Who Said That...

James Ostram Fraser, of the China Inland Mission, was one of those choice servants of God who was content to labor in almost total obscurity. Born in Scotland, this gifted man was a preacher, linguist, musical genius and engineer. He came to the Yunnan Province of China in 1910 with a heart longing for the souls of the forgotten Lisu tribal people. As Fraser gave himself to the work of reaching the Lisu, he became somewhat forgotten. For almost forty years, he lived alone, hidden behind the great mountain ranges of China's far west. Few people really knew James Fraser. There was an air of mystery about this talented man who had chosen a primitive pioneers life over the applause of a English concert hall. Some said that it was absolutely wrong for Fraser to waste and bury his gifts on the mission field. Yet, Mr. Fraser was greatly used of God through prayer and loving labor to turn multitudes of Lisu from their slavery of demon-worship to Jesus Christ. After mastering the difficult Lisu language, he developed his own "Fraser Script" and translated the New Testament into the tribal dialect. Fraser also designed a written musical notation for transcribing the Lisu's oral history songs.

By 1916 there was a real move of the Spirit among the Lisu, resulting in sixty thousand baptisms within only two years. The Lisu church continued to grow and eventually became one of the largest tribal Christian bodies in the world.

In 1992, the Chinese government officially recognized the Fraser alphabet as the official script of the Lisu language. Today, Fraser is remembered as one of Christianity's most successful missionaries to east Asia.