March 28 Today in OPC History

On this date in 1977, Clarence Duff’s book about the work of Orthodox Presbyterian missions in Ethiopia and Eritrea, God’s Higher Ways, was coming off of the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing presses and being made available to the general public. General Secretary of Foreign Missions, John Galbraith, wrote in the Foreword of the book:

There are some who never give up. Clarence Duff is one of those. His Calvinistic persistence is perhaps most aptly said in the Scriptures: “as much as in me is, I am determined to preach the gospel.” This comes through in this story of our missionary enterprise in Ethiopia, but it is in spite of the author whose intention has obviously been to hide behind Christ.

Forced from his missionary work in southern Ethiopia, with all other Protestants, by the Italians in pre-World War II, he and his wife came back to the U.S. determined to find another place where no one else would or could go. (I include his wife Dora because if ever a wife was one with her husband in determination to proclaim Christ, it was she). Find it they did in an isolated part of Colorado. But Ethiopia was never out of their minds or prayers. So when Italy was defeated Mr. Duff began the long tortuous endeavor to convince people that they could and should go back to Ethiopia: the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the U.S. Department of State, shipping lines, visa authorities, the British Army, the British government, and anyone else who tried to stand in the way. He convinced them all. And God opened the door. So the story of this book began.

In the book itself, Duff chronicled the establishment of the OPC witness in and around Ghinda, Eritrea, for over a quarter of a century which led to the birth of an indigenous church there.