A Short Biography

Edwin Lennard Minchin (1904 -1987)

 

 

A short biography, adapted from A Desire Completed:  The Story of the Minchin Brothers, Two Sons of Western Australia.  by Dorothy Minchin-Comm

Edwin Lennard “Len” Minchin was born in Cottesloe, Western Australia, on February 2, 1904.  Now a suburb of Perth, Cottesloe lies on a lovely peninsula between the ocean and the Swan River.  John Minchin, a vineyard keeper, and his wife Martha Ellen “Nellie” Hitchcock Minchin, kept a fruit store there. Len was the youngest of their six children. His mother and his two older sisters were among the first to become Seventh-day Adventists in Western Australia following Edward Hilliard's evangelistic meetings in Perth in 1908.

The family moved to Hillcrest Farm at Dangin, a wheat and sheep district where Len spent his childhood, with morning and evening chores, gardening, caring for animals, and riding his pony "Dolly" to the village school.  The schoolmaster, often drunk on Mondays, made Len’s life miserable.  “You’re nothing but a dunce and a blockhead, Minchin. You’ll never amount to anything!” he shouted.  Poor sensitive little Len believed it.  After all, his teacher had said so.  However, Nellie Minchin was his mother, and that would help him a great deal. 

One winter day as Gerald and Len left for school, Nellie reminded them to come home early to help her because they were having company for supper.  A bachelor, popular for his jokes, tricks and storytelling, was coming and they weren’t going to miss this!  After school, however, both boys got drawn into games with other children, when they suddenly realized that the sun was getting low.  They galloped for home on their ponies, but they were too late.  Nellie stood at the door waiting for them.  “And where have you been all this time?” She asked. 

Obviously there could be no acceptable answer to that question.  Without another word, mother led them to their bedroom.  On the way they caught sight of the table laden with good food such as only Mum could make.  “You must stay in here,” she said. The boys sat paralyzed on their beds. . .and Len, thinking that protest might alleviate his suffering, began wailing into his quilt as they heard the sound of laughter, the tinkle of forks and plates and marvelous smells that wafted through the thin walls.  

Soon mother entered with a tray.  On it were their two everyday bowls full of bread, sugar and hot milk. Nellie looked at her poor little lads.  Seeing that the guests were being looked after amply, she got a third bowl and took it in to eat with her boys.  Now that mother shared their misery, Len could eat.  Neither of them ever forgot the night that Mother had “communion” with them - nor the lesson attached to it.  Both of them would utilize the story as a sermon illustration in years to come, as an example of the mercy of God. 

Nellie took her youngest boys to camp meeting every year.  At fourteen, Len was a painfully shy and self-conscious farm boy who still believed his teacher’s dictum. He didn’t want to attend the meetings, but Mother encouraged him to go.  He stood outside, not knowing what to do with himself, when one of the young ministers spoke to him and invited him to sit with him.  Thrilled by meeting such a wonderful person, Len watched him from a distance for days. Later, Len discovered that the young minister had been watching him too.  “Len, wouldn’t you like to give your heart to the Lord and become a worker for him?"  Shy as he was, Len later responded to an altar call by his new friend.  “I actually heard God calling for my heart,” his face shone as he told his mother.  “I want to spend my life working for Him. I want to be able to do the same kind of work as that minister who spoke to me.”   

Just a few days after Len’s commitment the family received the shocking news that their father, back at the farm, had died suddenly at age 58.  A year and a half later the bereaved family had to face another almost unbearable loss when their beloved mother died of the Spanish Flu in 1919.  Len was left a forlorn boy of fifteen. His two married sisters, Florence and Ruby, and his older brothers gave him the family environment that he so much needed. But his losses still affected him deeply.

Len's passionate love for people, and his sensitive and profoundly spiritual personality was already evident, and these characteristics would uniquely mark his ministry for the rest of his life.  At the same time, he had a keen sense of humor. Almost to the end he was able to retell a sparkling story, try a witty pun, and relive an embarrassment, all with the familiar, innocent glint of mischief in his eye. His good humor meshed with his love of people, his own absent-mindedness, and his propensity for getting himself into humorous situations.

The family moved back to Perth. Along with his brother, Gerald, Len spent four years at Darling Range School (now Carmel Adventist College), where he worked in the dairy.  He was always proud to remember how the farm manager used to say, "I look at the milk shed in the dark, early morning. I see a light, and know that Len is down there milking. I can always depend on him.”  

It was at this school that Len first came under the influence of Christian teachers.  At a chapel one day the godly principal, A.H. Piper, shared a quote that became a guiding light to him for the rest of his life:  “There is no limit to the usefulness of one, who, putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God.”  Desire of Ages, 249-250.  He felt that the Lord had laid hold of him personally and said, “My boy, from the farm, give me a chance in your life and just see what I will do.”   He was not a blockhead after all!  There was going to be no limit to what God could do in him.  He would pass this word on to multiplied thousands of youth around the world.  

When Gerald left for further studies in America, Len went to Australasian Missionary College (now Avondale College) in New South Wales. Len later wrote of his experience at Avondale:

"A flood of memories comes over me as I think of the associations and influences that molded my life so strongly during those days of preparation for my life work. Some of the most powerful influences in my life stirred me during college days at Avondale…I may have forgotten much that I learned in the classrooms, but left with me forever are deeply spiritual and character-building influences that cannot be adequately evaluated. The lives of dedicated, unselfish teachers, a vision of the world's needs, treasured friendships, a commitment to the Lord Jesus and the finishing of His work, powerfully molded my life and prepared me for the work God had for me to do…Never did I dream in those wonderful days that I was receiving a preparation of heart and life that would send me to the uttermost parts of the earth in a ministry that grows richer and more rewarding with the passing of the years.”  Australasian Record, July 17, 1967

He graduated from the ministerial course in 1924 and was appointed to work in South New Zealand on the evangelistic team of Elder J. W. Kent. Evangelism was to be only a stepping stone to the work he did the rest of his life.  Fifteen months later, he joined the staff at New Zealand Missionary College. There he served as dean of men and music teacher. Meanwhile, May Pocock, another Australian, had become dean of women and supervisor of the dining room. Under the benevolent, but ever watchful eye of the college president, Elder E. E. Cossentine, a courtship blossomed between the two deans — certainly a challenging and delicate enterprise back in 1927.

 

 

 Just before their marriage, an accident almost prevented Len from getting to his own wedding on time.  While refurbishing the little apartment to which he would bring back his bride Len knocked a gallon of paint over himself. The resulting lead poisoning made him extremely ill, but even worse, the very short haircut which became necessary left him looking somewhat like a marine recruit, as the wedding picture may testify. For a man always fastidious with his dress and grooming, this was truly a trial when he married on February 8, 1928.  

 

Throughout his life Len loved to recount the wonderful story of how God had led in their marriage, as both of them had experienced heartbreak when a previous relationship ended.  He saw the wise hand of God in leading him to May, as her faithful and consistent life enabled him to do a worldwide ministry with long absences from home that his previous fiancée would not have been able to handle.        

During the next three years in New Zealand, two little ones came into the Minchin home. First Kelvin Lennard. Len's enormous love and pride in his children began right there with that little boy. It was fitting, therefore, that there would be four more children upon whom he could lavish his wealth of devotion.  Kelvin's little sister, Joan Marie, was born in Australia, as they had returned home for her birth.  Len also loved in a very beautiful way the gentle, steadfast little nurse who was the mother of those children. Although his hours of travel often kept him away from home for weeks at a time, the absences seemed only to secure the love bond more firmly. For decades, hundreds of letters crisscrossed the earth, keeping the family unit secure and bridging the gulf between Len's public ministry and May's efficient, uncomplaining management of the home.   

Len then became the youth leader in the South New South Wales Conference back in Australia in 1931. The ultimate shape of his life was forged in the next five years in this work. His sense of mission for young people demonstrated clearly where his real talent lay. Meanwhile, another baby arrived, Yvonne Mae. Then, in 1935, came twin girls, Valmae Joyce and Leona Grace. While Kelvin bemoaned the fact that among all these girls there could be found no little brother for him, his father threw up his hands in mock distress, saying, "Here I am the father of five and I'm only thirty!"

 

 

 

 

Beginning in 1936, Len served for the next ten years as Secretary of the Missionary Volunteer Department for the Australasian Division (now the South Pacific Division). His work now took him not only to Australia and New Zealand but also to the mission fields of the South Pacific. These years before World War II were marked by great religious revivals among the young people of Australia and the Pacific islands, as they responded eagerly to Len’s earnest soul-searching sermons.

The name of E.L. Minchin has long been associated with Adventist Youth Congresses. His first one, held at Avondale College in 1939, has remained a landmark in that country. The intense experience of listening to the preaching of a godly man, learning the meaning and power of prayer, witnessing the vital operation of the Holy Spirit, and making a new start in life, has never left the minds of those who were present at that congress.

Len also had a lifelong love affair with music. It had begun in his childhood home in West Australia where the chief evening entertainment was singing around the old piano. In later years, Len's appreciation of the value of a song augmented his ministry.  He often counseled young people late into the night and then formed friendship teams to further cement the bonds of Christian fellowship among them. He played games with them, but he always loved to use music and spiritual choruses to lift the soul on wings of praise.

Len's appointment as a delegate to the General Conference in 1946 forecast the wider field of service that was about to open up. At that time he received a call to serve as Youth Director in the British Union. Finally, travel opportunities included the whole family, and the excited children boarded the Britain-bound ship with scarcely a backward glance at their Australian homeland. Four years following World War II, the British Union was restored to the Northern European Division, and Len's work expanded further. He particularly cherished his visits to Scandinavia, savoring the cool nights camping under the midnight sun. Or again, he might be down in tropical Nigeria helping a jungle doctor with his surgery.

His work had endless variety. The great Paris Youth Congress of 1951 went far toward healing the wounds that war had left upon the church in Europe. But having proved his ability in youth ministry, it was time again to move. In 1954 Len was called to the General Conference Missionary Volunteer (MV) Department. As a result, the entire world became his parish. Everywhere people felt Len's deep and lasting concern for the needs of young people, and they responded unfailingly to his infectious enthusiasm for God.

Through the years Len kept up correspondence with many hundreds of his young friends. He never willingly broke contact with lives he had touched so deeply.  On one occasion in England, two German young people excitedly greeted him. They couldn't break the language barrier; neither could he speak German. But then they cried out, "He lives, He lives." Instantly, a song service scene from one of the European congresses was recreated, and fellowship was renewed.

Len's capacity for compassion and sympathy often wore him out. Wherever he went, he involved himself unreservedly in whatever problem he found. No matter how difficult the situation he never spared himself to make it better with the help of God. And when Valmae, one of his precious twinnies, contracted severe diabetes at the age of twelve, the sorrow almost killed him. No one could believe that the battle with viral pneumonia just after arriving in England would have had such devastating effects. After Valmae's untimely death in August 1986, Len's own health deteriorated steadily and rapidly.

So after sixteen years of youth evangelism and revival meetings worldwide, Len retired in 1970. Still, constant requests came for him to preach and give devotional talks, and even after he could no longer do any of those things he dearly loved, he still felt the fires of zeal for the saving of young people. He never lost the vision for even a single moment. Almost to the end, seeming strangers would approach him and say, "Oh, Elder Minchin, don't you remember that Week of Prayer in Oregon, Minnesota, Jamaica, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Australia. . . I remember every word you said; they changed my life."

And so countless people, all over the world, trace their own conversion experience, their call to the ministry, or their victory over great temptation, to one of Len Minchin's sermons or weeks of prayer. Who could estimate the great number of those whose lives have been moved, motivated, and changed by a vision of the beauty of Jesus which he so ably portrayed. In the years of time we will never know, but in the golden years of eternity we shall discover the power and effectiveness of the committed life of Edwin Lennard Minchin.

Adapted from A Desire Completed:  The Story of the Minchin Brothers, Two Sons of Western Australia.  by Dorothy Minchin-Comm

 

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• Explore the Life and Ministry of E. L. Minchin

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• Read Articles And Reports Written in Church Periodicals, Arranged Chronologically

• Learn About Youth Conventions, Revivals, and Weeks of Prayer held, Also the Methods Bringing Success.

• Obtain More Information on His Beliefs & Teachings, Arranged Topically

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