"This, this has been the finest year of my life"

Introduction by ALDEN H. CLARK

   But all the time he was doing these things that seemed to require his first attention Dr. Laubach's thought went with increasing frequency to the Muhammadan Moros on the Island of Mindanao with whom he had had some contacts during the first period of his service. These were a wild and backward people, about 500,000 in number, who looked upon the Christian Filipinos as their traditional enemies. They seemed almost completely inaccessible to approach by a Christian missionary. To win them, as he well knew, would require unbounded patience and great Christian resourcefulness. Dr. Laubach believed in the power of God to accomplish even this task and felt that he had a call to undertake it. So in 1930, a short time before the first of these letters were written, Dr. Laubach went to Dansalan in the uplands of Mindanao to begin his remarkable service for the Moros.
   The letters reflect the beauty of this place with its homes and fields reaching down to a sparkling lake beyond which rise jagged mountain peaks. The letters also reflect with complete frankness the lonesomeness of those first days. For reasons of health and education Mrs. Laubach and their surviving son Robert were compelled, during these first months, to stay at Dumaguete, a mission station on another island, and he was alone. This was the time when he was learning the language and coming to understand something of the way of the life of the Moros and, therefore, he was isolated from any intimate fellowship with them. It was characteristic of the greatness of the man that this very lonesomeness led him to the deep mystic experience of God which is recorded in his letters.
   It was not long before the Moros began to realize the nobility of the spirit of this American who had come among them as their simple friend. As he started to help them in various practical ways their response grew in cordiality until at the end of an almost incredibly short time they had come to regard him as their best friend. And this indeed he was, for he discerned their greatest needs and with untiring industry and creative ability of a rare order set out to meet them. In 1930 he found these Moros almost entirely an illiterate people. It is probably fair to say that one-half of the 90,000 who live about the Lake can now read and write. He found them wedded to the past and ill prepared to play their part in the modern world. He has done nothing to destroy their pride in the best of their past. Indeed, he has done much to preserve the valuable elements in their culture, but he has also helped them to realize that they are a part of the great world and to adjust themselves to its life.
   This man who writes with such poetic beauty of his inner spiritual experiences has also been a man of intense practical activity. He has devised a remarkably effective method of adult education and promoted it with great ability; he has developed industries, fostered health service, stimulated the introduction of better seed and in a thousand and one ways proved himself a practical friend to these people. Yet no one who reads these letters can fail to see that through it all Dr. Laubach yearned to help them to a richer experience of God. He has not sought primarily to win them to baptism, although some have sought baptism as a result of his ministry, but he has desired to make a deep and transforming spiritual experience the basis of their life. Here, as elsewhere in the world, the great mystic has been the loving servant as well as the effective channel for the outflow among needy people of God's transforming power.
                                              ALDEN H. CLARK
Boston, Massachusetts,
January 5, 1937

PAGE TWO Laubach's letters    

The Letters of Frank Laubach

January 3, 1930
Windows open outward
   To be able to look backward and say, "This, this has been the finest year of my life" --that is glorious! But anticipation! To be able to look ahead and say, "The present year can and shall be better!"--that is more glorious!
   If we said such things about our achievements, we would be consummate egotists. But if we are speaking of God's kindness, and we speak truly, we are but grateful. And this is what I do witness. I have done nothing but open windows --God has done all the rest. There have been few if any conspicuous achievements. There has been a succession of marvelous experiences of the friendship of God. I feel, as I look back over the year, that it would have been impossible to have held much more without breaking with sheer joy. It was the lonesomest year, in some ways the hardest year, of my life, but the most gloriously full of voices from heaven.
   And it closed very beautifully. The young men and girls of Silliman were gathered for a watch night service. We were resolving new high resolves until nearly twelve o'clock.
. . . . . .
   As for me I resolved that I would succeed better this year with my experiment of filling every minute full of the thought of God than I succeeded last year.
. . . . . .
   And I added another resolve--to be as wide open toward people and their need, as I am toward God. Windows open outward as well as upward! Windows especially open downward where people need most!

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