J. O. Fraser

James Outram Fraser was born on October 26, 1886, in London, England. His father was a Scottish-born electrical engineer, and the family was well-to-do. James was a gifted boy who had a talent for music. He was a skilled pianist and thought of a career in that field. He studied engineering at Cambridge and was a good student. As a young man, he was not a Christian, though he went to church. He had grown cold in his faith.

In 1906, in a time of deep crisis, he was moved by a series of events to seek God. He said that he came to a settled trust in Christ at the age of nineteen, after reading a book on missions. He was struck by the need of the unreached peoples. He had been drawn to China by the story of Hudson Taylor's work. He decided to go there as a missionary and he applied to the China Inland Mission. In 1909, at the age of twenty-two, he sailed for China.

He was sent to the southwest of the country, to the province of Yunnan, to the border region where the Lisu people lived. The Lisu were a tribal people who lived in the mountains, in poverty and fear of evil spirits. They had no written language. Fraser went to live among them, in a simple hut. He studied their language and developed a script for it. He began to preach, but he found it very hard. For three years, he saw no converts. He felt that the work was hopeless, and he became discouraged. He was lonely and often ill.

Then he found a new key. He came to see that the work of the gospel is a spiritual battle that must be fought in prayer. He wrote to friends in England and asked them to pray. He formed a group of prayer partners, who undertook to pray regularly for the work. He said that prayer was the great work of the missionary and that preaching was a secondary matter. He taught that the power of the enemy over the people could be broken by prevailing prayer. From 1916 on, a movement began among the Lisu. Whole villages turned to Christ, and thousands were baptized. It was a mass movement that continued for many years.

He organized the new churches and trained local leaders. He translated the New Testament into the Lisu language and wrote hymns and a primer. He also worked to train the Lisu in self-support and in taking responsibility for their own churches. In 1920, he married Roxie Deymaz, an American missionary, and they raised a family in the mountains. He was a fine musician and taught the people to sing. He also wrote letters that were later collected and published in the book Behind the Ranges, a biography by Mrs. Howard Taylor.

He was a man who struggled with discouragement and with poor health. He suffered from fatigue and from bouts of depression. He faced the pressure of the work and the separation from his family. He told in his letters how God had met him in his low points. He wrote a small book, Prayer of Faith, which describes how he prayed for the Lisu. It has been widely read. He was open about his struggles, which makes his account all the more helpful.

He died in September 1938, of cerebral malaria, in China, at the age of fifty-one. He was buried in the hills that he had served. The Lisu church continued to grow, in China and in Burma and Thailand. Today there are hundreds of thousands of Lisu Christians. His life shows the power of prayer in the life of a missionary and the fruit of years of patient waiting.