John Bradburne

I was posting a comment on a blog concerning sainthood, and found this link to Bradburne...

When I worked in Zim, quite a few missionaries and local church workers were martyred...some were merely killed, but most of the deaths would be considered martyrdom, i.e. deliberate killing of someone because they were a witness to truth (i.e. because they represented the Christian church, or because they worked as doctors or nurses in local hospitals or clinics that were church or government funded... or because they saw atrocities and were killed so they would not report the truth)...

Ironically, although many were holy people, and had done quite useful work, the only person that the local people revered as a saint and a martyr was John Bradburne....

Now, I had never met or heard about the guy when I worked there...most of those I knew were doctors or nurses and we were all busy doing our thing in public health...and a few of my friends got killed trying to help out...(I wasn't in the preaching area of "missionary work")

In Western eyes, we like to praise those who do big things...start hospitals, preach, make converts, you name it...we are achievement oriented...

But Bradburne was a failure: A shell shocked soldier who hung around missions trying to be helpful, but not really doing anything really useful...

I was amused, since this is how God always seems to work: The person who in the world makes a big splash is not necessarily the holiest one (too often those like myself who are big at doing works are also big in the Pride department)...