Orvil Reid

Tears flowed freely, but so did songs of praise. Just two years into his missionary term, Orvil stood at his wife’s funeral with his son.

Tears flowed freely, but so did songs of praise. Just two years into his missionary term, Orvil stood at his wife’s funeral with his son.

Unlike the majority of funerals in Mexico, no one pled with the saints for Jewell Reid’s soul. No one lit a candle before a dimly illuminated statue. Instead, at this funeral, there was hope. There was celebration.

Orvil Reid told the crowd at his wife’s funeral the reason for this celebration — Christ’s triumph over death and the grave.

Of the predominantly and fiercely Catholic Mexican people, Orvil wrote: “Almost all of them claim to be Christians. … If I could take you with me for just one week’s trip into the interior you would return with your hearts bleeding to send the Light to these poor souls.” Orvil described a Catholic church full of earnest men and women begging a cross, rather than the Savior, to answer their cries.

Just one year after the death of his wife, Orvil became the head of the Foreign Mission Board’s Mexican outreach. In Guadalajara, he opened a boarding house to invest in the lives of students, primarily those from Christian families or those desiring to do ministry. He was involved in writing and producing tracts and other literature, running Vacation Bible Schools attended by over a thousand students, and planting churches. He visited local schools, using the platform of sports to speak about alcoholism and to meet people. Orvil drew crowds with his feats of strength, such as clasping his hands together and challenging 32 men to pull them apart.

Though the work in Mexico was met with fierce opposition from Catholics, Orvil wrote, “In each place where believers have suffered persecution, the work is growing more rapidly than in places where they have not had to suffer so much.”

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