About
Yesterday
The German Fellowship Deaconry Movement (Deutscher Gemeinschafts-Diakonieverband) began in Vandsburg, West Prussia (now Poland) with four Sisters in 1899. Sisters or Deaconesses are women who are born again, have the call to this celibate life, and serve Jesus in various missional capacities within this organization without remuneration. It took only 10 short years until the burning desire and call to foreign shores led Sister Elisabeth Gramenz from Germany to China in 1909 under the umbrella of China Inland Mission, founded by J. Hudson Taylor. Soon she was followed by three more Sisters and later by Brothers of the German Fellowship Deaconry, with their wives and families. The opportunities to preach the Gospel grew. The call to help the blind, the sick and the socially ostracized could not be left unheeded. More Sisters and Brothers followed. The ministries of the German Fellowship Deaconry in China flourished. People came to Christ.
After the first Sisters from Germany reached New Jersey in the fall of 1929 to begin their ministry among German immigrants, it took even less time for the call to far distant shores to reach their hearts. In 1935, just six years into their new endeavors in the USA, one pastor organized a mission trip to China to see how our German Sisters and Brothers there were faring. Not only were the missionaries strengthened through the visit, their faithful preaching of the Gospel to the Chinese was publicized among the Christians here at home. Interest in the Lord's mission in China grew. Soon people declared themselves willing to donate monthly for the support of blind children for whom our Sisters cared in Yunnan, China. As awareness increased, donors did also. God used one of the early Sisters, Sister Lina Reuter, as His instrument to collect and forward these funds for the support of the children and missionaries. On May 13, 1935, under the name The US Branch of the International Yunnan Mission, the present LIBERTY CORNER MISSION USA was born.
During and after WWII, it was increasingly difficult to raise and transfer funds from Germany to China. LIBERTY CORNER MISSION took this as God's directive and began to fund the mission enterprise of our German Fellowship Deaconry Brothers and Sisters to a greater degree, to keep our missionaries on the field. This continued until 1951, when the Communist takeover in China reached the southwest province of Yunnan and all the missionaries were forced to flee. Some went to Japan, others to Taiwan, and still others to Thailand.
From the year 1951 until 2014, LIBERTY CORNER MISSION has worked in partnership with Marburger Mission of Marburg, Germany in Japan and Taiwan. Only God knows how many souls were saved and nurtured in China, Taiwan and Japan through these years, and He alone will receive the glory!
Today
TRANSFORMATION!
That’s the only way to describe it. We are LIBERTY CORNER MISSION, blessed by the Lord with a new face, a new goal, and a deeply renewed passion for people to come to Jesus. We are thankful today to the Lord of the Harvest, who is still calling and sending workers out into His harvest field. And we are thankful to you who support our missionaries through prayer and finances, for only you make the sending possible.
Our new face is LIBERTY CORNER MISSION USA, as the Lord has graciously led us to recently incorporate under this name in New Jersey; and LIBERTY CORNER MISSION CANADA our “partner mission” to the North, which has also formed its own corporation.
Our new goal results from the need: with limited time (Jesus’ imminent return), limited resources (decreased donations overall), and limited personnel (the decline of western missionaries), we believe God would have us revamp our thinking. We are hoping that with the addition of indigenous fulltime workers to our missionary force, we can reach more people, more quickly and with fewer cultural difficulties. These national workers are trained and ready to go…they just need our support. To communicate God’s love more effectively and salvation through the blood of Christ with a higher yield of fruit that remains, this is our goal. We therefore are inviting national church planters to work with us, so together we may harvest His ripened field.
Passion embodied in prayer for the lost, in a love willing to sacrifice, in a desire for God’s glory at any cost, and in selflessly accomplishing His purposes…this zeal is ours. We invite you to make this zeal your own also.