My in-laws Bishop Richard Wilke and Julie Wilke were deeply impacted by E Stanley Jones ministry. Julia passed away in February 2016. As we are cleaning out their house we have come across a real to reel tape from August 16, 1966. It is E Stanley Jones sermon on Matthew. We would like to know If you have that sermon on file?

This is a story that was told by my father who was a Cuban pastor in difficult times after the so called Cuban Revolution in 1959. Being a layman in the Santa Clara Methodist Church they welcomed E Stanley Jones in Cuba, the American Missionary brought with him a United Nations translator but when Stanley Jones heard Rev. Ángel E. Fuster translation he wanted him as his translator for the rest of the mission trip to Cuba. Rev. Angel E Fuster was my father’s pastor in Santa Clara Methodist Church, at the same time he was also an outstanding DS at the Central District of the Cuban Methodist Church.

A few of my friends are in the process of starting an Ashram in Rampur India see:

www.SadhuSundarSinghFriends.com

In the process one of our coworkers called me was baptized at the Sat Pal Ashram by brother E Stanley Jones. This quite excited me. He is an 82 year old man by the name of Manoj Bhai. She also gave me his phone number. He lives in New Delhi.

I called him up. Mr. Manoj said that he was baptized by ESJ at the Sat Pal Ashram when he was only 2 or 3 years old.

I asked him what occasioned such a baptism.

He responded at the time his parents had lived in the Sat Pal Ashram for 2 or 3 years.c It was also the place which brother Stanley Jones was instrumental in raising and he lived on its premises. He told me that while his own recollection of brother Jones is minimal his parents probably were well acquainted with him. Please see our website www.SadhuSundarSinghFriends.com

If one of your team can call me at 4433226586 I will be most grateful. I live in Baltimore Maryland.

Thank you friends.

In JESUS,

Suresh Abreu

To GOD we give glory for his mercy upon the human race, utilising our beloved East. Stanley Jones.
I recently bought his 365 daily devotional meditation book, what an enlightening experience I have daily!!
I read “The Way” whenever I can & I make an effort to set aside my me time to connect & communicate with GOD through meditating on “The Way”.

Blessings Abound

A Hindu lecturer on educational subjects was addressing an audience of educationalists in South India when he paused and said: “I see that a good many of you here are Christians. Now, this is not a religious lecture, but I would like to pause long enough to say that, if you Christians would live like Jesus Christ, India would be at your feet tomorrow.” He said nothing less than the very truth.

From “The Christ of the Indian Road” by E. Stanley Jones

I sometimes feel like our society, can address contemporary issues in ways that do not include an invitation to freedom that the very alive, life of Jesus offers. While above statement from E. Stanley Jones can feel condemning at first – the offer, I think was sincere.

In my own interpretation I would think the lecturer might be saying, “Don’t add religious tones to your preconceived notions, as to add weight to them because they are religious. Give us Jesus. If Jesus were here, we would all be at his feet to at least request his services as a follower, if not savior. If the life in front of me was one of Jesus, not in selfish concern for power in the contemporary dimensions, but in service from a different Kingdom altogether, the whole country, in fact the whole world would bow.” The mission statement of our church is “to invite our community to welcome Jesus into all of life.”

While it’s true that our contemporary religious and societal and political systems need reform the best of our systematic approaches will never compare with the wholeness that Jesus offers from a completely different kingdom. At the end of the day, while some may look to the systems to feed their daily hunger for identity and even self-awareness, we all have a hunger for something deeper which has the capacity to draw the whole world. In such a competitive landscape I am often afraid to offer it as it seems foolish and upside-down. It’s not just bread and water but living bread and living water. It’s not just a visit to an imprisoned murderer but the power to transform the prisoners heart. It’s not just clothes for the naked, but an offer of vulnerability that allows the whole self to be naked again and yet safe. It’s not just a welcoming of an alien but a wholehearted invitation into a contemporary and yet eternal family.

The first book I read of E. Stanley Jones’ after being saved in 1965 was his autobiography A Song of Ascents, and then, a couple of years later, when I was dating my future husband, a native of Hyderabad, India, I found the most enlightening book, Along the Indian Road.

During that time, 1970-71, Dr. Jones came to speak at Calvary Temple, my church in Denver. After having read his book on India, I could not wait to hear what he had to say. My sister in-law who had just arrived from India as a medical intern was with me. So often I wish I had a cassette copy of that teaching so I could go back and hear specifically what he said that so encouraged me.

What I remember about that evening was Dr. Jones’ quiet presence. He was not in a hurry to give his message but seemed to relish the silence somehow, and so all of us became quiet and waited along with him. To this day, I have never been in such a gathering. It was like we were all in a holy place with which he was well-acquainted – his ashram. I came away somehow comforted and filled. Of all the great speakers I heard during the early 70s, E. Stanley Jones remains the most memorable.

Some of his books are on my shelf: A Song of Ascents, Conversion, The Divine Yes, The Christ of the Mount, and Victory Through Surrender. On my computer I have just downloaded a PDF version of Christ of the Indian Road provided by Boston University. His biography on the website about is inspiring. I am keeping it in my journal.

My husband and I spent two months earlier this year traveling to seven cities in South India to reunite with family and friends. I had not been there in 25 years although my husband regularly went back. Being in India again reminded me of what E. Stanley Jones wrote in Along the Indian Road that truly foreshadowed my own experience in many ways. His conviction resonates with me still.

“I came to India out of a very conservative training. There were no doubts because I had closed out all problems. I had a closed mind, closed upon the fact of the satisfying Christ within. If walls shut out other things, they also shut within one this precious Fact.

But as the first disconcerting years of a missionary went by and my contacts with educated non-Christians became more intimate, my walls began to be assailed. They even crumbled before the revelation of such truth as this in the Hindu Scriptures: ‘You are to be like the sandalwood tree, which when smitten by the ax pours its perfume upon the ax that smites it.’ Was that not loving one’s enemies and doing good to them that despitefully use one? But this came out of Hinduism. How could I relate my never-before-heard-of newness in Christ to this fact of evident truth and beauty found elsewhere?

I studied the sacred books of other faiths, afraid of finding goodness and truth there. To find it would destroy my inward position. I had my back to the wall for several years. Only my experience of Christ held me steady amid the swirl of mental conflict. Then one day I inwardly let go. I would follow where truth would lead me. I could feel myself turning pale as I did so. Where would it land me? I was letting go securities that had been satisfying for an uncharted sea. But after some time, when I looked back, I found that I came out not two inches away from where I went in. The great securities of my faith were intact. But now I held them because they held me. . . .”

My Hindu husband brought his mother to live with us in 1992 after her husband passed away. It was a joy having such an accepting mother-in-law. She died last year at the age of 96. E. Stanley Jones’ words have made a huge impact on my witness to my Hindu family and friends. I wish I could thank him personally for encouraging me to persevere and love, no matter what.