Margaret Morgan (1934 -74)
Welsh mission martyr for Christ
It was a Tuesday night – the 24th of April, 1974 – the prayer meeting night at Tabernacle, Porth in the Rhondda Valley. Rev. Bert Taylor passed on the alarming news he had received from the Morgan family that Margaret had been captured by bandits in Southern Thailand and, with her fellow missionary Minka, taken deep into the jungle. There they would be held captive for months. In March 1975 it would be confirmed that they had both been shot in the head.
Tabernacle was Margaret’s home church who had sent and supported her for mission work in Southern Thailand. They lovingly prayed as her regular prayer letters arrived as well as letters she wrote to the pastor and others in the congregation. Margaret’s home furloughs were times of rich and deep fellowship as God’s kingdom work in Southern Thailand was shared and interceded for.
The cost of Christian commitment
As a young person, Margaret had become interested in mission adventures and during her nursing/midwifery training, she had struck up a friendship with an older Christian preparing to go to Thailand. Further missionary training at the Mount Hermon Missionary Training College in Ealing confirmed her calling and sense of God-given destiny for her life. OMF (Overseas Missionary Fellowship), formerly the China Inland Mission, had pioneered medical missionary work in Thailand with a particular focus on leprosy work through hospitals and clinics in Manorom, Pattan and Saiburi. Alongside the main Thai peoples there were also Malay muslims in the South. It was this work and focus with its challenges and trials that shaped the life and godly character of Margaret Morgan. Her Christ-like servant heart and ministry led her into the depths of the ‘fellowship of his suffering’ (Phil. 3:10).
These remarkable words were found in one of Margaret’s notebooks: ‘Make no distinction between what God appointed and what God permitted. His appointment and his permission are equally his will.’ On the 50th anniversary of her capture which later led to her martyrdom it is worth pausing and reflecting on the cost of our Christian commitment.
Sovereign providence
There is also a greater lesson as we ponder the question, ‘Why such cost and suffering for many?’ In his masterful, expansive book on providence, John Piper asks the question, ‘In whose hands would you have your martyrdom?’ If you were to be a martyr for Christ, who would you want to be in charge in those last days? The Apostle John left us in no doubt who would be in charge, because he said that God had already planned who, and how many would perish as martyrs before the end comes:
I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been (Rev. 6:9-11).
Piper boldly describes the providential ‘sovereign bullet’ which in no way undermines the horror or pain of the sufferer or the human culpability of the evil perpetuators. He is quoting a young husband whose wife died by a bullet shot and goes on to record his words at the funeral. ‘Those people who did that, simply were used by God. Whether you want to believe it or not, I believe it. They were used by him, by God, to accomplish his purpose in this. Maybe similar to the Roman soldiers whom God used to put Christ on the cross.’
We may never know the ways the martyrdom of Margaret and Minka have been used of the Lord but to deny his sovereign providence would rob us of a truth and reality, although mysterious, that is as profound as it is comforting. The work of mission goes on today in Southern Thailand and many were inspired by the work and martyrdom of Margaret and Minka.
The thrilling and captivating story of their lives and missionary work along with the details and circumstances of their capture is told in the book, Minka and Margaret – The heroic story of two nurses captured in the jungle by Phyllis Thompson and published by the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.
