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2023 Legacy Missionaries: On the Cutting Room Floor #2-Jack and LaTrell Bateman’s Story

It was a beautiful love story that very nearly didn’t happen except for God’s providence . . .  two young people so far apart in culture, language, geography, and religion meeting in what could only be arranged by God himself. 

Born in 1928 to a Chinese mother and American father, Jack Bateman lived in North China with his parents and two siblings, Jimmy and Sally, until the Japanese invaded in 1937. His father had died three years after Jack was born so Mrs. Bateman lived with her parents and seven sisters and did her best to provide for the children after his death from tuberculosis.

As the children grew older, however, Ms. Bateman had difficulty provide for all the children’s needs, including food and education. Chinese citizens were given food rations, but since the three Bateman children were American citizens they received none. But by the grace of God, the American Legion began providing them financial assistance then God then led a Methodist missionary to send them to a mission school in northeast China.

Then, in another act of providence, God led them to John Blaylock, a single Baptist missionary who agreed to take care of the children and ended up doing so for almost two years. Life in Japanese-occupied China had became dangerous, especially for American missionaries, so Blaylock received permission from Mrs. Bateman to leave the country and take the children out of China, first to the Philippines, an American territory, and then on to America. But God had other plans.

After arriving in Manila, the Philippines, on November 2, 1941, Blaylock and the children lived in a small rented apartment. But on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. By the end of December 1941, all U.S. Soldiers had left Manila, and soon the Japanese found and took them into custody to a prison camp on the University of Santo Tomas campus. 

Blaylock’s and the children’s futures were uncertain to say the least. Prisoners at Santo Tomas spent the next three years and one month trying to avoid starvation. Many died under those harsh conditions. But God had instilled in Jack an instinct for survival even though he had witnessed the horrors of disease, starvation and mistreatment of prisoners. 

God’s grace continued . . . Fourteen-year-old Jack and other detainees were assigned kitchen duty, which included preparing and cleaning huge pots of tasteless, meager food for the entire camp. That assignment kept him, his siblings, and Blaylock alive. Jack saved the few scrapings left over from each “meal” and shared them with his loved ones. There were just enough peelings, crumbs, and scraps of food to keep them alive for three years and one month.

Their liberation by American soldiers happened just two days before the Japanese carried orders to kill all prisoners.  

Finally they made it to California where he, Jimmy, and Sally lived with a family in California. Jack was saved in 1945 and two years later met high school student Latrell Johnson at a Bible conference. Both had already surrendered their lives to serving the Lord in ministry.

The couple continued to have difficult times even before they arrived in Taiwan, but Jack and Latrell’s optimistic and burdened spirits, their love for the lost, and constant prayer would carry them through as they shared the gospel to the lost people of Taiwan.

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2023 Legacy Misionaries: On the Cutting Room Floor #1

In 2020 BMA Missions began a very impactful tradition of honoring our missionaries, both living and deceased, at our national meetings. In 2023 we will acknowledge Bobby and Ruth Bowman and Jack and Latrell Bateman. (The Bateman children will receive their parents’ posthumous award.) Former Missionary and BMA Global President John David Smith, who understands the impactfulness of our retired missionaries, established this award so their legacies would not be forgotten and our entire association can honor their faithfulness to serve . . .

For the ceremony, our production team will create a video, which means researching their lives and ministries to create the narration. Doing so is truly a labor of love as I note the highlights of their service. 

The Batemans and the Bowmans served in very different areas of the world; Asia Pacific (Taiwan) and Central America (Honduras). They encountered different hindrances to the gospel, and reached the lost in different ways, but they had a common heart and willingness to persevere in extremely difficult circumstances.  

There are many stories about these faithful servants that can’t be told in a short video, so I will share some of those that had to be “left on the cutting room floor” so to speak, in the next five months.

The first one is a Christmas story of sorts . . . 

Latrell Bateman was clearly a resourceful woman who had a burden for Chinese after watching a social studies video in high school. She had enrolled in Mandarin classes even before meeting a young Chinese-American man, Jack Bateman, who would later become her husband. After their clear calling to serve the Lord in Taiwan, they arrived in November of 1953. Already a mother herself, she was heavily burdened for children to understand this extremely foreign concept of salvation. So she write home and asked people to send old Christmas cards, especially those “of a religious nature,” she said.

Since there was no Sunday school literature to be found, her idea was to use the Christmas cards, backs torn off, to teach the children. She also requested any cards or Bible pictures for visual aids. People back home responded, and she soon had piles of them!

Latrell used the cards for rewarding attendance and Scripture memory, and children were so proud to receive multiple cards each Sunday. She said, “I don’t use Santa Claus cards or those that glorify Mary too much as other religions do. Most of the cards are blank on the other side, so we stamp a scripture verse there.”

I don’t think I’ll look at a Christmas card the same again!

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Gabe’s Story for God’s Glory-Part Two

At the end of part one of Gabe’s story I left you in the midst of a story . . . literally a teary-eyed, tender-hearted preacher and his wife standing on their front porch early one morning with empty arms and broken hearts. Handing that little baby off to a caseworker was as scary as putting a baby in a basket to float down the Nile River! 

We wanted desperately to rescue that baby who would be tossed about on the dangerous river of foster care. But just like the baby Moses story, God already had the right people in our path. Our relationships with them were all part of a divine plan. Baby Gabe would be gone about four hours without any word of a court decision. We were supposed to have known something by noon, but crickets . . . no one knew anything. 

Then Aaron said, “I bet I know somebody that can help us!” He grabbed his trusted cell phone and went right to work. 

The sheriff, our friend and part of our church family, knew just who to call. 

The county attorney had answers but not what we wanted to hear. 

The baby’s lawyer had more answers, reasons behind decisions to send this baby boy four hours away, and some better solutions. 

Oddly enough, these two lawyers also knew us well and vouched for our character and placement for this baby. So in the middle of arranging transportation and all the foster care paperwork, something happened and family placement four hours away would no longer be an option. Twelve hours later, an eternity in our book, we got word of what would happen to Baby Gabe. 

Within the hour, I held my little prince. Bedtime that night was priceless. When you see a big, burly man squished into a little rocking chair covered in sock monkey blankets holding a tiny baby and singing “Beulah Land,” there’s not a Hallmark movie or card that can capture that sweet sentiment. 

I think we both would agree it was the happiest moment in our married life. Very few moments in life will ever compare to that reunion. Even as I retell the story, I am amazed how God’s signature is woven into even the smallest details of Gabe’s God-sized story.

During our first week of being his permanent placement, I took baby Gabe to the nursing facility where my Grandma was staying. It was amazing how these little old ladies sparkled and came to life at the sight of a new baby. One little lady refused to do her physical therapy, which was simply walking up and down the hallway. A former schoolteacher, she clearly had a heart for children. When we walked up the hallway, she walked beside us, talking to the baby the entire way. Inspired by our visits, she completed her physical therapy every time we came!  

As for my Grandma Joy Lee, she sprung right back into Grandma action, insisting on holding Gabe. We thought her strength was gone, but she held and rocked that baby just like she had done with every other grandchild. The sweetest moment was when she whispered in his ear, “Now, you be a good boy for Mama.”  

But this Mama thing was not a done deal though I was convinced he would be ours forever. I don’t know if it was her lifelong faith being played out once again to pray and believe or if she had whispers from heaven, but she looked at that little boy like he already belonged to us. Within the month, she would draw her last earthly breath. There are no words for the depth of that pain. Yet in moments of heartache, I heard her words echo in my heart. There were many unforgettable moments with my Grandma in my lifetime, but watching the light return to her eyes as she held our precious Gabe will be a vision forever etched in my heart. Honestly, the thought of my Grandma ever seeing or holding my child seemed impossible. But God . . . 

I was already an emotional mess because of this huge loss in my life, but throw in some unsupervised visits with our little guy and his birth family and my heart sank every time. The environment I left him in wasn’t safe. After Gabe’s last unsupervised visit, he was returned to us in his little infant carrier with a large caliber bullet underneath his little bottom. Yikes! I’m not sure if I was more mad or scared, but we did some calling on that one. Somebody was going to watch this little baby a lot closer, and that’s exactly what happened: No more unsupervised visits. 

They were so hard on everyone involved. Each time I picked him up, his birth mother cried. She was struggling, but she was trying. We maintained a friendly relationship, but it was weird. I didn’t realize how weird until she asked us to consider taking her two teenage children who were also in foster care. 

Two days after Christmas became foster parents to Gabe’s half siblings as well. We always said we could never take on teenagers, but God did a work on us. We would never have to worry about another family visit because those teens were very protective of that little baby. In fact, our teenage foster son struggled getting close to anyone, but when he held Gabe he was different. He even said, “I don’t think I will ever love anyone like I love Gabe.” It made me sad, but at least I knew he was connected to someone. Although he and his sister fought, they were very protective of each other because of what they had been through. Our best times as a “hodge podge family” were watching Gabe do all of his “firsts.” The night he ate cereal for the first time, those teens smiled, giggled and held on to every moment. Oh, what a night!

Visits were still taking place off and on. Gabe’s biological father was in and out of the picture. Our teens despised him because they had seen some pretty ugly domestic violence. They often asked, “He won’t get Gabe will he? He isn’t safe. You can’t let him have Gabe, you have to get him!” There were also health battles with Gabe, spending many months on breathing treatments because of prenatal issues and environmental factors early in life. Oh, but we were making great progress, and we knew how to get babies to a cuddly size and get them healthy. Each time I rocked Gabe and sang “You Are My Sunshine” when I got to the line, “Please don’t take my sunshine away,” I cried. What a roller coaster of emotions!  

In the state of Kansas, when women have lost children to the system, if they willingly relinquish rights, they can have a fresh start if they have another baby. And guess what, their Mom was expecting another baby, so she relinquished rights to all children. One sister had already been adopted by family, another half sibling by his grandparents, and Gabe had our family, but the two teens didn’t know what they wanted. We offered to adopt them, but they decided to “age out” of the system, which allowed more financial assistance for college. But emotionally they were at a loss. We learned many parenting lessons in that situation . . . another story for another time. They did want to remain with us until they were 18, and our foster daughter craved family connection, so this was very rough!

Court cases with Gabe’s biological father were still necessary, but his struggles continued to get the best of him, and after two and a half long years we had our last day in that courtroom.  Even the court reporter had a huge smile on her face. So the little baby that came to us at five pounds and spent six months of his life on breathing treatments was healthy, beautiful, and absolutely the love of our lives. Aaron spent those two and a half years on night duty and really, truly loving every minute of it. To this day, when he begins humming “Beulah Land”, Gabe goes into a sleepy trance.  

As things were finalized we had to decide on his new legal name. Foster parents are always encouraged to keep part of their identity. He came to us as Mateo Gabriel Augustine so we kept Gabriel Augustine because that will always be our prayer for him, that he is “a great and magnificent man of God.” We couldn’t have picked a more fitting name.  

This morning I heard little footsteps creeping into the kitchen, and the sun peaked  through the curtain to shine on his sweet little face. I thought to myself, “Oh, you are my sunshine.” His words ring in my heart as he says, “But Mom, I just want you.” We have “a snuggle moment” and all the while, I am thinking “For this child I prayed.” This story has allowed us to have a testimony that not only shares Gabe’s adoption story but God’s adoption story for us too. Gabe asks some big questions but being adopted into God’s family has given us a biblical picture for him. God has allowed us to tell quite a story for His Glory!

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Lois Daniel and the Queen of England

Lois Daniel was my great aunt from Cushing in East Texas. She was born in 1899 and hoped she would live to at least the year 2000 so she could say she had lived in three centuries. She almost made it but passed away at age 98. 

A walking history book, she took down some boxes of photos once when I visited her, and told me one by one who they were and a little about them. Now and then she would come across a photo of a handsome gentleman and say, “I almost married him.”  Then another handsome gentleman and say, “I almost married him.” And once more she pulled out a photo of another she almost married. After so many times I wanted to ask her, “Why?” but she was already off on another subject. I loved to be around her and just listen to her talk about family history. 

Turning down so many handsome men was sad enough, but then she told me something much sadder. In January of 1944 Aunt Lois was teaching in the panhandle of Texas when she received word that her mother was very ill and not expected to live. With help from many people (except those handsome men she turned down), every effort was made to get her home to Cushing. The panhandle, however, was having the worst snowstorm in years and every possible way out was exhausted.  Eventually, she did make it home but not before her mother had passed away and was buried.

The Queen

But the most incredible story I ever heard about her happened in 1965. Aunt Lois Daniel and her niece Rita traveled from Cushing, Texas, to England and went straight to Buckingham Palace just to see Her Majesty, the Queen. They walked to one huge set of doors and knocked but were denied entrance, so they left their calling cards. They had the calling cards made up especially for this occasion before leaving Texas. You see, Aunt Lois and Rita had heard on TV that the way to see someone important in England was to leave your calling card if they weren’t home. So they walked and walked all around the palace leaving their cards everywhere hoping to catch the Queen, perhaps sitting in her back yard having tea and crumpets with Prince Phillip.  

Finally, someone took pity on them and summoned the Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting. She was very kind and explained to them that the Queen was preparing to leave shortly from a certain gate. They hurried over there and excitedly waited. Suddenly, a royal car approached with just enough time to wave to the Queen and actually see her wave back to them. And in the queen’s hand were about a dozen of their calling cards in her hand! Aunt Lois and Rita weren’t disappointed though, but rather excited. It had been explained further on TV that the custom in England was for the person who received your calling card would then pay you a visit. Aunt Lois and Rita rushed back to their hotel and changed their airline tickets to return home the same day they came. 

After all, they had to go home and prepare for the Queen’s arrival!

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Writing a Christian Superhero Novel and Trusting God

It all started with a show called Bibleman that I watched as a little kid.

He was a superhero, but everything about his character was Christian-based: A wealthy, famous man tired of his lifestyle who turned to Christianity and decided to fight evil in God’s name. Bibleman had gadgets and armor based around Scripture, and he carried a lightsaber-like sword that he called the Sword of the Spirit. Bibleman eventually gained a young sidekick . . .

Sound familiar?

Yeh, basically a Christian Batman. It was pretty cheesy but a solid character to teach basic Bible truths to kids who enjoy superheroes.

But these days, superheroes aren’t just for kids. Marvel movies in particular have drawn such a worldwide fanbase that most people can tell you the name of at least half a dozen superheroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor . . . the list goes on. Children and adults alike love these characters. Simply put, superheroes have become mainstream, but well before I even realized that or cared, as a pretty young kid I decided I wanted to be a writer. I even took a few classes and attended a conference on writing Christian fiction. 

But in the summer of 2016 while watching my favorite TV show, a superhero drama called Arrow, gave me an idea that I couldn’t shake: Why couldn’t Christians have a superhero story that was serious, could be occasionally dark and gritty but still uphold biblical themes, and Christian characters at its core? I decided Christians could have that—and I could be the one to write it.

I started a manuscript that summer simply titled called The Crusade. Although I was passionate about the idea, fifty pages in, something just felt off, and I couldn’t get into the story. Energy fizzled out and I set the story aside. But hat was not the end of the story, and college had a great deal to do with that restart.  

Going into my third year of college, I was about the busiest I had ever been: I became the editor of the Tower, the Central Baptist College student newspaper, worked two to three nights a week at David’s Burgers, had more friends than in my previous two years of college combined, and  unfortunately, began working on The Crusade. College life caused writing to take a back seat for a while.

When I graduated in 2018, I began doing contract work for Lifeword, so I quit my job at David’s Burgers. Without classes, homework, or a night job to occupy my attention, I had something that was a precious commodity during my college years: time.

In the fall of 2018, I picked up watching Season 7 of my favorite show, Arrow. My girlfriend (now wife) and I watched it together, and my spark for writing a Christian superhero novel reignited my passion. For the first time in over two years, I reopened The Crusade. 

Something still didn’t feel quite right, but this time I worked through name changes, character details, the setting, the plot and the title . . . which is now Vigilante’s Light. In two months, I had a complete first draft then spent the next several months in editing and revision. Finally, it was time to contact publishers and agents, which meant rejection emails and silence. I prayed about what God wanted for my book and kept moving forward. In the summer of 2019, Vigilante’s Lightfinally found a home.

There was a Twitter event called #FaithPitch for Christian authors where entrants tweeted a brief synopsis of their book and if a publisher found the story idea interesting, they would like the Tweet and the author could contact them.

I received exactly one like on my Tweet about Vigilante’s Light. Ambassador International sent a message requesting a full manuscript . . . and the rest is history. I signed a contract with them and on February 23, 2021, Vigilante’s Lightbecame available for the world to read. Two days later, I got to hold a physical copy of my own book. It was beyond surreal, and Vigilante’s Light is out now on Amazon. Freedom’s Fight has also been published, and in October of 2022, the sequel Heroes’ Might will bring that tally up to three.

I learned a lot through this process, including the importance of serving God in the waiting, and looking forward to the blessings he will no doubt bestow if you are willing to obediently trust and follow him with your talents. Creative talent comes from God. He will use it in great ways. All we have to do is surrender that talent to him and let him guide the paintbrush to create our art. He’s the greatest artist in the universe.

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Just One of Her Many Talents

Oh, it’s beginning to look, feel and smell like the most glorious time of the year! The leaves are beginning to change, mornings and evenings are cooler, pumpkin patches are crowded and football is on the TV. How can you not love this time of year? Seriously, if your favorite time of the year is not Fall, I feel like I need to pray for you.

As I was wandering the produce section of the grocery store just a bit ago, the thought went through my head as I was looking at pumpkins, gourds, corn, bananas, etc. My goodness! How much fun God must have had on the day he created all this fun stuff! 

Then as an exclamation mark of those thoughts, I drove up my driveway with the windows down, and “Hymn of Heaven” blaring on my radio, and all three of our horses lifted their heads and looked my way as if to sing themselves, “Holy, holy is the Lord!” 

All of creation was made to praise God. All of it. The wonderful Fall changing trees, the wispy clouds in the blue skies, the rolling hills, the majestic mountains, the corn on stalks, the horses in the pasture, down to the pumpkin on my porch. It all has a purpose and that is to point to Jesus.

Remember that sycamore tree? The one Zacchaeus needed to see Jesus (Luke 19). Well, that little tree started as a seed and grew, perhaps with the single purpose of lifting Zacchaeus to see Jesus. Day in and day out, for at least ten years, it had grown to reach maturity in strength and stature. It probably endured drought as well as flood, sunshine and darkest of nights. It grew to lift up a little short tax collector out on one of its limbs so he could see the Savior of the world.

Let’s do our part in praising the Creator and cry out “Holy! Holy! Holy!” with all of creation and look around and see who we can “lift up” to see Jesus. 

Basically, go out on a limb for Jesus today!

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Faith TALKs and the Legacy of a Lioness

by Amber Spencer

(I’ve had the opportunity over the years to meet some of the most remarkable people in our BMA churches, one of them being Amber Spencer, a high school English teacher in Galena, Kansas. Following God’s prompting, she said, “Yes” to helping equip and empower families to know God and share their faith through a Facebook page called “Lioness Legacy.”)

My whole life changed when I realized something as a young mama: Church was not enough.

I know. I know . . . we Christians shouldn’t say such things, but looking back, I wish they had.  Maybe then, I wouldn’t have relied solely upon it for the health of my children’s spiritual lives. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have endured one of the scariest seasons of my life.

For several weeks, God allowed my family to walk through a season of fear. My kids began waking up in the middle of the night from vivid nightmares and terrifying visions, from feelings of dread to a downright fear of the dark. During these weeks, NO ONE was getting any sleep . . . most of all, me. It got to the point where I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Though I begged my children to be strong and courageous, we ALL gave way to our fears. We weren’t connecting the spiritual lessons that we had learned at church to real life. Something was missing that kept us from living out our faith.

Though God eventually brought us out of that difficult season, it wasn’t without battle wounds. It still goes down as one of the most frightening experiences of my life.

Months after this, God brought Deuteronomy 6:4-9 to my attention; he lit those verses on fire in my heart:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

It was then that I realized what the missing piece was: me. Not their Sunday school teachers.  Not our preacher. But me. And I also knew how to help my kids live out their faith . . . I was going to have to teach them. God, through these verses, calls me to talk to my kids about Him. He calls me to share my love for Him and to live out that love in a real and authentic way. He calls me to model what loving and trusting Him looks like. Not only this, I needed to coach my kids how to do the same in their lives.  

That moment was a game changer for me.  I had relied solely upon my kids’ Sunday school teachers to teach them what they needed to know, thinking that they would automatically connect it to their lives. 

Over the next several weeks to months, I started living out Deuteronomy 6:4-9 by having intentional talks about faith with my kids: 

I shared Bible stories with them while we ate dinner. 

We talked about those stories and how they could connect to our lives.  

We memorized Scripture together and created simple prayers out of those verses. 

And most of all, we started praying together as a family.

Looking back, God used that season to shake me out of my spiritual slumber and light my heart on fire to share faith with my family.

Over the years, God grew this passion. Preparing to teach at a ladies retreat, God led me to the word legacy. I meditated on questions like “What is my legacy?” and “What do I want to pass on to my children?” So I taught Deuteronomy 6:4-9, showing these ladies what our spiritual legacy is. After that, we created very intentional plans for how we could live out those legacies.

After that retreat, God challenged me to live out my legacy in a way that would keep me accountable. So I said a big YES to God, and a few weeks later, Lioness Legacy was born.

Why “Lioness”? Lionesses are hands-on in raising their cubs: 

They raise them in community. They provide the food. They nurture. They discipline. They protect.  They know their purpose in life: to raise cubs that could live and thrive on their own. This short list of job descriptions fits perfectly with what we mamas try to do with our own children on a daily basis.  It would take me having that same lioness attitude and focus to provide the best food for my “cubs”— God’s Word. And if I could intentionally talk faith with my family, perhaps I could show others how to do the same.

So I created Lioness Legacy for any mama who needs some spiritual encouragement and guidance on how to have these intentional conversations with her family—conversations that could not only lead her kids to salvation but also ignite a spark in them to live out their faith, continuing this generational influence.  

Kids who know their identity in Christ.  

Kids who can thrive in a post-Christian world. 

Using my 25 years of teaching knowledge and experience, I created Faith TALKs—easy, short talks that engage kiddos with a question to get them talking, a Bible point to anchor our discussion, and a memory verse for the week. The most important part of our talk is the accountability portion, where I include ways we could hold each other accountable to live out the truth of that talk.

So on January 1st, 2017, I made a video about Lioness Legacy and posted it on Facebook, hoping a few women would join me. God was gracious and gave me more than a few, and today, Lioness Legacy is a place where mamas can feel equipped and empowered to share faith.

Our goal is simple yet powerful: growing our children’s roots of faith so that one day, they too become Christ followers and pass on that legacy of love and faith to the next generation.  

With the tenacity of a lion but the nurturing touch of a lioness.

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