Minnie Larsen arrived in Denmark with little Danish and even less of a welcome.
When she brought a children’s Gospel tract to her language teacher to practise translation, the teacher’s response was blunt: “If this is what you’re going to talk about in Denmark, you might as well go home. All the children in Denmark are good. They belong to God!” An evangelical pastor said much the same: “Your message is not needed in Denmark. You might just as well pack your bags and go home!”
But this was the very reason God had sent her.
Three months after arriving, Minnie got a breakthrough.
The World Baptist Congress was being held in Copenhagen, and she applied for and was given space to display her materials. As she set up, a seven-year-old boy wandered over, drawn by the flannelgraph pictures. Minnie took out her Wordless Book. “Would you like to hear a story?” The boy’s answer was quick: “If it’s about the Bible, I don’t want to hear it!”
She didn’t give up. She showed him the little book of colours and began to tell the story of salvation. Interest grew with each page. When she reached the good news about righteousness in Christ — that Jesus would stay forever with those who asked Him to come into their hearts — the boy broke down and wept. He trusted Christ as Saviour. He became Minnie’s first convert in Denmark. And then the boy who didn’t want to hear a Bible story turned missionary — one by one, he brought other children to hear it. All of them trusted Christ.
Bible clubs began to open.
Minnie trained teachers in flannelgraph and how to lead children to Christ. One woman gathered up to 40 children in her club. In one rough area of Copenhagen, Minnie opened a club “in a neighbourhood so rough I prayed all the way coming and going.” A ten-year-old girl named Annie was disruptive from the start — “That’s not true! I don’t believe it!” — until Minnie had to ask her to leave. Two weeks later, Annie slipped back in and sat quietly at the back. When the other children left, she approached her teacher: “I have asked the Lord Jesus to be my Saviour.” Annie’s changed life showed in her neighbourhood. Eventually 12 children around her came to Christ.
“Just pray!”
Then there was Eric, a boy who had trusted Christ in a Bible club. When a serious cycling accident caused his liver to burst and left him fighting for his life in hospital, his response to his family and the medical staff was simply: “Just pray!” His grandfather — a Christian who had been sceptical about child conversions — sat by his grandson’s bedside and came face to face with the reality of a child’s living faith.
God was also answering Minnie’s constant prayer for more workers. He had His eye on a young man named Henry Eskelund — an agriculture consultant, doing his time in the military, a Sunday school teacher who admitted, “I had no concern for the salvation of children.” Then Henry met Minnie, sat under her Bible teaching, gave his whole life to God, and eventually married her. In 1954, Henry became co-director of CEF Denmark.
“The greatest joy,” Henry would later say, “has been knowing that we have been doing what the Lord wanted us to do, and actually leading children to Christ. There is just nothing that can compare with this.”
*This story is taken from the book Harvest Comes in Spring by Ruth E. Turnwall, a former CEF worker.
(Image:Adobe Express)
