. McIlwaine, Dr. Byraur, Kathy Hunt, Elizabeth Coray, Rev. Coray, Song, Rev. Hunt, Chiao; children in front row, J. Chiao, Lois Hunt, Andy Coray, Bertha Hunt, K. Song, H. Song