In the Gobi Desert

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 381, 11 October 1946, Page 11

In the Gobi Desert

PART from some inspired singing by the pupils of the Dunedin Technical College, 4YA’s broadcast celebrations of the Centenary of the British and Foreign Bible Society in New Zealand began in rather a prosaic manner. However, the appearance of Mildred Cable and Francesca French at once lifted the meeting on to another plane. These two clear and precise speakers have the enviable gift of being able to make the listener see as well as hear. On one of the wildest

x nights of the year, with a local accompaniment of gales and floods, it was no small accomplishment to make us feel that we were really in the middle of the Gobi Desert, at a fair, selling copies of the New Testament to Mongolian camel drivers and Tibetan lamas. It was even more incredible to realise that these two women have been doing this sort of thing in many queer places for many years. The final picture which remained in my mind was that of the lama, with his Book bound in bright colours (looseleaved so that he could take it to pieces if he wanted), and possibly with a handsome ribbon to decorate it-opening it at a certain page and intoning to his fellow priests the translation "In -the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But perhaps it wasn't so strange after all; the Tibetan priest, with his grounding in mysticism, might make more of that particular Gospel than many a Christian church-worker handing tea at a monthly social.