God’s Mysterious Providence

The missionaries Cyrus and Ethel Dawsey were charged in 1915 with implanting Methodism in the sugarcane, coffee, cattle region of the westward interior of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. With a toddler, a newborn, and three more children yet to come, the couple settled in Birigui, today a town of 120,000 people but in those days, a village at the end of the railroad line. They soon established a church and laid the foundation for a school, and when the Spanish Influenza reached that area, 1919, they turned their home into the first hospital of the region. Given the scarcity of Methodists and other Protestants in Brazil at that time, Reverend Dawsey’s charge included not just the surrounding region, but all the territory west to the border with Paraguay. In those early days of ministry, most of his travels were by horseback.

What follows is the curious story about how Methodism reached Penápolis, a town of 65,000 inhabitants twenty-five miles to the east of Birigui. The event took place in early 1918, the last year of World War I.

Accompanied by a recent Methodist convert, an Italian immigrant named José Faustini, Reverend Dawsey traveled to Penápolis, rented a small store front, cleaned it, borrowed chairs and benches to accommodate people for preaching, and spent the afternoon knocking on doors inviting people to come to meeting that night. Around four that afternoon the two decided to take a break before continuing their preparations.

As they left the small hall to get a guaraná soft drink, a police sergeant stopped them. Suspicious because of their looks and foreign accents, the sergeant thought they might be German spies. So, he arrested and jailed them. Dawsey and Faustini’s explanations of what they were doing in Penápolis just made matters worse. The sergeant had no idea what “Methodist” meant, and the preaching meeting planned for that night sounded subversive.

Two hours of investigating weren’t enough to convince the sergeant that the missionary and his companion were harmless, so he informed them that he would need to hold them in jail at least through the next day so that he could conduct a more thorough examination. Meanwhile Dawsey worried about that night’s meeting. What would the many people he and Faustini had invited think when they arrived at the store front and found it closed? They might conclude that Dawsey and Faustini were charlatans who didn’t keep their promises. Worse, they might become disappointed in Methodism and even Christianity itself. Instead of spreading the gospel, Dawsey and Faustini would have suppressed it.

It was then, about six in the afternoon, that Reverend Dawsey asked the sergeant if he could contact Dr. Robert Clark, a wealthy Scot businessman who lived in Birigui. Clark was a Methodist and friend. There was little chance the request would work. This was before the telephone reached the area so they would need rely on the telegraph office with the hope that a runner could be sent to Clark’s fazenda on the outskirts of the village with the message; further Dawsey and Faustini needed to hope that Clark who often travelled would be at home and could himself  make it to the telegraph office with a reply; and finally they needed the sergeant to proceed with the request.

But the sergeant surprisingly did follow through sending the telegram. And fortunately, Dr. Clark happened to be in Birigui when the message arrived and responded immediately. And more amazingly, the sergeant accepted Clark’s testimony without hesitation. The matter was cleared up. The sergeant released Reverend Dawsey and Faustini from jail, even asking them to forgive him for his mistake and explaining that he had only been trying to do his duty for Brazil during that time of war.

Reverend Dawsey and Faustine arrived at the rented store front hall just in time to open the doors for the people who were arriving for the seven o’clock preaching service. Everything went better than expected that night. And that is how the Methodist Church got started in Penápolis.

Now, here is a question for us to consider: Was it just good luck that the sergeant decided to send the telegram? Or that the telegraph office in Birigui sent a runner immediately to find Dr. Clark? Or that Dr. Clark was available and answered right away? Or that the sergeant accepted Dr. Clark’s reference? Or are we talking about a greater mystery, the providential hand of God at work among those who are faithful to him?

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).