12/7/09

HIS EYE IS ONE THE SPARROW


DEC. 2008 / HEADLINES FROM HISTORY

“HIS EYE IS ONE THE SPARROW”

K.E.M. SPOONER was born Jan.8, 1884 in Barbados to an Anglican family. He died in the Rustenburg Hospital in Africa 28 February 1937.

He was in NYC in 1906 when God impressed on him the message, ”I want you to go to Africa.” This had not been in his plans but a woman he had meet sought him out and said she felt God was calling him to Africa. He promised to pray about it but still not convinced he attended services at the Gospel Tabernacle and an elderly woman came to him and told “Young man God wants you to go to Africa.” “It shocked me so, I could not reply. I went home praying and presenting my inabilities to God….I asked…He should let me know through some one else.”

The next day an elderly man and repeated the words of the women, “Young man , God wants you to go to Africa.” Within days, someone had moved on his behalf to arrange schooling to train him for service. Although, eager to go to Africa now, the time was not right and he admitted that he needed the lessons. “Had I gone to Africa without this most valuable training, I would have been an absolute failure.”

A series of miracles helped the Spooners to clear their debts and pay for the trip to Africa. His wife Geraldine Malista had said echoing the Bible: “Where you go I go.” The day they sailed a woman laid a bundle of bills. ‘All things are possible to him that believeth!” he said in praise as they boarded. “And do it was that,” he recounted, “on December 11, 1914, we left New York for England on our way to Africa.” He arrived in Africa in January of 1915

In1922 he, along with Mr. Rhodes, and native workers organized the South Africa Conference of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. He was elected Assist, Superintendant and served from that time until his death.

In his obituary in the “Rustenburg Herald” he was called a “mediator between two races….a good citizen who was held in esteem by Europeans…and loved and respected by all natives who knew him.” His favorite hymn was “His Eye Is On The Sparrow.” His life as a pioneer Pentecostal of African descent, as pioneer Pentecostal Holiness Missionary, and as a man with a heart for God gave witness that, indeed, God’s eye was on the sparrow because, “he watches over me.”

SOURCES:

Spooner, Kenneth E.M. A Sketch of Native Life in South Africa.
Spooner, Geraldine M. (Mrs. Kenneth),A.E. Robinson, and P.F. Beacham. Sketches of the Life of K.E.M. Spooner, Missionary, South Africa.