We've Got to Pass It On

I've always been fascinated with family history, especially stories of how the Christian faith has been passed down from generation to generation. The Apostle Paul had a similar interest. In 2 Timothy he commented on Timothy's faith, which his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice passed on to him.

In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul spelled out God's plan for evangelism and discipleship:

In 1858, a man named Kimball, a Sunday school teacher, led a Boston shoe clerk to give his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. That clerk was Dwight L. Moody, who became an evangelist. He led many thousands to Christ in the United States and England.

While a student at Lake Forest College in the late 1870s, J. Wilbur Chapman, attended a Moody meeting in Chicago and received counsel from Moody that helped him receive certainty of his (Chapman's) salvation. Later, Chapman became a friend and coworker of Moody's.

Billy Sunday was converted at a street corner meeting held by the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Chapman hired the former baseball player to help with his evangelistic meetings. Billy Sunday became an evangelist too and held a series of services in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area. A group of local men became so enthusiastic as a result of the series that they planned another campaign, bringing Mordecai F. Ham to town as the preacher. During the meetings, a young man named Billy Graham heard the Gospel and yielded his life to Christ.

Who hasn't heard of Billy Graham, evangelist to the world and pastor to many Presidents of the United States? And his son, Franklin Graham, continues as an evangelist and leads humanitarian efforts around the world through Samaritan's Purse and Operation Christmas Child.

I can trace my own Christian heritage as far back as 1650 to the persecuted French Protestants nicknamed Huguenots. My grandmother, Florence LeFevre Personeus, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The first white settler there in 1712 was our ancestor, Isaac LeFevre, who at age 16 was the only member of his large family to escape martyrdom at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They were French Huguenots.

A LeFevre cousin holds the LeFevre Bible now preserved
at the Lancaster County Historical Society

Isaac fled with the family Bible baked in a loaf of bread to the Feree home in Strasbourg, France. With them, he fled to Bavaria, then to Holland, and eventually to England, where they met William Penn, who deeded to them a tract of land in Pennsylvania in the Pequea Valley, 55 miles west of Philadelphia. They named their new settlement "Paradise," because they had finally found a place where they could worship God freely. The name of the town remains to this day, and a monument to them stands beside the railroad tracks near the spot where U. S. Route 30 crosses Pequea Creek.

My grandfather, Charles C. Personeus, was the third generation ordained minister in his family. He spent 65 years as a pioneer missionary in Alaska, 1917-1982. My parents followed in their footsteps as missionaries in Alaska, and now I am the fifth generation ordained minister in the Personeus line. Both the LeFevre and Personeus genealogies include many missionaries and pastors.

My husband, on the other hand, started his own chain of conversions when he became the first born-again Christian in his family. His parents eventually came to know the Lord too. Our son and his family are active in ministry. And now, our grandson and his wife are preparing to go to Thailand on a two-year missionary assignment, which may be extended.

What about you? Do you have a Christian heritage? I'd love to hear about it.

It's been said that Christianity is always a generation away from extinction. God has no grandchildren. No matter whether we are a minister or not, passing our Christian faith on to our children and associates is our greatest privilege and responsibility. A shoe clerk led D. L. Moody to the Lord and started the above chain that continued to Billy Graham, perhaps the most influential Christian evangelist in the modern world.

Are you teaching "these great truths to trustworthy people who are able to pass them on to others"?

My grandparents' story is told in my book, Frontiers of Faith. You may also enjoy my historical Christian fiction trilogy based on true incidents my grandparents told about. To read more about them, go to my website: www.AnnaLeeConti.com