FOUNDERS
Dr E Stanley Jones
Dr E Stanley Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 3, 1884. He studied law at City College before graduating from Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky in 1906. A year later he came to India as a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr Jones proclaimed the Gospel of Christ for more than half a century and applied it to people's personal, social, national, and international problems.
He moved among statesmen and among leaders without portfolios as counselor, friend and worker for peace and goodwill. Dr Jones became a friend of Mahatma Gandhi and wrote an appreciative biography of Gandhi.
In 1925, while home on furlough, he wrote a report of his years of service - what he had taught and what he had learned in India. It was published in a book titled "The Christ of the Indian Road" and became a best seller. It sold over a million copies and has influenced the course of missionary thinking. The royalties of his twenty eight books, most of them best sellers, were devoted wholly to these causes.
He inaugurated "round table conferences" at which Christian and non-Christian sat down as equals to share their testimonies as to how their religious experiences enabled them to live better. Then in 1930, along with Ms Ethel Turner, a British missionary and Rev. Yunas Singh Sinha, an Indian presbyter, Rev. Jones started a Christian Ashram at Sat Tal in the lower Himalayan ranges. Stranded in the United States during World War II with his family in India, he transplanted the Christian Ashram in the United States and Canada, where it has become a strong spiritual growth ministry. In 1950 Dr Jones provided funds for India's first Christian psychiatric center, and clinic currently known as Nur Manzil Psychiatric Center and Medical Unit at Lucknow. The staff includes specialists from India, Asia, Africa, Europe, and America who have given up lucrative practices to serve in this Christian institution which serves thousands of patients. In 1959 Stanley Jones was named “Missionary Extraordinary” by the Methodist missionary publication World Outlook. In December 1971, at the age of 88, while leading the Oklahoma Christian Ashram, Brother Stanley suffered a stroke that seriously impaired him physically but not mentally and spiritually. He was severely impaired in his speech, but dictated onto a tape recorder his last book The Divine Yes and in June of 1972. Despite his deteriorating health, he gave moving messages from his wheel chair at the First Christian Ashram World Congress in Jerusalem.
He died on January 25, 1973 in his beloved India. The purpose of E STANLEY JONES FOUNDATION is to preserve and extend the legacy of the late E Stanley Jones who blessed millions of people around the world. This is done by republishing and reprinting his books and other writings, and supporting the growth and extension of the Christian Ashram ministry which he founded in 1930. One of current projects of the ESJ Foundation is to facilitate the reprinting / digitizing the books of Bro. Jones those are no longer in print into e-books.
If you like to contribute towards this project, please contact Dr Anne Mathews-Younes or visit http://www.christianashram.org/Pages2/ESJonesFoundation2.html
Ms Ethel Turner
Miss Ethel Mary Turner was born in London on 28th March 1871, the daughter of Mr G Lyon Turner, Professor of Philosophy and Church History at Lancashire Independent College. Her higher academic achievements were completed at the Manchester High School for Girls while she attended the Congregational Church, Manchester. Miss Turner was sent to India as a missionary by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in 1888. She was posted in the United Province to assist the boarding and school facilities there where she worked in the vernacular. She started her mission work in Rani Khet and later posted to Almora in 1896. In 1902, she started a girl's school at Bhot Country and was doing Zenana (mission by women to empower the women-in-societal-captivity through education) work. She was supporting two BibleWoman at Katyer. She is known for her detailed mission reports. As one of her brother was a missionary in China, she learned Tibetan to do mission work in Tibet along with her special friend and co-worker of Miss Rutledge, a specially funded British missionary in India. Although she was hired by LMS, primarily to give assistance in the mission compound within the town, she ended up itinerating for at least half of each year; living out of tents and transporting her belongings on pack ponies over dangerous mountain paths. She lived this way of life for more than a decade. One of her passions was to help facilitate healing for those who suffered from accidents and exposure to the elements as well as other ailments. She was introduced to the Ayurvedic way to health which is bio-medic in nature, and believed it was a good way to go for recovery. During the summers of 1897 and 1898 at Munsiyari and Milam (in the lower Himalayas), she teamed with a local medical evangelist by the name of, Babu Silong. An amazing sum of 12,000 patients was treated in those two summers. Her independent, masculine lifestyle went against the dependent, feminine roles being broadcast to female candidates at the time. She traveled extensively in the foothills of Almora until an eventual nervous breakdown occurred in 1908 which forced her to stop and seek recuperation in Switzerland. She retired from active missionary work in 1926 and co-founded the Sat Tal Christian Ashram in 1930.
She entered into God's glory on 6th November 1953. Source: Missionary women: Gender, Professionalism, and the Victorian Idea of Christian Mission by Prof. & Dr Rhonda Anne Semple Published by The Boydell Press 2003 ISBN 1 84383 013 2 Foot Prints Remain - Biomedical Begining Across Indo-Tibet Frontier by Alex McKey IIAS / Amsterdam University Press, 2007 ISBN 978 90 5356 518 6
Rev. Yunas Singh Sinha
Rev. Yunas Sinha Rev. Yunas Singh Sinha was converted from Hinduism, and served as a missionary of the London Missionary Society. He had made several trips to Tibet and wrote a book about Tibet- "On the Roof of the World: Visit to Tibet". This is the first book on Tibet. He had a long association with Sadhu Sundar Singh from 1916 to 1927. His views were better answers to the controversies of Sadhu Sunder Singh, regarding the latter's claims about visiting Tibet and the chronicles connected with Sadhu’s visit to Tibet. He was the co-founder of the Sat Tal Christian Ashram and was instrumental in steering the thinking of Dr E Stanley Jones regard to Indianisation of Christian faith. The lyrics written by him are still very famous in northern India.