Birth:1885
Death: 14-04-1954
Native Place: Pennsylvania
Country: United States of America
Place of Vision: Sudan and Ethiopia
Thomas Lambie was a missionary medical doctor known for his ministry in British Sudan, Ethiopia, and Palestine. He went to Western Pennsylvania Medical College for medical training. During his time at the college, Lambie attended various missionary conventions, which prepared his heart for the service of God. At the age of 22, he was accepted by the Foreign Missions Board of the United Presbyterian Church to serve in Sudan.
He started his missionary work in Sudan in 1907, where he established his first medical clinic at Khartoum. Besides offering medical services, he also led the people on the path of salvation. After a thriving ministry in Sudan, he accepted the challenge of establishing a mission station in Ethiopia. As he was traveling with his wife toward Addis Ababa, they were confronted by a large band of armed men. However, their commander was in great distress as an insect had gotten into his ear and sure would have killed him if not for Lambie, who removed it from his ear. The commander then became his escort to Addis Ababa, where he introduced him to his cousin, Ras Tafari, who was about to become the emperor of Ethiopia. Thus, God used a small beetle to open Ethiopia to the Gospel. In Ethiopia, he labored under challenging circumstances for planting churches.
As a medical missionary, for Lambie, prayer for God’s work was as crucial as sterilized instruments for surgery. He also firmly believed in missions to the heathen. According to him, “To be unwilling to go oneself, or to send our loved ones, or to minister to the needs of those who go (to serve the heathen) is certainly not to have the mind of Christ.” He established the Abyssinian Frontier Mission, which later became a part of the Sudan Interior Mission. The mission sought to evangelize the people of southern Abyssinia. He was also instrumental in building a hospital in Abyssinia and a tuberculosis sanatorium in Bethlehem, Palestine.
