The following summer, Sam found a line of work that suited him much better than the threshing gang. He became a book agent, selling books door-to-door. In the course of the job he walked many miles with a satchel of books on his back. Sometimes he would stop beside a stream and read from one of the books he was carrying. He told himself that this would help him to sell the books better. The truth was, he loved to read any book he could get his hands on.
In August 1886, between Sam’s junior and senior years, tragedy struck the Zwemer family. After being ill for several years, Sam’s mother, Catherina, died at age fifty-nine. On one of Sam’s last visits to see his mother, she told him something that had a deep impact on his life. “I’ll never forget it, Sam,” she said, patting him on the back of his hand. “As I placed you into the cradle for the first time, I prayed that God would make you a missionary, and I’ve never doubted since then that you would become one.”
The funeral for Catherina Zwemer was one of the largest held in Holland, Michigan. All of Sam’s family attended, including his brothers Fred, who was now a missionary in the Dakotas, and Adrian, now a businessman in Sioux City. As sad as he was at the death of his mother, Sam felt even sadder for Adrian, who had married two years before. His wife, Jenny, had died soon after giving birth to their son, John. Unable to look after John alone, Adrian had brought his son back to Graafschap for his parents to look after. Now Catherina Zwemer was gone, and John needed someone else to step in and look after him. Maud, who had been teaching school for ten years, offered to live with their father, keep house, help him run the estate, and care for John.
Sam’s father composed himself enough to speak at the funeral. “Mother traveled with me, as did Sarah with Abraham, as we journeyed from Europe to America, and then through the length and breadth of this land, from Albany in the East to Milwaukee in the West,” he began. “Mother will always remain in my thoughts, and my heart says like David, ‘She will not return to me, but I shall go to her.’ Four of our children await her in heaven, and doubtless she is with them again. What a joyous reunion it will be when we are all together.”
The sun shone brightly as the funeral procession made its way to Pilgrim’s Home Cemetery in Graafschap, where Catherina Zwemer was buried.
Adjusting to life without his mother was difficult for nineteen-year-old Sam, especially since his father accepted a call to a new church soon after her death and moved to Middleburg, Iowa. The Zwemer family was now spread throughout the Midwest. Sam’s six older sisters had government teaching jobs and gave part of their income to help Sam and Peter through college.
During his final year at Hope College, Sam attended a meeting in the college chapel. The billboard declared that Robert Wilder, a brilliant young student from Princeton University, was going to speak on “A Call to Missions.” Sam hoped it would be an interesting night. It turned out to be life changing.
Robert was about Sam’s age and spoke with a strong Eastern accent. He began his address by explaining to the audience how he came to be touring many of the colleges in the United States.
“This summer I was at Mount Hermon in Massachusetts, where D. L. Moody organized a one-month summer conference,” Robert declared. “While I was there I asked Mr. Moody if I might have an evening to speak on the matter of missions. He agreed, and I rounded up nine other students who could talk with authority on missionary work. I became the tenth person in the presentation, since my parents were missionaries in India and I spent the first fourteen years of my life there.
“The response was remarkable—and unexpected on Mr. Moody’s part. Exactly one hundred students signed pledge cards, giving themselves to the preaching of the gospel around the world. Some will go, others will stay and pray and raise money, but everyone will have a vital part in bringing the good news of the gospel to every person on earth in this generation. We are calling ourselves the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.”
As he listened, Sam felt goose bumps rising on the back of his neck. This was just what he was looking for—a group of young people with a passion for missions. He leaned in closely as Robert continued.
“Being a missionary comes at great personal cost; there is no doubt about that. God asks us to give up the things that are more precious to us in order to obtain the pearl of great price. In the Book of Matthew, chapter 13, verses 45 and 46, it says, ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.’
“God asks us to give up the good for the best. It is not easy. At this moment my father lies at home in his bed, dying, and a part of me wants very much to be with him. When I felt God called me to tour colleges, I resisted because I wanted to spend my father’s last days beside him. I put this to him, and he took his time before responding. ‘Son, let the dead bury the dead. Go thou and preach the kingdom.’ I do not expect to see my father again until I join him in heaven. But what a reunion it will be, knowing that I have followed in his footsteps.”
Sam felt tears welling up within him. It had been only seven months since his own mother had died, and he often thought about the way she urged him to live a godly life and give himself completely to God.
Robert Wilder continued. “John Wesley once said, ‘Give me a hundred men who fear nothing but God, hate nothing but sin, and are determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and I will set the world on fire with them.’ Who among you will join the Student Volunteer Movement and help us to set the world on fire for Jesus Christ? Come down to the front and show God you are serious about fulfilling the Great Commission. ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel, and lo, I am with you, even unto the end of the age.’”
At these words Sam’s heart beat so loudly he was sure those around him could hear it. He knew that God was calling him to be a missionary, and it was time to stand up and be counted. He joined several other Hope College students making their way to the front of the college chapel. As he glanced back, Sam saw that his brother Peter was among them.
Sam stood at the front, praying quietly as Robert finished speaking. Then he signed his name on the Student Volunteer Movement card, pledging to give his life to the advancement of the gospel in whatever way he could. It was a pledge he would keep for the rest of his life and a moment he would think back to when he had important decisions to make.
Chapter 4
Three Spokes
Sam returned to his studies with renewed vigor. He now knew for sure that he was called to be a missionary—he just didn’t know where. But this did not concern him too much. He knew he had a lot to do before he could go to the mission field. First he had to finish college and then complete three years of seminary training.
Sam did think seriously about what he should do for summer. Working in the grocery store or on a threshing gang or selling books door-to-door would not help equip him to be a missionary, but he soon found something that would. The American Bible Society (ABS) was expanding all over the world, translating, printing, and distributing Bibles. As Sam read thrilling accounts of the Bible being presented for the first time to people who spoke Mandarin, Japanese, Zulu, and Gilbertese, he wanted to be a part of the adventure. The most effective way to do so was to become a colporteur—a representative of the ABS who walked the highways and byways, meeting families in their homes, reading extracts from the Bible to them, and talking to them about their spiritual needs. Because he had only a few months before beginning seminary training, Sam chose to become a local colporteur.
Classes at Hope College ended six weeks before the official graduation ceremony, and in May 1887 Sam set out to equip himself for his summer job. His first task was to buy a horse and cart, which together cost ninety-six dollars. It was a lot of money, but Sam was sure it was a good investment in his future.
The job as a colporteur for the American Bible Society sounded easy enough—meet people who would not normally have access to a Bible, read it to them, and offer to sell it to them for a small sum of money or, if they were destitute, give it to them. The challenge, as Sam soon learned, was that many people said they were too busy to stop and listen as a Bible story was read to them. The colporteur’s manual suggested that in such cases the colporteur offer to work alongside and talk to the person about Christianity as they labored together. Sam found this method to be very effective, and he was grateful for all the time he’d spent with his father building things in the workshop. He could pick up a chisel or file to help a wheelwright or use his previous summer job experience working with a threshing gang for a few hours in order to talk to the men during one of their breaks. Sometimes he even sat with the women of the house and shelled beans or wound cotton—anything that would help start a spiritual conversation with people.
Despite its many challenges, Sam loved the work. Some days he would lead the horse and cart for twenty miles, walking along muddy cow tracks. He would often be invited to stay the night with a family, but sometimes he was run off a property and had to pitch a tent by the side of the road.
On June 22, 1887, Sam was back in Holland, Michigan, for his graduation ceremony from Hope College. It was a proud moment, though he had to hold back tears as he thought about how much his mother would have loved to see him graduate. Following graduation it was back to his work, trying to get a Bible into every home in the district.
After three busy months as a colporteur for the ABS, summer was over, and it was time for Sam to make a final decision about where to attend seminary. Sam was not sure where to go. His oldest brother James was now a professor at Western Theological Seminary, the seminary extension of Hope College. Going there seemed sensible, but his brother Fred urged Sam to attend McCormick Seminary in Chicago, which he had attended. Another option was New Brunswick Seminary in New Jersey, from which Sam’s father had graduated.
Sam was still not sure which seminary to attend when he headed to a Zwemer family reunion in Alton, Iowa, close to Middleburg, where his father now pastored a Reformed church. Sam and Peter caught a steamship across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee and then took a five-hundred-mile train ride to Middleburg. When they arrived, Sam was excited to see his father again and to meet the congregation he pastored.
The landscape around Middleburg was very different from Graafschap. Middleburg sat on flat prairie land and was surrounded by cows grazing contentedly, and there was no lake nearby. Still Sam enjoyed himself, especially when the rest of the Zwemer family showed up for the reunion. He enjoyed hearing the stories his brother Fred and his new wife told about their adventures as missionaries to the Dutch settlers and Indians in South Dakota.
During the reunion, attention was also focused on which seminary Sam should attend. After several long conversations with his father and brothers, it was decided that New Brunswick Seminary in New Jersey would be a good choice. The consensus was that attending this seminary would broaden Sam’s experience. Sam was thankful for his family’s input and happily accepted their decision.
Sam arrived in New Brunswick at three o’clock in the morning in September of 1887. The first thing that struck him about New Brunswick Seminary was the wonderful Gardner A. Sage Library. The library, having been completed less than fifteen years before, was modeled after a fourth-century cathedral. Sam loved the sweeping archways and alcoves of books, each with a beautiful stained-glass window at the end of it. Best of all were the books—all one hundred thousand of them. Most were written in English, Dutch, German, or Latin, and Sam was grateful he could read all four languages.
