Minnie Abrams (1859—1912)

Country of Origin

United States

Countries/Regions of Ministry

United States
India

Traditions

Pentecostal

Ministries

Missionary

Minnie F. Abrams, in many ways, was a typical woman in the American Midwest in the late nineteenth century. However, everything changed when she heeded God's call to the mission field.

Born in Lawrenceville, Wisconsin on August 2, 1859, Minnie was born to Franklin and Julia Abrams. She was reared on a farm in Mapleton, Minnesota and became a schoolteacher in her early twenties. After a few years in the classroom, however, she sensed that God was leading her in a new direction. She attended a Methodist missionary training school in Chicago and, in 1887, set sail for Bombay, India.

In Bombay, Abrams helped to establish a boarding school for the children of church members. Not content to stay within the walls of missionary compound, she learned the Marathi language so that she could engage in personal evangelism. Ultimately, she became a full-time evangelist and began working with Pandita Ramabai, a leading Christian female social reformer and educator. Abrams worked with Ramabai at her Mukti Mission, a school and home for famine victims and widows.

After hearing news of revival in Australia (1903) and Wales (1904-1905), Abrams, Ramabai, and others began seeking a restoration of the spiritual power they read about in the New Testament. They formed a prayer group, and about seventy girls volunteered to meet daily, study the Bible, and pray for revival. Beginning in 1905, several waves of revival hit Mukti Mission. Their prayer group grew to five hundred, and many of the girls reported spiritual experiences that seemed to repeat what they found in the Book of Acts: some prophesied, others received visions, and others spoke in tongues. Abrams wrote about the revival, which became the foundation for the Pentecostal movement in India, in the July 1909 issue of the Latter Rain Evangel. Her account was later republished in the May 19, 1945 issue of The Pentecostal Evangel.

According to Abrams, revival came to India because of deep prayer, consecration, and repentance. During the daily prayer meetings, the girls memorized scripture, became deeply aware of their own sinfulness, and hungered for righteousness and an outpouring of God's Spirit. Abrams recalled, "I cannot tell you how I felt in those days of repentance at Mukti when the Holy Spirit was revealing sin, and God was causing the people to cry out and weep before Him."

Abrams recounted that the revival at Mukti Mission included not just remorse over sin, but also incredible joy that followed repentance. She wrote that "ripples of laughter flowed" in prayer meetings, that some of the girls began dancing in the back of the room, and that they were filled with a "deeper joy." The girls who had been touched by revival did not stay put; they fanned out into surrounding villages and brought the gospel to anyone who would listen.

According to Abrams, the early Indian revival provided valuable lessons for Christians everywhere. She also gave a warning to readers that is just as applicable today as it was in 1909: "the people of God are growing cold and there is a worldliness and an unwillingness to hear the truth and to obey it." She continued, "If you want revival you have to pour your life out. That is the only way. That is the way Jesus did. He emptied Himself; He poured out His life; and He Poured out His life's blood."

Abrams wrote convincingly, as one convicted by experience. In 1912, she died of a "jungle fever," most likely malaria, while working in Northern India. Two years earlier, she had founded the Bazaleel Evangelistic Mission, the first known Pentecostal women's missionary society, to prepare Mukti and American women's teams to reach the unevangelized. She and countless Pentecostal pioneers followed Christ’s example and poured their lives into serving others and building God’s kingdom.

Darrin J. Rodgers
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center

This article has been adapted from the original at: Assemblies of God (USA)- This Week in AG History

For Further Reading:

Abrams, Minnie. "How Pentecost Came to India," The Pentecostal Evangel (May 19, 1945): 1, 5-7. Consortium of Pentecostal Archives.org
McGee, Gary B. “'Baptism of the Holy Ghost & Fire!' The Mission Legacy of Minnie F. Abrams." Missiology: An International Review 24, no. 4. DOI:10.1177/009182969902700410.
Goff, James R., and Grant Wacker, eds. Portraits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders. University of Arkansas Press, 2002.