It was a cold wintry night, three days after Christmas in 1918. When Holman Carl Currie arrived in a farm home in Washburn, Maine. He was warmly welcomed by his mother, Fae Easler Currie, John Tracey Currie, and four brothers and sisters. They were a close-knit happy family living on a 200-acre potato farm just out of Presque Isle in Aroostook County. Carl learned to do his share of the farm chores at an early age and was milking cows by the time he was five. His mother was a born-again Seventh-day Adventist who faithfully taught her children to follow in her footsteps as well as those of her Lord. His elementary education was all in a multi-grade school about two miles from home. Carl was baptized when he was thirteen and graduated that same year as valedictorian of his class. His father was finally baptized when Carl was seventeen.
The next four years found him attending Washburn High School. He was president of the National Honor Society at WHS during his senior year. He enjoyed sports, especially basketball, and was a pitcher on the school’s baseball team. At his graduation he gave the main graduation address. Carl was offered a scholarship to Drake University, but he chose instead to attend Atlantic Union College where he was given the first tuition scholarship they had ever granted. He enrolled in the theology course, planning to be an evangelist. He earned a good part of his way through school working in the Miles bindery and lived in the bindery dormitory which they dubbed “the barn.” He was on the staff of the school annual and pastor of his graduating class.
It so happened that when Carl arrived at Atlantic Union College the E.L. Longway family from Shanghai, China, arrived home on furlough, and before long Carl was dating their eldest daughter, Eva. By the end of the school year before she returned to China with her family they became engaged and kept the mail busy for the next year. One year after her return, at the end of Carl’s junior year, they were married by G. Eric Jones, the President of the college. Carl heard so much about China from the Longways, Eva and the N. F. Brewers who furloughed near the college during his junior year, that he became very interested in going as a missionary himself. Before his graduation he wrote to Elder Brewer, the China Division President at the time, stating his desire to serve in China. Less than a week later he received a letter from Elder Brewer inviting him to come. Their letters had crossed in the mail! This convinced Carl and Eva that Lord wanted them in China.
They sailed from San Francisco in August of 1940, both of them just twenty-one years of age. When their ship arrived in Shanghai they were advised to the United States because of the political and war situation. Many of the old-time missionaries left for America on that ship but they felt that the lord had called them and they determined to stay. The Longways were glad to welcome them into their home for a pleasant few days before they settled into the Shanghai Sanitarium where the language school was quartered. This ideal setup lasted only three months and then because of the war situation the China Division shipped a group of five missionary families with four Chinese teachers and their families to Burma, where they studied Chinese in the hills of Kalaw. It was there that a son, David Carl, joined their family.
On December 8, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked and World War II began. The American Consulate in Rangoon advised an immediate evacuation from Burma but it was April of 1942 before they got away and the Japanese were already bombing Rangoon. Eva and the other mothers with children evacuated by air into China and Carl with the other men drove mission trucks up the Burma Road—2000miles of the most tortuous road ever built. They slept under their trucks at night and Carl was apparently bitten by an infected flea and developed relapsing fever (typhus). Fortunately his father in-law, Elder Ezra Longway, then President of the China Division, was with the caravan of 16 trucks, driving a Pontiac sedan. Carl spent nearly three weeks, desperately ill, in the back of that back seat of that car before they reached Chungking. Eva had no word of his illness before he arrived.
After several months’ recuperation in Chungking (the wartime capitol of China) the Curries were assigned to live in Changsha, Hunan, on an island in the Hsiang River . Carl’s work was to be in Kiangsi Province as President of that Mission. The Japanese military activity in that province made it unsafe for an American family to live there. It was a three days trip by boat, train, bus and boat again to get there from Changsha. Gerald and Rose Christensen and their baby daughter, Ruth, lived in Changsha (Gerald was Hunan Mission President) and the men took turns being absent so their families would not be left alone. It was in September of 1943 that David’s sister, Ruth Anne, arrived in the midst of a Japanese air raid. In the winter of 1943 Carl made a ten days bus trip to Chungking to attend the Division Council and there he was ordained to the gospel ministry. His work in Kiangsi was cut short in the spring of 1944 when he received word that the Japanese were headed toward Changsha and there was nothing to stop them! They had to evacuate by house boat (junk) and then an open coal car on the last train to leave from Hsiang Tan. Eva became desperately ill and almost died before they reached Hengyang and found the help she needed in a Presbyterian hospital. From there they went by American military plane to Kunming, Yunan, where they were welcomed by Doyle and Pauline Barnett. After enjoying their kind hospitality for three months they were assigned to live in Kweiyang, Kweichow, with Carl as President of the Kweichow Mission. There were there only a few months when it became necessary to evacuate to Chungking, Szechuan. At the Division meetings there he was asked to be Field Secretary of the West Szechuan mission with headquarters in Chengtu. When the war ended in 1945 Carl became President of the Mission until his furlough in 1947. In Chengtu their third child, a daughter, Laura Fae, was added to their family. In 1947 they had completed their first seven-year term of service in war-torn China, having moved ten times since arriving in 1940!
After a year’s furlough in America, visiting family and studying at the seminary in Washington, D. C., they arrived back in Shanghai to find more war clouds threatening –this time Communism. Millions were evacuating to Taiwan, a Chinese island over 100 miles from mainland China formerly occupied by Japan. In December of 1948, after helping with the Fordyce Detamore effort in Shanghai, Carl was asked to go Taiwan as President of the as yet unorganized Taiwan Mission. The Alva Appel family and two Chinese pastors, B. S. Lin and T. C. Li and their families, were all he had to complete his staff, but the Lord blessed and eventually others from the mainland joined their forces and new converts were taught to hold important positions.. The China Training Institute (now Taiwan Adventist College) opened its doors in 1952. In 1955 the Taiwan Sanitarium and hospital was officially opened. The Voice of Prophecy Bible School in Taichung began operation in1951, and in 1961 the Tribal Training School was opened in Pingtung.
His first term in Taiwan was from 1948 to 1955 and after another furlough in his homeland, during which he completed the requirements for his M. A. degree and graduated, he was asked to be President of the Southeast Asia Union with headquarters in Singapore. He spent much time traveling to the many different countries comprising that Union. It was during this time that work was opened and overseas missionaries sent into the countries of Laos and Cambodia, and a Chinese Secondary School was opened in Singapore. In1960 he again served as President of the Taiwan Mission and the North Taiwan
Mission. In the spring of 1953 he had led an exploratory trip among the tribal peoples of the Island, which led to the opening of work among the Paiwan people in the village of Ta She. This opened the way for the beginning of work among the five major tribes on the Island. From his first arrival in 1948 until his final departure in 1966 the membership had grown from a mere handful of believers from the China Mainland to nearly 4,500 with 12,000 Sabbath School members in more than 100 Sabbath Schools. His stay in Taiwan was richly rewarding. To God be the glory!
In 1966 after completing 26 years of service in China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, the family went on permanent return to the homeland. Carl first assignment there was to pastor the Bridgeport Brooklawn and Danbury, Connecticut, churches. A new church was built at Brooklawn and daughter Laura was the first bride to be married in it when she was united to Stephen Nyirady. The following year daughter Ruth was married to Victor Chant in the same church. With his two daughters happily married, when the call came to go to Bermuda as Mission President the answer was “Yes”!
Carl enjoyed his work in Bermuda but after only two-and-a-half years he received a call from the General Conference asking him to go to Africa as President of the Zambesi Union, with headquarters in Bulawayo, Rhodesia. Now he could understand why the Lord allowed him to work in Bermuda with its mixed races and cultures. It had prepared him for his14 years in Africa. Also his war experiences in china helped him to be able to fearlessly lead out during the tumultuous times that began about 1975 when the political situation deteriorated due to terrorist activity which turned into a very ugly, most destructive and disruptive civil war. The war with its dangers and problems ended with a new government and a name change from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. In spite of the turmoil the work of the Lord continued to grow and when peace finally settled over the land there was a great outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord. His last two years there the union membership increased nearly thirty percent. During those days of uncertainty carl was still able to conduct at least on major evangelistic effort each year, which resulted in many hundreds of baptisms. This was the nearest he became to realizing his college dream of being a full-time evangelist.
He had completed 45 years of service in the church and all but two-and-a-half years outside of the United States. It seemed that it might be time to retire. But again the General Conference approached him and asked if he would be willing to return to the Far East and work for China. What could he say?! China had been his first love and as Chairman of the East Asia Administrative Committee, living in Hong Kong, he would have an opportunity to be on the very “doorsteps” of China itself. Through radio they would be able to reach right into the heart of that great country with the message of salvation. Of course he accepted and what a rewarding and exciting five years were spent in Hong Kong! It was especially rewarding and exciting to be able to travel over most of China, fellowshipping with the believers and sharing with them the wonderful things that are happening to God’s work all over the world. There is no doubt but that there is a great outpouring of God’s Spirit in China today. It was a privilege and honor to once again be associated with those wonderful people. It is thrilling to realize that in spite of difficulties under Communist rule the membership in China today is at least ten times what it was when the missionaries were forced to leave the country.
By the time of the 1990 General Conference Session he had completed 50 years of service and it was time to retire. As a delegate to the session, Carl was asked to present the report on the progress of the work in China. At the close of his report he was presented a plaque from the General Conference recognizing his 50 years of service to the church. Since retiring he still keeps busy. At the present writing(1995) he is serving, along with several other retired ministers, as assistant pastors in the 2,500-member Collegedale church in Collegedale, Tennessee. There are also frequent speaking appointments in the outlying churches. He feels it is great to be a part of the most wonderful church in the world. God has been wonderfully good to him and his family and they praise His holy name.