Leaving a legacy
Bangor Worldwide is grateful to the late Victor Gardiner for leaving a most generous legacy in his will to support the ongoing mission of God’s church. Victor, and his late wife Charlotte, were doctors and missionaries in India for over 25 years and their own story was an incredible witness to God’s grace and faithfulness. To that end, we have included part of their inspiring biographies in this magazine.
Over 868,000 will be shared with various mission agencies across the world including Open Doors, The Leprosy Mission, Frontline and Trans World Radio. The Ukraine Refugee Aid will also benefit from 60,000 to help those suffering from the Ukraine war and agencies helping including Faith for Action, Hope for Youth, Slavic Gospel Association and European Mission Fellowship.
Emmanuel Hospital Association, where the Gardiners worked, and sister hospitals will be supported.
Christians Against Poverty, based in Dunfermline in Scotland, the town in which Victor passed away, on 1 December 2019, will also receive part of the trust fund.
With special thanks to Colin Millar for sharing his interviews with Charlotte and Victor that first appeared in the Saints Alive magazine:
Charlotte and Victor Gardiner
In 1934, a Christian mother shared Christ’s promise in John 6:37 with her daughter at their home near Ballycastle. As she did, the Lord Jesus spoke to that 7-year-old girl Charlotte Taggart and called her into a saving relationship with himself.
After her conversion, clear evidence of the new life of Christ working in Charlotte was seen by her burden to tell others about her Saviour. Having always wanted to be a doctor, Charlotte studied medicine at Queen’s University in Belfast and was greatly blessed by living with a Christian landlady. Charlotte’s own interest in God’s worldwide mission grew with a particular increasing prayer burden for India.
Moving to England to specialise in Anaesthetics brought a period of trial while working in difficult circumstances in a hospital in Oldham. The Lord was preparing her for India, and while at the Keswick Convention, God confirmed his call.
Before leaving, Charlotte spent a year as Travelling Secretary for the Christian student organisation, Inter Varsity Fellowship. She was solely responsible for all the colleges in the regions of Northern England, Wales and Ireland. With no car, she travelled around the British Isles by bus, train and boat with a “very big Bible commentary as her only companion”.
Charlotte’s work in India through the Presbyterian Church in Ireland began with four years at the Christian Medical College Hospital in Ludhiana, where she developed a new Department of Anaesthesia as well as teaching students in Christian doctrine. During this time, Charlotte began to correspond with Victor, who was based in another part of Northeast India.
Victor Gardiner was born in Lurgan in 1924 and his family later moved to Belfast. His father was a pharmacist before the First World War, but returned emotionally shattered. He died when Victor was just 10 years old. At the age of 11, Victor went to Willowfield Parish Church with his brother and sister to an Easter mission service at which each of them personally trusted Jesus as Saviour.
In his early teens, Victor already had a strong interest in overseas mission. God prepared him practically by making free education available through scholarships to go to Methodist College and to study Medicine at Queen’s University. Victor was single-minded in his priorities believing that “if God wanted me to go overseas then I wanted to be ready and prepared for anything he may ask”.
In 1950, after a postgraduate hospital year, Victor enquired about medical mission needs in Burmah with BCMS (now Crosslinks). That door was closed by a military struggle but there was an urgent need for a doctor in a 110-bed village hospital in Katchwa, Northern India.
Victor sailed for India, arriving in Bombay on St Patrick’s day, 1951. Throughout his 25 years in India, Victor felt completely helpless before the great poverty but never once doubted his faith in Christ. The Indians loved coming to Katchwa hospital where, before being treated, they always saw the doctors depend on God in prayer.
Victor and Charlotte’s friendship deepened through letter writing and despite having spent no time together, Victor proposed. The first time they were ever together as a couple was when they met in Bombay to get engaged in 1958. After their wedding in Ludhiana in 1959, they went to work together at hospitals in Kachwa and later, in Robertsganj.
They took every opportunity to share the gospel on the wards and in remote villages. Some Indians believed but were cast out of their homes and villages and denied water and employment by Hindus to force them to deny Christ.
While in India, God gave them one son and two daughters Yvonne and Esther. For Philip’s birth in 1962, Charlotte left Victor in Kachwa to travel to the cooler climate of a northern hill station. The water supply to the village was contaminated and she developed acute dysentery. This caused premature labour and severe complications followed and Charlotte was close to death, without blood pressure or pulse. News reached Victor and he travelled the 27-hour train journey not knowing if he would see his wife alive again. Meanwhile, a pastor prayed with Charlotte, anointing her with oil in the name of the Lord Jesus. Miraculously, on Victor’s arrival, a pulse was present and her slow recovery began.
The Gardiners moved to Robertsganj when Victor volunteered to run a 100-bed medical mission to prevent it closing. He worked alone there as doctor, manager and pastor with very little funds but God blessed and developed the work. In 1969, Victor was involved in the bold decision to form Emmanuel Hospital Association, to fund and manage six evangelical mission hospitals facing closure and secular take-over. Today, God has grown this to 20 hospitals and many large community projects across Northern India.
On their return to Northern Ireland in 1976, Victor worked in the Ards and Ulster hospitals. Charlotte worked as an anaesthetist in Belfast until 1986 when she underwent surgery for a brain haemorrhage. God’s grace again brought recovery and she went on to study at Belfast Bible College. The family joined St Elizabeth’s Church, Dundonald before accepting a request to help in St Mary’s, a church plant in the Ballybeen estate.
With the work well established, they looked for another mission field and joined All Saints in 1990 with a particular interest in student outreach. Their overseas experience helped them to build relationships with many foreign students.
Bangor Worldwide plans to produce a video and leaflet in the autumn to showcase
the impact of the donations so keep an eye on our social media channels and sign up to our monthly prayer mailers for their release.
