This Week in AG History — Oct. 22, 1949

As pioneer missionaries to China, Howard and Edith Osgood faced many hardships and dangers. Both had a strong Christian heritage which helped to prepare them for a long career in Assemblies of God missionary service.

Howard Coit Osgood (1899-1992) was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. His father, Charles B. Osgood, a fourth-generation preacher, was a traveling evangelist with the Christian Church. Howard’s great-grandfather went to Burma with Adoniram Judson as a missionary printer. Howard grew up learning about missionary work because an uncle, Dr. Elliott I. Osgood, had been a missionary-doctor in China.

Attending the Christian Church in his youth, Osgood was saved at the age of 7. By the age of 13, he felt a calling to become a minister. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in Cotner College at Bethany, Nebraska, in the fall of 1918. The next year he transferred to Hiram College in Ohio where he received a B.A. degree in Bible in 1923.

About this time, Osgood became acquainted with George Waggoner, who invited him to attend a missionary convention at the Pentecostal Church in Cleveland, Ohio (now First Assembly, Lyndhurst, Ohio), in 1920. Missionaries Harry and Helen Waggoner and Victor and Grace Plymire were the speakers, and J. Narver Gortner was the pastor. Soon after this, Osgood was baptized in the Holy Spirit and had a vision in which he received a call to go to China as a missionary. In the vision he saw a great light and great throngs of Chinese people. The Lord spoke to him, “I am sending you to roll back the canvas, so that the light of my gospel may reach them.”

Osgood became ordained with the Assemblies of God on May 19, 1927. That fall he enrolled in Bethel Bible Training School in Newark, New Jersey, and also taught music at the school. He met his wife, Edith Belle Lockwood (1901-1997), at Bethel Pentecostal Assembly, which was connected with the school.

Edith was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Frank Lockwood, was a skilled accountant, a gospel singer, and an earnest Christian. He died of a heart attack when she was only 4 years old. Her mother, Cora Lockwood, raised Edith and her older brother and sister in the Methodist Church.

Cora experienced a marvelous healing from heart trouble as a young woman and had been a Methodist evangelist before her marriage. She also became interested in the Pentecostal message and was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1906. Soon after this, Cora joined the Bethel Pentecostal Assembly at Newark, New Jersey. Edith grew up in that church and was saved and later baptized in the Spirit in 1912 at a camp meeting in Long Hill, Connecticut.

When she was baptized in the Spirit, it is reported that Edith spoke in a Chinese dialect, according to a former missionary to China who was present. She felt a calling to missionary work in China. In 1924 she began working with missionary Allen A. Swift and assisted in a Pentecostal orphanage in Kochiu, Yunnan Province.

In 1927, Edith returned to the United States and became acquainted with Howard Osgood, who was attending her home congregation. They were married at Bethel Pentecostal Assembly on June 8, 1929. On Dec. 4, 1929, along with several other Assemblies of God missionaries, they boarded the S.S. Tenyo Maru and left San Francisco to minister in China and the Tibetan people.

During their first term of missionary work, they established a church in the interior along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Their second term was spent in Kunming where another church and a missionary home were established.

When the Japanese-Chinese War broke out in July 1937, the church in Kunming and the Osgoods’ home were destroyed. War finally forced their return to the United States in 1942. The following year, Howard headed the music department at Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Missouri.

In 1945, Howard Osgood was elected field secretary for China. He later was appointed the first field secretary for the Far East in 1949, a position he held for six years.

Over the course of their missionary service, the Osgoods trained national workers in various fields in the Far East, served on the faculties of Ecclesia Bible Institute in Hong Kong, Bethel Bible Institute in Manila, and Bible schools in Tokyo and Taipei. Howard was twice editor of the Missionary Challenge, published by the Assemblies of God Foreign Missions Department.

From 1957 to 1958, Howard served as book editor for the Merchandise Sales division of the Gospel Publishing House. In 1959 the Osgoods returned to the mission field and started a new church, Glad Tidings Assembly in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. They also established Malaysia Bible Institute in Kuala Lumpur. Howard was principal of the school, and Edith was one of the teachers, as well as the dean of students.

The Osgoods retired from active missionary work in 1965. In later years Howard served as the director of music at Northeast Bible Institute in Green Lane, Pennsylvania (now University of Valley Forge). He also taught piano at Southeastern Bible College (now Southeastern University). From 1968-1972 he was coordinator of music at First Assembly of God in Lakeland, Florida. The Osgoods stayed active in that congregation as Howard taught an adult Sunday School class of 300 people, and Edith assisted in Women’s Ministries and as church treasurer.

The couple moved to Springfield, Missouri, in 1983, where they regularly ministered in music at Maranatha Village and at the Springfield Chinese Church.

Howard also composed a number of songs, including “The Church of Christ,” which was published in Songs of Praise, and “Touch Him and Be Made Whole,” which appeared in the Melodies of Praise hymnal. In collaboration with Matthew Lee, a coworker in the Far East, he translated 300 hymns into Chinese, which were published as a hymnal called Salvation Songs in 1952. Osgood published several books including Five Steps Into Christ, The Baptism in the Holy Spirit and Fire, and God’s Gift of Power.

With a long missionary career, Howard and Edith Osgood shared the gospel with Chinese people in Hong Kong, mainland China, the Philippines, and in Malaysia over a span of 36 years. They endured trials and setbacks, including losing their home and church during World War II. Still, they faithfully continued ministering to the Chinese people and others through missionary work and teaching, music, and writing.

Read, “Encounter With Robbers,” by Howard C. Osgood, on page 10 of the Oct. 22, 1949, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “The Principle and Practice of Faith,” by Edgar W. Bethany

• “Healing from Heaven,” by Ernest S. Williams

• “The Call to the Cross,” by Jessie Penn-Lewis

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Glenn W. Gohr

Glenn W. Gohr is the reference archivist at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center in Springfield, Missouri.