Lettie Cowman oversaw an OMS missionary’s death and glory three times.
She sat with her husband, Charles Cowman, for seven years, trying her hardest to encourage her husband. before his death in 1925.
From those years spent searching books, hunting for encouraging words, and the birth of Streams in the Desert.
Three years later, she spent Ernest Kilbroune’s last weeks, sitting at his bedside, and sought to encourage him.
In 1939, she visited Japan and spent a wonderful evening reminiscing with her old friend Juji Nakada ten days before his death.
All three visits affected her deeply.
Charles Cowman’s death and glory affected Lettie the most.
Worn out from their missionary work in Japan, Charles and Lettie Cowman returned to Los Angeles for his health in 1918.
The two, like so many others, had poured themselves into their evangelism efforts. They “specialized” in deputation tours for the Oriental Missionary Society.
When in Japan, they worked tirelessly.
But in 1917, they were 49 and 47, with weak hearts. Charles had near-debilitating angina. The doctor sent him home to the United States to rest or die.
It took him seven years of pain, agony, and spiritual sorrow.
Lettie sat beside him night after night, trying to help. She sang, prayed with him, and read aloud.
Scouring used bookstores all over Los Angeles, she purchased any material that might encourage her suffering adored spouse.
Lettie marked the encouraging passages. She clipped the newspaper, magazine, or church bulletin articles that would help.
Since she was fighting grief, confusion, and discouragement, Lettie gravitated toward encouraging lines that uplifted both of them.
Streams of the Desert’s value is that it speaks to such sorrow.
Lettie on Ernest Kilbourne’s death
She described her time spent by his deathbed in The Revivalist Magazine.
He called Lettie from the Midwest to the OMS headquarters in Los Angeles in April 1928
We spent two beautiful days in conference, talking over the past twenty-six years, which had been filled with such wonderful blessings.
And but one thought came to our minds: “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”
. . . His desk was piled up with unfinished manuscripts, every one of them fairly throbbing with missionary passion–a passion which burned restlessly until quenched by death. His heart was buried in the Orient, and was chained in bondage of love never to cease. The cry of the unevangelized lands ever rang in his ears. His earnestness at blood-heat.
“The Coronation of a Noted Missionary”; The Revivalist, May 10, 1928.
On April 2, Kilbourne complained of a severe headache and died on April 13.
As Lettie recounted:
“The pain had entirely ceased and again his mind was on the beloved work in the Orient and he began giving us direction and counsel. The missionary vision went with him right to the gateway of death.
“Quietly came the last breath; there came into the face on him a look wholly seraphic, tender, expectant, blissful, as if to say, ‘It has come true.’
In faith he went down to the river, in this faith he passed over to the other side. He had paid the price of his pioneering. It had called for blood and issue, and he had built it out of his life.”
“The Coronation of a Noted Missionary”; The Revivalist, May 10, 1928.
On April 2, Kilbourne complained of a severe headache and died on April 13.
The final visit with Juji Nakada before his “death and glory.”
Lettie Cowman traveled to Japan to see Juji Nakada twice in the last ten years of his life. Despite their love and friendship, they could never resolve their differences.
She made one last effort in 1939.
They spent a lovely evening together on the OMS compound, remembering old times and all the good God did through them and OMS. As she got up to leave, Juji asked her to return and spend time in her old home.
Lettie agreed. She was headed to Korea for an OMS board of trustees meeting.
Two weeks later, only a few days after the death of Juji’s second wife, Lettie received a wire.
On the fifteenth anniversary of Charles Cowman’s death, the sixty-nine-year-old Juji Nakada died.
A sobered Lettie wrote about her longtime colleague’s death and glory:
How strange it is that these two, the founder and co-founder, of The Oriental Missionary Society should have gone to the glory land on the exact date.
It seemed to me as if dear Brother Nakada went to spend the anniversary of Mr. Cowman’s translation with him and the heavenly city was so beautiful and attractive that he never wished to return again into the land of pain and suffering.
The Oriental Missionary Standard, December 1939, p. 12
Juji is buried in Tokyo with his family.
The final burial site for Western Founders
I visited the Cowman grave site in January 2020.
It felt like a pilgrimage to leave flowers on Lettie’s grave.
Charles and Lettie Cowman lie beside dear friends and colleagues Ernest and Julia Kilbourne. They’re in a row with beautiful plaques marking their final resting spots.
The missionary death and glory are well represented by a beautiful site.
Well done, OMS founders.
And, well done for all who have gone to their reward in heaven with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
The cloud of witnesses awaits all of us who put our trust in the same God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
One Mission Society (nee The Oriental Missionary Society) will celebrate its 125th anniversary in June 2026 at their Greenwood, Indiana headquarters.
Praise God for 125 years of spreading the gospel throughout the world!
Interested in learning more about OMS’s early years?
Consider Lettie’s biography: Overflowing Faith.
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