Imagine being in Eugowra, Australia more than 100 years ago, when a bike-riding Adventist literature evangelist comes on the scene. He has no idea that someday, his visit to this small town would affect thousands of lives and reach around the world.
Imagine being in this location more than 100 years ago, when a bike-riding Adventist literature evangelist comes on the scene. He has no idea that someday, his visit to this small town would affect thousands of lives and reach around the world.
I’m standing near Eugowra, a farming town just over 200 miles west of Sydney, Australia. In the 1890s, a literature evangelist by the name of Philip Reekie pedaled his bicycle down this road.
He met Thomas Kent, a farmer, who ended up buying this copy of the Great Controversy. Mr. Kent became convinced about the Sabbath, and started lending this book to neighboring farmers.
He didn’t know any other Sabbathkeepers, but wrote to the publishers of the book and they told him about a group meeting in Sydney. He went to visit and was baptized in the Ashfield Seventh-day Adventist church in 1898.
When Thomas returned home to Eugowra, he gathered other families together and started a church in his home. Later, they built this mud-brick church that is no longer in use.
Little did Philip Reekie know what would be the impact of selling that one book. The legacy of this small group of farmers on the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia and around the world has been profound. Their descendants have included more than 100 denominational workers—pastors, educators, administrators, and missionaries in the South Pacific and throughout the world. Churches have been planted and thousands have come into the church through their ministry.
I thank God that more than a hundred years ago, Philip Reekie got on his bike and rode to the middle of nowhere, and shared the love of Jesus with a farmer Thomas Kent. You see, that farmer was my grandfather’s grandfather.
There’s a small group of us riding our bikes from Washington D.C. to St. Louis, in tribute to Philip Reekie and his lovely ministry. We’re going to be sharing Adventist literature along the way.
“I put in months and years of hard labor with ‘Great Controversy,’ and I knew I was sowing seed that would one day bear fruit. Our rejoicing now will not compare with the joy we shall feel when we meet in the kingdom of God those for whom we labored.”
