September 1959 The Year I was born

It seems that 1959 was such along time ago! Actually it was 54 years ago, I know this because that is the year I was born. Wow! I am getting old. So reading through, "The Other Sheep" I was excited to see what was going on in the year 1959, you can obviously see my bias for this year. I noticed how short the newspaper was getting, and that the cover page was in color. The articles were not as frequent as in other issues. I think this happened because subscribers were watching TV, and reading larger newspaper that had access to more information, so less people were relying on, "The Other Sheep" as their only source of what was going on in the world. I liked this article because it showed even with the technology of that time, people in Africa were still very poor. A woman was pregnant and members of the tribe had walked a very long distance to seek help from the missionaries. It was late at night and the missionary had a truck, the missionaries names were Mr. and Mrs. G. H.Pope. They drove back to the village only to find out that the baby had already been born. It was premature, Mr. Pope drove the couple to a hospital near by. However the baby died. The last paragraph though struck me as kind of odd that they would call these people this word. on page 11 it says, "We were saddened a few days later to learn that the little one didn't make it after all, but we were glad that we had done our best to get the mother and child to the hospital. It was just a small part of out Christian witness. One more heathen family has felt the warmth of Christian friendship." It goes on to say that hopefully they will receive our message of Christ and become our friends. I would not want to be friends if I knew they were calling me a heathen. The word "heathen" sounds so criminal, doesn't it? I know that it means a lack of knowledge or believing in God. It could also mean that they are uncivilized and enlightened. I think in 1959 the choices in how they called unbelievers should have been considered, and that a new framework on what to call believers would of been better.