Our first missionary likened his life to a burning candle that would last only so long. Dr. Raphael C. Thomas felt it was of utmost importance that his life burn brightly and dispel the greatest amount of spiritual darkness. Returning one time from his field of service, he visited friends with whom he had attended medical school. He listened to them talk of boredom in their medical practices as they wondered if the results had been worth the struggle to gain an education and endure the long hours of work. After his visit Dr. Thomas weighed the lives of his classmates against the adversities, advances and fulfillment he experienced as a missionary doctor. In his journal Dr. Thomas wrote, "The game was worth the candle."

THE FIRST CANDLE 1927-1945

Dr. Raphael Thomas graduated cum laude with an MD from Harvard Medical School. A graduate of Andover-Newton Theological Seminary and an ordained Baptist minister, he went to the Philippines as a single man in 1904 under the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. In 1916 he married Norma Peabody and returned to the Philippines. He became the supervisor of the Union Mission Hospital which had been built in Iloilo, Philippines. Raphael Thomas was not only a missionary surgeon, he also had great compassion for people and was concerned about their eternal destinies. Many times he preached in villages bringing him into conflict with the hospital administration.

Raphael Thomas was told to stop his evangelistic work and spend 100% of his time in the hospital, but he could not do that. His passion for the lost meant that he had to witness for Christ. In addition to his other outreaches Dr. Thomas held meetings among college and university students. After continued disagreement with hospital administrators, he decided that if he was not allowed to evangelize he would have to leave the Philippines.

The Thomas family returned to the United States. At that time God brought Marguerite Doane into their lives. She was the daughter of well-known hymn writer William Howard Doane. Marguerite met the Thomases at Doane Cottage in Watch Hill, RI in August 1927. She listened while Dr. Thomas shared his burden to reach the lost. There on the porch the group negotiated how to be Christ-honoring in this situation. The consensus was to form a new mission agency. Mrs. Lucy Peabody, mother of Dr. Thomas' wife Norma, became the first president and Marguerite Doane personally supported the first missionaries and took care of all of the operating expenses.

They named the new mission organization ABEO, Association of Baptists for Evangelism in the Orient. In 1928 the Thomas family returned to the Philippines as ABEO missionaries. They landed in Manila where Dr. Thomas rented property and started the First Baptist Church and the Manila Evangelistic Institute. Bessie Traber, Alice Drake, Ellen Martien and Helen Hinkley who had already been at work in the Philippines joined ABEO and established the Doane Evangelistic Institute in Iloilo. Stella Mower transferred to ABEO after 6 1/2 years of missionary service in Argentina, joining Ruth Woodworth, Esther Yerger and Alexander Sutherland in Iloilo.

Dr. Paul Culley was added to the faculty in Manila and set up medical-evangelistic clinics around the city. Bernice Hahn, Bethel France and Evelyn Congleton provided a home called the Doane Dormitory for young women who had come to work or study in Manila. They were successful in leading many girls to Christ and in guiding others to dedicate their lives for Christian service.

The Presbyterian Philippine Mission turned the island of Palawan over to the fledgling Association of Baptists. The most practical way to evangelize a group of islands was with a ship. The very day after the Board voted to open this territory, God provided Captain Ellis Skolfield, an ex-Navy officer, who went from island to island in The Gospel Ship preaching, distributing literature-and pulling teeth!

Ed and Marian Bomm arrived in the Philippines in 1935. In addition to pastoring the First Baptist Church of Manila, he soon became the administrator and treasurer for the missionaries.

Bernard Bancroft sailed into Manila at the age of 19, ABWE's youngest ever missionary. He spent his first months of service aboard The Gospel Ship, then taught Bible to young students. Following his marriage to Eleanore Bailey the couple preached the gospel to what he called "these scattered bits of land," the more than 100 islands of the Sulu Sea in Palawan.

Mona Kemery had a ministry among the girls in the dorm at the Doane Institute while Robert "Chips", Smallwood business manager in Manila, worked with college men.

While missionaries of the new ABEO worked in the Philippines, back in the USA the mission board was looking for a new president. In April 1935, the Board asked Rev. Harold T. Commons, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Johnson City, N Y, to be the new leader.

God stretched the vision of ABEO beyond the Philippines. Pioneer missionaries Bill and Elva Scherer had worked independently on the upper Amazon River since 1924. They had bought land on the river bank, cleared it, and preached to the 60,000 unevangelized Indians and Peruvians of the region. In May 1939 the ABEO Board accepted the Scherers as missionaries. That necessitated changing the name of the mission, replacing "Orient" with "World" to form ABWE: the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism.

During this time of change World War II broke out. When Manila fell to the Japanese, 24 ABWE missionaries were trapped and became prisoners of war. Since Ed Bomm was the mission's treasurer in the Philippines, the Japanese considered him the leader of all ABWE missionaries. He was imprisoned the longest because he refused to sign a document of cooperation with the Japanese which would have meant political servitude. Mrs. Bomm was arrested on suspicion of involvement in subversive activity and was subjected to inhumane abuse in Fort Santiago dungeon.

The Robert Kohler family and Louise Lineup worked in Mindanao when the war started. They evaded capture by living in the mountains and jungles for two years until they were discovered by U. S. commandos who made arrangements to evacuate them. In the middle of the night, they traveled by canoe to a submarine off shore then sailed to the USA via Australia.

The Philippines were liberated in February and victory declared in September 1945. The ABWE vision to knock holes in the darkness continued.

THE SECOND CANDLE 1946-1971

ABWE missionaries Paul and Kay Friederichsen suffered in Japanese prisons. After the war they graphically depicted a horn of plenty representing that now it was North America's responsibility to seize this moment in history and send laborers into the whitened harvest fields of the world.

Following a tour with the Navy in the Philippines, surgeon Linc Nelson and his wife Lenore, a nurse, steamed into Manila Bay on March 28, 1949. They dedicated their medical skills to missionary service and were used by God to start medical/surgical evangelism through hospitals established by ABWE. They spent most of their years at the Bethel Baptist Clinic in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. Over the years around 200 churches have been started as a direct result of the clinic which today is staffed by Filipino doctors and nurses