Charles Cowman

At age 15, he was offered and accepted a summer job as a telegraph operator at a local railway station.

At 18, he was transferred to a station in Chicago, and by the time he was 19, he earned a salary comparable to employees who had been working there for many years.

Upon Nakada’s return to Japan, the Telegraphers’ Mission Band began financially supporting him as a missionary, thus continuing the connection they had made with him while he was in the states.

After feeling a deep call on their hearts, Charles and Lettie left America on February 1, 1901, to serve as missionaries in Japan.

“The aim of the institute would not be to produce classical scholars, but young men and women who could handle their mother tongue with effect, who were steeped in the Bible and who could so proclaim it as to arrest and influence all classes of people” (page 52).

[1] Within a few months of being in Japan, that dream became a reality when they were able to open a mission hall where Nakada could preach the Gospel message and train leaders.

Similar to Japan’s school, the Seoul Bible Training Institute fostered much growth and transformation of the surrounding region.

Burdened by the number of people who remained unreached in Japan, Cowman began The Great Village Campaign in 1913.

Teams of missionaries visited every town, village and home throughout Japan, proclaiming the Gospel and distributing Bibles.

The Village Campaign continued to progress while they were in the States, but soon enough, they returned to Japan to complete the work they had begun.

In the spring, they went to the large island of Kyushu (home to 9,million residents) to establish temporary headquarters.

“Although broken in body, he kept an oversight of the home office and every department of work on the field, dictating letters by the hundreds” (page 142).

In March 1924, Cowman faithfully signed the bank books of OMS over to two trustees: Ernest Kilbourne and W.J.

[1] Two days after his funeral, a letter came to him stating that a fellow worker was giving $25,000 to open a Bible Training Institute in China.