In the months after Darrell Champlin's falling asleep and awaking to eternal life, several of us worked to collect his sermons for public access. A number of churches and colleges were willing to make those sermons available to us and the general public. Thus, we created an archive of them here at https://archive.org/details/DarrellChamplin.
However, that was as far as things got at that time. Now, as preparation is made for the printing of a book on the history of God's work through Darrell and Louise and the team that assembled around them in Suriname, this archive has been sorted and organized. Some duplicates have been deleted, and sermons that were wrongly labeled have been re-labeled. This work was propelled forward by the use of these sermons as sources for some of the stories in the book, which were mostly preached between 1980 and 2000.
Showing posts with label Louise Grings Champlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Louise Grings Champlin. Show all posts
08 February 2020
07 September 2015
Darrell Champlin's Departure and Promotion
Written by Darrell's oldest son, David
Darrell Champlin left Suriname for the last time on August 26, 2015. He departed from his bed, in his apartment, in the town of Moengo to enter the presence of his Creator whom he had served for most of his life. He had completed his race and had reached his goal. His desire and that of his wife Louise was to die and be buried on the foreign mission field.
Darrell Champlin left Suriname for the last time on August 26, 2015. He departed from his bed, in his apartment, in the town of Moengo to enter the presence of his Creator whom he had served for most of his life. He had completed his race and had reached his goal. His desire and that of his wife Louise was to die and be buried on the foreign mission field.
He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for a long time. The Alzheimer’s had caused him to become a husk of the man he had once been. Louise, his life partner for 64 years, had taken care of him along with his sons Jonathan, Ethan, and their families.
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| Darrell & Louise's wedding, 1951 |
Darrell and Louise met in Bible School in California. They married and there I (David) was born. I am the only American-born child in our family. Darrell was only 22 years old when they arrived in the Belgian Congo. I have no memories of how we arrived in the country. Jonathan and Debbie would be born in Congo. I do have memories of trips into the jungle going from village to village with the Word of God. The Gospel was preached in places few, if any, foreigner had ever been. People heard the Word, lives were transformed, believers were formed into churches, and preachers were trained. A civil war started in 1964, in which missionaries were killed; Christian leaders were killed; and churches were destroyed. This forced us to leave the Congo.
We returned to the USA, landing in New York City in the winter. We were wearing summer clothing as all else had been lost.
My parents heard of Suriname and the descendents of African slaves living in the jungle along the banks of the interior rivers. The result was that we moved to Ricannau Moffo on the Cottica River in Suriname. Darrell often wrote words on the palms of his hands when he had nothing else on which to write as he worked to learn the Aukaner language. We kids learned it fast. He traveled to the villages along the Cottica. Often the whole family went on these evangelistic trips.
Individuals started getting saved; men were selected and trained to become preachers and evangelists. A medical work opened with a nurse-midwife. Brother Ethan was the first baby born in the clinic.
I was the first to return to Suriname as a missionary in my own right with Lynne my wife; Jonathan and Sherrie were next; and then came Ethan and Kim. Others joined us in the struggle of getting the Gospel out to the Aukaners. We went from the Cottica River to the mining town of Moengo, to the Tapanahony River, the Marowijne River, the lake behind the Afobaka Dam, the East-West Highway, and the capital city of Paramaribo.
Once more we were caught in a revolution and civil war (1986-1992). This time we did not leave and ministered the whole time.
Friday night (August 28th) we held Darrell’s “Singi Neti”, an evening song and praise service, believers from the Cottica River, the Tapanahony River, the Lawa River; from Moengo and Paramaribo, met together for three hours to sing hymns of praise to God and give testimonies of what Darrell’s life had meant to them.
The next morning I went to Albina, the border town on the Marowijne River, with the driver of the Moengo van (hearse) and the empty casket. Darrell’s body had been placed in the Albina Hospital’s working morgue refrigerator. Under my supervision, the body was washed, dressed, and placed in the casket. We then returned to Moengo and placed the casket in the church. The funeral service was held Saturday morning, with still more believers representing the capital city churches in attendance. Jonathan preached the funeral service. From the church, the casket was taken to the public cemetery, which is located in the jungle outside of the town. (My father worked in the jungle and desired to be buried in the jungle.) James, the senior evangelist, opened the song service at the burial site. I then prayed, and the casket was lowered into the ground. Many believers spontaneously joined in with hymns and choruses while the lid was cemented on as is the custom here. Sherrie wrote Darrell’s name and his dates in the wet cement.
The whole event from the Singi Neti to the cementing of the grave were a time of love and fellowship among the believers, some of whom had not seen each other in years. There were no tears! This was a time full of rejoicing and of glorifying the Lord Jesus for the lives led to the Lord through Darrell’s 50 years of ministry.
We returned to the USA, landing in New York City in the winter. We were wearing summer clothing as all else had been lost.
My parents heard of Suriname and the descendents of African slaves living in the jungle along the banks of the interior rivers. The result was that we moved to Ricannau Moffo on the Cottica River in Suriname. Darrell often wrote words on the palms of his hands when he had nothing else on which to write as he worked to learn the Aukaner language. We kids learned it fast. He traveled to the villages along the Cottica. Often the whole family went on these evangelistic trips.
Individuals started getting saved; men were selected and trained to become preachers and evangelists. A medical work opened with a nurse-midwife. Brother Ethan was the first baby born in the clinic.
I was the first to return to Suriname as a missionary in my own right with Lynne my wife; Jonathan and Sherrie were next; and then came Ethan and Kim. Others joined us in the struggle of getting the Gospel out to the Aukaners. We went from the Cottica River to the mining town of Moengo, to the Tapanahony River, the Marowijne River, the lake behind the Afobaka Dam, the East-West Highway, and the capital city of Paramaribo.
Once more we were caught in a revolution and civil war (1986-1992). This time we did not leave and ministered the whole time.
Friday night (August 28th) we held Darrell’s “Singi Neti”, an evening song and praise service, believers from the Cottica River, the Tapanahony River, the Lawa River; from Moengo and Paramaribo, met together for three hours to sing hymns of praise to God and give testimonies of what Darrell’s life had meant to them.
The whole event from the Singi Neti to the cementing of the grave were a time of love and fellowship among the believers, some of whom had not seen each other in years. There were no tears! This was a time full of rejoicing and of glorifying the Lord Jesus for the lives led to the Lord through Darrell’s 50 years of ministry.
The work that Darrell started will continue. Louise, David, Jonathan, Ethan and their families ask for your continued prayers and help as there are still more villages that need a steady presentation of the Gospel and lives in the city that need to be touched with the Word of God.
06 May 2012
Herbert Grings' Autobiography republished!
The Autobiography of Herbert Ernest Grings: His Testimony and Missionary Service in the Belgian Congo has been republished after nearly fifty years. It is available here in the Kindle format from Amazon.com. (We are currently working on details to get it re-printed as a paperback too.)
This project has come to completion through a number of people's efforts, but it is particularly important to mention that the author's daughter, Louise Grings Champlin, added an epilogue concerning the remaining years of Herbert's life, as well as a summary of the lives of each of his five kids. These additions along with picture from the family's history should help this book to be an encouraging record of God's work in the world for many more years.
16 February 2010
John Lathrop: ancestor of the Fullers - selections from a paper written for a class in Baptist History
John Lathrop (Lothrop) was born in 1584 in Etton, Yorkshire, England, and he was baptized on December 20, 1584 into the Church of England. His parents were Thomas and Mary (Salte) Lathrop, and his family had lived in Yorkshire for generations. Nothing is really known about his childhood. When he was twenty-two, his father died in Etton (Price 2). This occurred while he was enrolled as a student at Cambridge. He enrolled in Queen’s College in 1601, receiving a BA in 1605, and his MA in 1609 (Rev. John 1). On Dec. 20, 1607, he was “ordained a deacon by the Bishop of Lincoln”, and he began to minister as the curate in Bennington, Hertfordshire (Price 2). After receiving his M. A. in 1609, Lathrop was appointed the curate of Egerton, Kent, about 50 miles from London. While serving in this position, he married the Hannah Howse on Oct. 10, 1610. She was the rector’s daughter from the neighboring parish (Price 2).
For about fourteen years, Rev. Lathrop served faithfully in this post. However, for several years, the English monarchs had been trying to bring all of England into religious conformity. Finally in 1623, the requirements set up by the king became too much for Rev. Lathrop, and he left the Church of England. The following year, he accepted the call to become the pastor of the First Independent (Congregational) Church in London. The founder and former pastor of this church was Henry Jacobs who had spent several years in Holland with John Robinson and had been influenced by Robinson concerning separation from the state church (Torbet 41). When Jacobs had returned to England from Holland, he had founded the First Independent Church in Southwark, London, in 1616. However, in 1622, he resigned his position and sailed to Virginia (Torbet 41).
For eight years, Rev. Lathrop and the congregation at Southwark held services. However, they constantly had to watch out for the men of Archbishop William Laud for what they were doing was theoretically illegal. Eventually, the archbishop sent spies to search out where Lathrop and his church were worshipping. Thus, on April 29, 1632, as the First Independent Church met in the house of Humphrey Barnet, the hirelings of Laud set upon them (McBeth 23). Laud’s men arrested the Reverend John Lathrop along with forty-one members of his congregation. For almost two years, these people were kept in Newgate Prison (“Rev. John” 1). By the spring of 1634, the congregation had all been released, but Lathrop was kept imprisoned. During this time in prison, Lathrop came to the conclusion that the ceremonialism that was so widely practiced by the Anglican Church was idolatry (Tribulations 4). On Sept. 12, 1633, during Lathrop’s time in prison, the church underwent a split (McBeth 24). This was an amiable split caused by a division over whether or not the parish churches were real churches and whether or not to baptize infants (Vedder 206; Tribulations 4). This split-off church was composed of about seventeen members and was led by Samuel Eaton and John Spilsbury. This church was the “first Particular Baptist church in England” (Vedder 206).
In the spring of 1634, Hannah Lathrop died, leaving John with the care of seven children, ages five to eighteen (Price 3). On April 24, 1634, Rev. Lathrop was given permission to go into foreign exile. He and thirty-two members of his congregation sailed for the New World in the Griffin. The Griffin reached Boston on Sept. 18, 1634. A point of minor interest is that the famed Anne Hutchinson made her voyage across the Atlantic with Lathrop (Tribulations 4). On the 27th of September, the little congregation made its way to the village of Scituate, MA, and there they setup their abode. In this new country, Rev. Lathrop was well received; and at least twice, Governor Winthrop recorded favorable notes about him in his journal (Price 4).
It appears that those who were already in Scituate knew of Rev. Lathrop and that some of them may have previously been members of his congregation in Kent (“Rev. John” 2). It seems that on January 19, 1635, John Lathrop was chosen as the pastor of the church at Scituate. The reason for the confusion of when this occurred is that the primary source for this dating is a journal entry of Rev. Lathrop’s. This entry is confusing because of the fact that he gives the year as 1634; however, as he was in England at that time, this is clearly impossible (“Rev. John” 2). During his time in Scituate, Rev. Lathrop remarried; his wife’s name was Ann, and they were married by June 14, 1635. His children grew up and began to spread out considerably. His daughter Jane married Samuel Fuller, a young man who had come over on the Mayflower. (They were married by Captain Miles Standish.)
For five years, Rev. Lathrop ministered at Scituate, and then, divisions began arising about baptism and its forms. Thus, in 1639, Lathrop (and those of his congregation who, like him, believed in sprinkling instead of immersion) moved to Barnstable, MA (Christian 364). It appears that Lathrop never wavered on this point for in 1644, Christian records that Lathrop wrote “A Short Form of Catechisme of the Doctrine of Baptisme. In use in these Times that are so full of Questions” (364). Evidently, this document did not receive wide circulation, for there do not appear to be any surviving copies of the manuscript.
About twenty-two members of Lathrop’s congregation followed him to Barnstable, MA (Price 5). These were people who were much like the Pilgrims were in search of a Promised Land. They brought their goods and settled on tracts of lands that they could pass on to their children. They arrived in their settlement on October 11, 1639; and ten days later they celebrated God’s goodness to them by declaring a day of public “fasting, humiliation, and prayer” (“Rev. John” 6). On December 11, they held another day of religious activity, this time the emphasis was on worshipping and thanking God for that which He had done for them. This small band of pioneers were simple men and women who lived joyfully raising their children peaceably; these were not malicious fanatics intent on breaking tradition and forming new sects. They had two primary guides; the one was their conscience and the other, their pastor. It is quite remarkable that Rev. Lathrop inspired such trust and devotion in his people that many of those who were in his final congregation at Barnstable had come over from Southwark with him. This is a great tribute to a man who lived a life of intense purity and who was willing to change his views on various subjects when he saw from the Scripture that he was in error.
John Lathrop lived out his days in the town that he was so vital in starting. On November 8, 1653, the Reverend John Lathrop died (Tribulation 4). He had ministered to the very end. In his will, he left provision for each of his family and also for his library to be divided up among a number of people (“Rev. John” 8). His house still stands today and is part of the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, MA; this library also houses his Bible that he brought over from England. However, perhaps the greatest testimony to his life are those who descended from him, some were great men of character, while others were charlatans; some earned great honor, and a couple great disgrace. These included Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Benedict Arnold, Adlai Stevenson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph Smith, Eli Whitney, George H. W. Bush, J. P. Morgan, Henry W. Longfellow, Ruth Fuller Grings, and her daughter Louise Grings Champlin. Yes, it is in the lives of these descendants, and in the ways that he helped shape a nation that John Lathrop left his stamp upon the land.
For about fourteen years, Rev. Lathrop served faithfully in this post. However, for several years, the English monarchs had been trying to bring all of England into religious conformity. Finally in 1623, the requirements set up by the king became too much for Rev. Lathrop, and he left the Church of England. The following year, he accepted the call to become the pastor of the First Independent (Congregational) Church in London. The founder and former pastor of this church was Henry Jacobs who had spent several years in Holland with John Robinson and had been influenced by Robinson concerning separation from the state church (Torbet 41). When Jacobs had returned to England from Holland, he had founded the First Independent Church in Southwark, London, in 1616. However, in 1622, he resigned his position and sailed to Virginia (Torbet 41).
For eight years, Rev. Lathrop and the congregation at Southwark held services. However, they constantly had to watch out for the men of Archbishop William Laud for what they were doing was theoretically illegal. Eventually, the archbishop sent spies to search out where Lathrop and his church were worshipping. Thus, on April 29, 1632, as the First Independent Church met in the house of Humphrey Barnet, the hirelings of Laud set upon them (McBeth 23). Laud’s men arrested the Reverend John Lathrop along with forty-one members of his congregation. For almost two years, these people were kept in Newgate Prison (“Rev. John” 1). By the spring of 1634, the congregation had all been released, but Lathrop was kept imprisoned. During this time in prison, Lathrop came to the conclusion that the ceremonialism that was so widely practiced by the Anglican Church was idolatry (Tribulations 4). On Sept. 12, 1633, during Lathrop’s time in prison, the church underwent a split (McBeth 24). This was an amiable split caused by a division over whether or not the parish churches were real churches and whether or not to baptize infants (Vedder 206; Tribulations 4). This split-off church was composed of about seventeen members and was led by Samuel Eaton and John Spilsbury. This church was the “first Particular Baptist church in England” (Vedder 206).
In the spring of 1634, Hannah Lathrop died, leaving John with the care of seven children, ages five to eighteen (Price 3). On April 24, 1634, Rev. Lathrop was given permission to go into foreign exile. He and thirty-two members of his congregation sailed for the New World in the Griffin. The Griffin reached Boston on Sept. 18, 1634. A point of minor interest is that the famed Anne Hutchinson made her voyage across the Atlantic with Lathrop (Tribulations 4). On the 27th of September, the little congregation made its way to the village of Scituate, MA, and there they setup their abode. In this new country, Rev. Lathrop was well received; and at least twice, Governor Winthrop recorded favorable notes about him in his journal (Price 4).
It appears that those who were already in Scituate knew of Rev. Lathrop and that some of them may have previously been members of his congregation in Kent (“Rev. John” 2). It seems that on January 19, 1635, John Lathrop was chosen as the pastor of the church at Scituate. The reason for the confusion of when this occurred is that the primary source for this dating is a journal entry of Rev. Lathrop’s. This entry is confusing because of the fact that he gives the year as 1634; however, as he was in England at that time, this is clearly impossible (“Rev. John” 2). During his time in Scituate, Rev. Lathrop remarried; his wife’s name was Ann, and they were married by June 14, 1635. His children grew up and began to spread out considerably. His daughter Jane married Samuel Fuller, a young man who had come over on the Mayflower. (They were married by Captain Miles Standish.)
For five years, Rev. Lathrop ministered at Scituate, and then, divisions began arising about baptism and its forms. Thus, in 1639, Lathrop (and those of his congregation who, like him, believed in sprinkling instead of immersion) moved to Barnstable, MA (Christian 364). It appears that Lathrop never wavered on this point for in 1644, Christian records that Lathrop wrote “A Short Form of Catechisme of the Doctrine of Baptisme. In use in these Times that are so full of Questions” (364). Evidently, this document did not receive wide circulation, for there do not appear to be any surviving copies of the manuscript.
About twenty-two members of Lathrop’s congregation followed him to Barnstable, MA (Price 5). These were people who were much like the Pilgrims were in search of a Promised Land. They brought their goods and settled on tracts of lands that they could pass on to their children. They arrived in their settlement on October 11, 1639; and ten days later they celebrated God’s goodness to them by declaring a day of public “fasting, humiliation, and prayer” (“Rev. John” 6). On December 11, they held another day of religious activity, this time the emphasis was on worshipping and thanking God for that which He had done for them. This small band of pioneers were simple men and women who lived joyfully raising their children peaceably; these were not malicious fanatics intent on breaking tradition and forming new sects. They had two primary guides; the one was their conscience and the other, their pastor. It is quite remarkable that Rev. Lathrop inspired such trust and devotion in his people that many of those who were in his final congregation at Barnstable had come over from Southwark with him. This is a great tribute to a man who lived a life of intense purity and who was willing to change his views on various subjects when he saw from the Scripture that he was in error.
John Lathrop lived out his days in the town that he was so vital in starting. On November 8, 1653, the Reverend John Lathrop died (Tribulation 4). He had ministered to the very end. In his will, he left provision for each of his family and also for his library to be divided up among a number of people (“Rev. John” 8). His house still stands today and is part of the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, MA; this library also houses his Bible that he brought over from England. However, perhaps the greatest testimony to his life are those who descended from him, some were great men of character, while others were charlatans; some earned great honor, and a couple great disgrace. These included Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Benedict Arnold, Adlai Stevenson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph Smith, Eli Whitney, George H. W. Bush, J. P. Morgan, Henry W. Longfellow, Ruth Fuller Grings, and her daughter Louise Grings Champlin. Yes, it is in the lives of these descendants, and in the ways that he helped shape a nation that John Lathrop left his stamp upon the land.
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