George Hunter: Apostle of Turkestan

Half a dozen years ago, when I was reading my way through a selection of  biographies in the library of OMF International's US office, I wrote about Percy Mather, pioneering missionary to the Mongolians. One of the things that impressed me about Mather was his ability to work gracefully and contentedly not only in harsh conditions but also with harsh people... specifically the man he invariably referred to as "Mr Hunter" and with whom he had a ministry partnership for almost twenty years.

OMF recently published an article about the dour George Hunter (1861-1946). His "independent, single-minded spirit quickly distinguished him as a loner, unable to work with others, and frequently causing friction due to his firm principled stand on many issues of doctrine and churchmanship." 

Hunter, who had no interest in diversions, holidays, or vacations, is described as as one who "had single-mindedly set his hand to the plough, and he would not look back."

Mather did not keep all of Hunter's practices nor hold all of his views, but enough that they could be partners. The two men lived simply, preferring to spend what money they had on paper (which was expensive) and "on which they spent the winter months reproducing gospel portions in various Mongol dialects – Tibetan, Kazakh, Chinese, Manchu, Russian and Arabic." They traveled widely and distributed scripture portions in local languages to all who showed interest. Hunter and Mather "cover[ed] many thousands of miles by mule, often away for several months at a time, pioneering in unmapped areas, facing hardships, dangers and toil" as they trekked to the furthest reaches of their remote province.

Later in his life, and likely due at least in part by the "untoward" behavior of some younger missionaries sent to work alongside Hunter and Mather (but unable to survive there), Hunter was imprisoned and tortured by the Soviets for more than a year under accusation of espionage. When released, he was escorted from the city, never able to return. He died in Gansu hoping for a chance to return to Xinjiang.

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My final year of college my roommate and I were both in the process of applying for full-time ministry positions. When we compared notes, I was amused that her application and reference forms emphasized an ability to work independently and in rugged or solitary situations, whereas mine seemed designed to discover if I was winsome and popular with others. Neither of us was accepted  (though she later ended up serving with the ministry to which =I= had applied). My letter of rejection included encouragemetn to find a ministry "where I wouldn't be working with people." Maybe it seemed I have have more "Hunter" than "Mather" in me. Though I would probably go mad with the kind of isolation they both faced. Takes all kinds, doesn't it?

Ministry positions generally require =both= a good dose of independence and an ample helping of amiability. Most of us seem to be stronger in one or the other, I guess. At any rate, reading about Hunter made me grateful that Mather had both the charm to work well with such a partner, and the fortitude, himself, to share the otherwise harsh and solitary life Hunter had chosen and which seemed necessary, at that time, for the sake of those they hoped to reach. Neither ever married because they believed this was no life for a woman. I find it ironic that we know these stories primarily because of intrepid missionary-writer Mildred Cable, member of a trio of single women who trekked through this region and wrote about them.

Women of the China Inland Mission: Elizabeth Wilson

Today someone came across and commented on one of my 2008 posts - one that tells the story of Hudson Taylor's little sister Amelia and her lesser known contributions to the formation of the groundbreaking China Inland Mission.

Amelia prayed for her brother, was his faithful friend and correspondent, and helped raise his children along with her own. By the time she was my age she and her husband had stepped into a crucial role in the young mission's home office. They hosted many mission candidates and missionaries in training as well as those transitioning into home assignments. Even when she was an elderly, crippled widow, Amelia would take tea with the young people who applied, encourage them, and help the candidate committee size them up as potential CIMers. As CIM/OMF popular historian Phyllis Thompson put it, "Without the root under the ground, there would be no tree. Without the Amelias, there would be no Mission.”

Today I came across an essay about another great woman of the CIM, Elizabeth Wilson. Just a few years older than Hudson Taylor, Elizabeth met Taylor at prayer meetings in London when both were young. She became an enthusiastic supporter of his work and the China Inland Mission. Committing her own life to missions at the age of 20, she wanted more than anything to go serve in China herself. But as the only unmarried daughter in her family, she had to stay home and care for her invalid parents. It was decades before she was free to leave.

Did she give up her intention? She did not. Three weeks after her last surviving parent died, Elizabeth  contacted the agency and offered her services as a self-funded missionary. She was 46 (one source I found said 50). Starting so "late," she never gained the fluency in Chinese that some of her colleagues achieved, but she did her best, and she could keep up with the rigors of travel.

At the time they described her as being "well past middle life." But that had its advantages. "As a senior person in a young mission, she had a unique ministry of support and encouragement to the younger workers," says Valerie Griffiths in Not Less Than Everything: The Courageous Women Who Carried the Christian Gospel to China. Her silver hair was an asset; Chinese Christian women hobbled miles on their bound feet to meet the "Elder Sister," convinced that she was old and wise.

Elizabeth was committed to going where the need was greatest and coming alongside overworked coworkers. At one point exhaustion threatened to overtake George and Emily King, far inland and away from any other workers in Shaanxi Province. Elizabeth and a young recruit Emily's age, Annie Faussett, set off on an arduous, thousand-mile, three-month trek to join them. Emily King was newly married and expecting her first child, and she was overwhelmed. The church was growing fast. Many Chinese women crowded into her house to get a glimpse of the first foreign woman most of them had ever seen, and they stayed to listen to what she said. But she could not keep up with the ministry opportunities; she needed help. In come Elizabeth and Annie, accompanied by two Chinese believers. In the next year 18 Chinese women were baptized there.

See also Going Where the Need Was Greatest: The Story of Elizabeth Wilson.  

CIM and American Foreign Policy

“The most significant period in the history of modern missions was in the five years following World War II, when the door closed on nearly one quarter of the world’s population as China, the largest ‘mission field’ in the world, came under a Communist government,” claims the cover copy on Phyllis Thompson’s book China: The Reluctant Exodus.

I picked it up as part of my ongoing study of the China Inland Mission (now OMF) whose history seems to have remarkable parallels to situations I see in the world today. This one is still in print, too, though I have a tattered paperback version that’s almost as old as I am. Checked it out from the OMF library.

In addition to wanting to learn from the CIM, I have a secret (OK, not so secret) ambition to be the next Phyllis Thompson. A writer, she spent a number of years in Asia and continued to serve her mission by recording and telling its stories in a winsome way. Her work inspired others and including them in what God was doing and had done in ministries across Asia and beyond.

This volume explains the rise of Communism in China, how this affected the local believers and the Christian missionaries who had been serving there, and how the CIM experienced and responded to those unfolding realities.

I knew some of the story, but hadn’t realized the role U.S. foreign policy of the time played in the situation. This seems quite unfair. Relatively few of the missionaries were Americans, and none of them agents of the American government; the CIM was a British mission, too. But those disclaimers are easily dismissed or drowned out when a touchy political situation comes along. And when can we expect life to be fair?

It had to do with the war in Korea. Headline news in China at the time. Then there was a Chinese government initiative called the Peace Petition.

“This, on the face of it, was innocuous enough. People all over the country were invited to affirm that they were against aggression.

“Against aggression? Certainly they were against aggression! They would sign their names to that.

“This led to a concrete case. Were they against aggression in Korea? Yes, they were against aggression anywhere.

“Being against aggression naturally involved being against the aggressor. That seemed logical.

“America was the aggressor! Therefore they were against America?

“America was using Christianity to further her own ends – therefore they were against Christianity?

“America was using missionaries as agents – therefore they must be against missionaries. Slowly the net was tightening.” (p. 49)

Percy Mather: Pioneer Missionary to the Mongolians

Percy Mather: Pioneer Missionary to the Mongolians

After reading the D.E. Hoste book, I also read The Making of a Pioneer: Percy Mather of Central Asia, by Francesca French and Mildred Cable. Mather, a Scotsman, arrived on the field in 1910, almost a decade after Hoste became general director.

Sometime in his early years there he picked up a book written by another worker in China, Roland Allen’s Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? Roland Allen has had a significant influence on missions in more recent years as well. He sure made an impact on Mather, who after reading it committed himself to living by those principles, making strategic decisions to further the establishment of locally led churches across China. He also refused to be known as a pastor or leader, asking others to call him simply “Mr. Ma” and deferring to Chinese colleagues to lead.

At the same time he was eagerly reading the reports of a solitary old missionary, George Hunter, working away by himself in faraway Turkestan, in a city called Urumchi. Then, as now, Urumchi was home to quite a diversity of peoples: Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hui, Tatars, Manchu, and Russians. But Mather had a special place in his heart for the Mongolians.

“Percy Mather had lost his heart, and had lost it to the Mongols. Ever since his first contact in Urumchi he had an impulse of friendship towards them. He loved their spontaneity, their hospitality, their simplicity… They loved him as he loved them and soon became fast friends. He instinctively knew the best way of approach to primitive folk and when he walked into an encampment, fiddle under arm, there was an immediate response and mutual understanding. Among the Mongols he became as a Mongol.

“He was unaffectedly interested in all their affairs, and the erection of a tent, the management of a restive horse, the training of a dog or the building of a camp fire were things which he delighted to learn. His letters are full of notes and of pen-and-ink sketches showing how these things were done. To the Mongols, Percy Mather always showed himself the friendly man, helpful, capable, approachable, eminently understandable and obviously without guile. If, in the country, he was their guest, in town he became their helper.” (pp. 154-155)

One day he wrote in a letter:

“The Mongols have been bringing me a number of presents late – milk, butter, eggs, a pet lamb, and last of all, a young golden eagle. It only just has its feathers, but is very big already and its claws are as sharp as needles. One has to be very careful handling it. Unfortunately it eats as much flesh in a week as I do in a year, so I cannot afford to rear it and have passed it on to a friend who is better off than I am.” (p. 178)

The book is mostly made up of excerpts from his letters, with minimal commentary in between. The contents do more to paint a picture of what his life was like than to describe his ministry or teach the reader anything in particular. It wasn’t an easy life: sometimes he walked 25 miles in a single day, in cloth shoes; often he and George (whom he always refers to as “Mr. Hunter”) went on long treks, taking little with them and camping out. Mather did most of the cooking for both of them and often seems to have been busy doing laundry, making bread, shoveling snow, etc. He knew when he went that it would be a lonely life without creature comforts, and so it was. When, on his one furlough, friends suggested he take a wife, he told his mother, “I would never do any woman the wrong of taking her as wife into such conditions as exist in Central Asia.”

Was the life Hunter and Mather lived unsuitable for women? Well, missionary women did end up coming into the area before very long. The volume I hold in my hands was composed by two middle-aged women who, with a sister and a young girl they adopted, traveled up and down the Silk Road and sometimes stayed in Urumchi. Known as “the Trio,” Francesca and Evangeline French and Mildred Cable (and Topsy) were a bit unusual. They went places few others did. Apparently, though, serving as a single woman or single man was altogether different from bringing along a wife. Maybe because marriage inevitably implied pregnancy and parenting, two challenges that severely limited where the CIM workers thought they could bring families in those years.

Even today there are still a lot of places like that today, places being “pioneered” by singles (male or female, but mostly female since single men form such a small part of the mission force). Families don’t go there, or don’t tend to last. At one point the agency I work with had 20 single women serving (pretty effectively, I understand) in Afghanistan.

Well, Percy Mather may have been lonely and without many comforts but he seems a cheerful sort who was a great help to his partner and quick to make friends with the people around him. The two men preached and taught, printed and distributed scripture booklets into the languages of the people around them, traveled around visiting isolated Christians and building bridges of trust with community leaders, and generally making the way for those who would come after them. They really were ambassadors. Mather’s struggles to master the many dialects without books and teachers led him to prepare grammar books and dictionaries for those who would follow. He worked so hard his health was weakened and he died when he was about 50, not even outliving Mr. Hunter.

Something that stood out to me was that Mather had all kinds of ideas about things that could be done, things he'd like to do, and didn't achieve half of them. The authors say:

“Percy Mather was a dreamer of dreams… he dreamed of a life spent among the Mongols – of one spent in bringing the knowledge of Christ to the Manchus – of saving the logical Tatar from threatening atheism – of reaching  the wild Qazaqs [Kazakhs] of the Steppes – enough to occupy him for six times the fifty years that was his allotted span.

“He dreamed other dreams – of becoming an accomplished scholar in all the tongues of Central Asia – of acquiring the skill of the surgeon that he might go to all these people with healing in his hands.

"He dreamed yet one more dream – to have done it all, and at last come home to the quiet fireside in Fleetwood, sit near the window which looked out to sea, watch the ships come and go, and have his loved ones around him.” (p. 287)

Do you know people who have that many dreams, and are at peace with the fact that they will not achieve them all? Or people who have that willingness to suffer and ability to pioneer? There still are so many places and situations where that pioneering spirit - and ability to dream - is needed. What bothers me is that in many cases, the pioneering sorts don’t seem to find the places that require them. Instead of pioneering in new situations, they pioneer where others are already at work.

You know what I mean. There’s a great work going on, but they don’t want to work with those people, want to start their own thing – or maybe they don’t even realize someone else is already carrying out what they see as “their vision.” The Apostle Paul talked about wanting to go to Spain where he wouldn’t be building on anyone else’s foundation. But how often do people go to, say, Rome, and neglect solid foundations that have already been laid… pioneer in a time or place when it would be better to partner?

Learn about some of those who came later, in this story: Church Growth in Mongolia (Pioneers)

More Stories from the China Inland Mission

The mission agency OMF International, founded in 1865 by Hudson Taylor as the China Inland Mission, must be one of the most well-documented mission organizations around – though as I mentioned previously their policy and culture of “not saying anything if they couldn’t say anything nice” makes some of those early chronicles and biographies a bit unbalanced. Still, with access to a whole library of them, I’ve enjoyed reading a few more this spring.

D.E. Hoste, the Man Who Took the Baton

(See also a previous post, Heroism and Humility)

D.E. Hoste: A Prince with God, by Phyllis Thompson, is a biography of the first man to step into the shoes of the illustrious founder in the General Director position now held by Patrick Fung. What an intimidating thing it can be to follow the one who started the whole thing. Dixon Hoste, 39 years old, did not think he was the man for the job and initially refused it. But Taylor was too sick to carry on, his most logical successor was killed, and Taylor chose Hoste over his right-hand man, who, though older, was best in the position he currently held. So over several months Hoste came to terms with taking on Taylor’s mantle and accepted it.

One of the first challenges through which is navigated the mission was in how to respond to the enormous losses incurred in the Boxer Rebellion. Hundreds of missionaries and their families had been killed, and an vast amount of property destroyed. As the Chinese government righted itself it was attempting to rebuild its relationships with other nations and offered compensation for the losses the missionaries and Chinese Christians had suffered.

Hoste thought the matter through very carefully and recognized an opportunity in it. After much prayer and discussion with colleagues, he met with the government officials and presented a careful estimate of the mission’s losses. He then announced that no payment would be accepted, for the debt was wiped out and forgiveness full and free. The response of the governor was like that of Darius in the book of Daniel (6:6); he had proclamations posted to recognize the mission’s forbearance, which was, as Thompson explains, “proof of the sincerity of the motives the missionaries had in coming to China… that one action was probably more effective in breaking down prejudice than years of zealous preaching would have been.” (p. 99).

Even from the start, Hoste didn’t mind working in the shadows. As a booklet published a few years ago said he “lived to be forgotten that Christ might be remembered.” (Not a bad motto, eh?) He had begun his own work in China as perhaps the least-impressive member of a famous club (“The Cambridge Seven”); quickly placed himself under the leadership of a rather overbearing Chinese pastor, rather than trying to pull rank as a foreigner; and although he married the founder’s niece, never seemed presumptuous about that, either.

He was committed to praying with and for men and women, rather than striving for their good opinion. He didn’t mind being misjudged without defending himself and was willing to accept blame in order to shield others.  A cautious, respectful man, he was careful not to gossip, betray confidences, or speak carelessly. One of the keys to his character seems to be that he trusted God rather than himself. It’s a very sensible choice, isn’t it? Why do so many of us prefer to trust ourselves over trusting God?

Thompson says,

“It was his sincere appreciation of the qualities and gifts of others which won him the confidence and respect of men of other nations whose traditions and temperaments were often entirely different from his own… He had a wonderful insight into character. On an amazingly short acquaintance he could form an accurate estimate of a person’s character, ability, and qualifications.

“But perhaps his outstanding gift was his statesmanship. He viewed things as from a mountain-top, never being confused by immediate issues, but seeing right through to their ultimate conclusion. It was this faculty more than any other that won for him a reputation that spread far beyond the region of his own jurisdiction.”  (p. 120, 121)

Hoste led the mission for some 35 years (1900 to 1935), doing more to send out missionaries and see the mission grounded and mature than Hudson Taylor ever had. Even just a statistically glance suggests things were going well: The mission went from 780 missionaries to 1,360, from 364 churches to more than 1,200, from 400 stations to more than 2,200, and from 1,700 baptisms a year to 7,500.

There’s a lot to be said for joining a movement and helping it be all it can be rather than starting something new and setting it up just like you like it. I know there’s a time to pioneer, but how we need people who are willing to pick up the baton from someone else, to come alongside others God has raised up.

See also: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy (UTube)

Tomorrow: Percy Mathers: Pioneer Missionary to the Mongolians

Heroism and Humility / Living to Be Forgotten

Today is Martin Luther King Day here in the US, and I'm thinking about heroes. People who take extraordinary measures, overcome odds, change the world, and are remembered forever. Do you want to be one of those men and women? Why or why not?

Americans are raised to think they can make a difference. The generation one up from mine - the Baby Boomers - are sometimes defined by their search for significance, their desire to change the world.

It's not universal. Few have as much sense of personal power as Americans do; most people don't really believe their lives can be anything special. Many in my generation and the one that follows are a little skeptical about Boomer ambitions, or that we, ourselves, can accomplishing things that will really last.

Yet still I find this deep desire to make my life count for something - and a fear that it will not.

The other day some friends and I were talking about the Moravian missionaries who sold themselves into slavery in order to reach out to slaves.

It's easy to admire such behavior from a distance, but when it comes down to it we don't live like that, do we? Our ministries tend not to be so extreme. "It's hard to answer your cell phone when you're chained to an oar," my co-workers and I joked. "If you sold yourself into slavery how would you get your newsletters out?" we said.

The other problem is that you never know if your heroics will actually work. If you knew that by doing this, you'd rescue a child, or that, you'd save a village, maybe you would do it. Probably you would. Especially if it was your child, or your village. But it's seldom so unambiguous. There may be a good chance that your sacrifice could just make things worse, or be simply wasted. What do you do then?

One of the guys mentioned Patrick Fung, the international director of OMF International. He spoke at the recent Urbana conference. Patrick wrote a little booklet called Live to Be Forgotten. It's a reflection on the life of D.E. Hoste, the second director of the China Inland Mission, whom Fung says "lived to be forgotten that Christ might be remembered."

This guy led the CIM for 35 years. Bet you've never heard of him. I hadn't, and I'm a CIM fan. Hoste wasn't the obvious pick to succeed Hudson Taylor, the founder of the mission (and yes, an uncle by marriage. Hoste married Amelia's oldest girl).

But the man being grooming for the position had just been killed in the Boxer Rebellion. Taylor's admin guy might have been given the job, but he really didn't have the people skills or strategic ability for it. So Taylor, sidelined by a stroke, appointed 39-year-old, 15-year-veteran D.E. Hoste as acting director, eventually handing the reins over entirely. Hoste tried to reject it, only reluctantly accepting that he might be the right choice. But once he did he poured himself into it, leading the ministry through some very difficult times (both in China and in the West) into growth and stability.

He was a very humble man and never became famous, as some of his friends did. He was one of those who are faithful to their calling but not so much remembered. Everyone wants to be like Hudson Taylor (his predecessor) or C.T. Studd (his one-time teammate, a famous cricket player, and later the founder of WEC International). Everyone admires the pioneer. The Martin Luther King or the Nelson Mandela. Being one of the nameless group who also served doesn't sound so romantic.

Are we willing to pay such a price? It seems a small thing to ask: serve but never get the credit. And yet, it goes against the grain, doesn't it?

As Jim Collins says in 'Good to Great,' it's that approach to leadership, a self-effacing, open-handed, empowering of others, that brings so many groups of people gathered around a cause (any cause) from doing good work to doing great work.

What do you think? Can we serve without reward? Can we live to be forgotten? In Hoste's case his motivation was that Jesus get the glory for everything. He didn't want to get in the way of that greater good.

Isobel Kuhn - Missionary Wife in China

Our friend Isobel (whom I wrote about here and here) served with her husband planting churches primarily among the Lisu people of Southern China for about 20 years - through the 1930s and 1940s. In reading about her experiences with married life on the mission field, I'm amused how little has changed. The same problems with privacy, local expectations, servants, cooking, friend making, language... and different communication styles, energy levels, and preferences than her spouse. Like many a young couple, each of the Kuhns seemed to try to change the other to be more like themselves: "I'm sure you'd be much happier, too, dear...!"

The 19 essays in Whom God Has Joined describe the same kinds of conflicts, pressures, misunderstandings, and compromises (as well as partnership, growth, and joy) mark the lives of couples I know all over the world today.

And she tells stories so well... that actually was one of the things they had to learn to blend on, actually. "Belle" was rather prone to exaggeration. When she toned everything down to just the facts, nobody got anything out of their letters. She learned to choose her words carefully to please her husband without quenching the enthusiasm that made her stories come alive to readers. It is possible to be both accurate and engaging, but it can take some doing.

I don't know how many couples I've coached through newsletter writing. Conflicts in that area are far from the most serious, but seem remarkably common! At any rate, by the time she came into her own, Isobel's writing was great. This short book was a pleasure to read.

In the weeks leading up to their wedding in Kunming, Isobel and John were staying in the homes of Mrs. A, and Mrs. B, respectively.

"Mrs. A was the ascetic type who felt that missionaries should live with the nationals and be as self-denying as possible. Mrs. B, who was in charge of the guest house, had a distinct gift for arranging her home in an attractive style and did not feel it wrong to spend a little money to maintain it. Since many of our Yunnan workers lived in the mountains among the tribes where life was primitive and hard, she felt that on the few occasions which brought them out to civilization ... they should have comfortable rooms and good food. Obviously, two such opposite dispositions would not always agree."

I've certainly run into those kind of differences and tensions on the field. I ended up writing a whole paper about the principles missionary women seem to fall back on to make "lifestyle" decisions and how those decisions affect - or don't affect - the way locals see them. No definitive answer, by the way, but it was helpful just to unpack the nuances of that topic for people, since it can cause such conflicts on the field.

Anyway, John and Isobel had to do some dying to self to plan a wedding that would not unduly offend people's expectations. They wanted something small, but ended up inviting all the foreigners in Kunming. Of course, Mrs. A and Mrs. B did an awful lot of the work!

But the opportunity for conflict in such matters did not end there.

"One evening some days before the wedding, my hostess Mrs. A appeared at the supper table looking rather fatigued but triumphant. 'I've been all day working over at the Peng Gardens, getting some rooms ready for you and John to occupy on your honeymoon,' she announced.

"... I was quite overwhelmed with her kindness ... and was not slow to tell Mrs. B ... but I was quite unprepared for Mrs. B's reaction. 'Oh, but you can't do that!' she almost wailed. 'I've arranged for you to rent the honeymoon cottage across the lake. It does not cost much for a week...'"

I like John and Isobel's solution. They realized that what might be more important than picking the best situation for themselves, or earning favor with the two women (whom they would seldom see again, when they left for their new home), was avoiding resentment between Mrs. A. and Mrs. B over the matter. Isobel preferred that both neighbors be disgusted with her rather than one another. So she looked for a third place to go instead! When a fat check arrived from John's father they decided to spend it by giving themselves a week in the fanciest place in town.

"As we rode off in rickshaws for the French hotel, we turned to wave to our group of friends. There were our two dear hostesses, standing in unconscious union, trying to wave hopefully to us, but each dubiously shaking her head over those unmanageable and extravagant Kuhns."

If any of you are interested in exploring the topic more, I'd recommend the latest edition of Evangelical Missions Quarterly. It's focused on "Families in Mission" and includes articles on marriage, parenting, stress, furlough, and even a short "theology of the family in mission."

Fraser on Prayer

"Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase; and this increase can be brought down from heaven by believing prayer, whether offered in China or in England. We are, as it were, God’s agents - used by Him to do His work, not ours. We do our part, and then can only look to Him, with others, for His blessing. If this is so, then Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field.

"...Such work does not consist in curio exhibitions, lantern lectures, interesting reports, and so on. Good as they may be, these are only the fringe, not the root of the matter. Solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees. What I covet more than anything else, is earnest, believing prayer, and I write to ask you to continue in prayer for me and the work here."

- James O. Fraser, from a letter home quoted in The Prayer of Faith (which is posted in its entirety on the web here. My inside sources tell me it's also being reprinted for easy packaging with the new J.O. Fraser film).

J. O. Fraser Film Debut

(For more postings on the CIM, click here.)

Speaking of eyes (as I was a post or two ago), something that brought tears to mine was a line towards the end of the documentary / drama a friend and former co-worker of mine has created. Breakthrough tells the story of J. O. Fraser, who set sail for China from England 100 years ago Friday, under the China Inland Mission. The film debuted on the anniversary of that event.

The storyline comes from the biography Fraser’s daughter Eileen wrote, Mountain Rain. OMF (CIM) was aiming for something that could be shown in less than a one-hour time slot, so they had to keep it focused. The film centers on the early years of his ministry, particularly the years of discouragement when he really struggled in his faith before making the discoveries (especially pertaining to prayer) that gave him hope for a real breakthrough in ministry among the tribal Lisu people.

I had a few reservations about the project and was glad to see them put to rest. First off, I wondered if another 100-year-old missionary story was going to reinforce certain outdated perceptions people have about missions. Why are so many of the most popular missionary biographies, or subjects of missionary biographies, from so long ago? And in this case, would it be able to be true to the story and still tell it in a timeless way?

I think they pulled it off well. One thing that helped was that the number of scenes set in the UK were quite limited, and Fraser – like other CIM workers – was generally a stickler for living like the people once he got to China. With his Chinese-style house and clothes he doesn’t seem like a fuddy-duddy old-fashioned missionary, he seems more Chinese. Not sure how it all looks to a Chinese/Lisu audience, but as a Westerner I was not distracted by things that would make me think, “oh right, people were different back then.” It didn’t hurt that they used some modern music (although that decision may not sit well with all). So, it didn’t seem to me that the fact that the story took place a couple of generations ago was going to make it hard for people to identify with the characters.

Second, since they were trying to keep the production family-friendly, would it simplify or gloss over the man’s struggles and challenges, making him one-dimensional? That would reinforce the various assumptions people might have that missionaries are saints, or that the work is easy, or that we mission-types are childish, living in a dream world, and/or overly fond of painting the world in soft pastels like some kind of Precious Moments tableau...

I think the production was able to avoid all those traps as well. In fact, it goes out of its way to diffuse any "Christian hero" message viewers might mistakenly pick up.

The bit that made me cry? Well, once the Lisu did start to come to Christ one thing they really responded to was music. It came to play a significant role in the Lisu church, not only for worship but for teaching as well. Early missionaries - Fraser, Isobel Kuhn, and others - taught Lisu believers how to sing in parts. They were mostly using Western tunes with Lisu words. (I’d tend to think they would have done better to leave their foreign music behind and just tap into the Lisu styles, but I don’t really know much about that sort of thing when it comes down to it!) At any rate, what they did, it really worked for the Lisu. They were known as "the singing church."

When the CIM missionaries were forced out of China (around 1950), believers in the Lisu area gathered to say goodbye and express their gratitude to God for those who had given them so much. A choir of 800 Lisu Christians performed, in tribute, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in the Lisu language. The producers of Breakthrough recorded a similar performance – not of 800, but quite a few Lisu believers, and all in traditional dress – and played it behind the closing credits of this film. Very touching.

Read more about the film or get a copy here.

Women of the China Inland Mission: The Kid Sister - Amelia Hudson Taylor Broomhall

 See other postings on missions history here.

I'm not doing all this reading about the CIM because I'm obsessed with China. It's more that the story of the CIM is so well documented... and it featured so many women, which is great. With our present proximity to the OMF US office I have a library of books about 'em practically at my fingertips. Furthermore, many of the struggles these missionaries from 100+ years ago faced are not so different from the challenges that face our mission efforts today.

Mission historian Ruth Tucker – never one to pull her punches – has some more critical things to say about the CIM than I've seen elsewhere (though she praises them in many ways as well). One of her claims is that after facing as much high-profile criticism as they did, the CIM became very secretive. JHT himself laid down the law when he insisted that nothing "potentially harmful" to the mission make its way into the files. Kind of a sketchy policy, that!

That may have helped lay the foundation for a lot of writing that is just too... worshipful? This volume which I found online is a good example – Looks to be a tiresomely treacle-y tribute, no alternate interpretations or dark sides allowed! Members of the family were also careful to clean up Taylor's own writings lest any of his foolishness or quirks hurt his respectability. (Even now, you'll find more balanced accounts coming from publishers other than OMF).

I wonder if anyone has written a book or done a study that specifically looks at the women in ol’ James Hudson Taylor's world? What roles did they play in his life and the life of the mission? Maybe such a work exists, something a bit less ambitious than Valerie Griffith’s Not Less Than Everything, which is much more far reaching.

I'd put his mom on the list, and Maria and Jennie and Emily too.

But right up there would have to be Amelia, Taylor's younger sister. Here are some glimpses of her life, drawn primarily from this engaging little paperback I read over the weekend, Each to Her Post: The Inspiring Lives of Six Great Women in China, by Phyllis Thompson.* Brace yourself; it's awfully sweet!

Amelia's Story

“Hudson Taylor’s sister Amelia has been a rather shadowy background figure in the annals of the mission he brought into being, yet she had a most significant bearing on it. She was her brother’s closest confidante for years, and from the beginning to the end of his life she was woven into its warp and woof.

“Let us draw back the curtain of time, then, and meet a thirteen-year-old Victorian schoolgirl, complete with corkscrew curls, a demure expression, ankle-length skirts and well-starched pinafore, named Amelia…” (Thompson, p. 8)

Intercession

Although their father was a local preacher on the Methodist circuit and actively training up young men as evangelists, his 17-year-old son Hudson apparently found the whole business rather irksome. Even after his strict religious upbringing he was skeptical about God, Christianity, and the church. Thirteen-year-old Amelia knew just what was wrong.

“She had found that arguing with him about it left him completely unconvinced, so she decided to get at him another way. She would pray for him every day. She would pray three times every day that God would convert him.” (Thompson, p. 13).

Ha, there’s a way to get back at your rebellious siblings! (Can't say I've tried it. Though I'm more the rebel than Meg is!)

It was not long before he did, indeed, have a conversion experience, which began to bear fruit immediately. Amelia was the first he confided in about the matter. In her "maidenly reticence," she could never have confessed her role in the matter, but he found out anyway, and was grateful. It only strengthened the bond between them.

The two of them took to the streets distributing tracts door to door, and frequently spoke or wrote to each other about their desires and efforts to grow in godliness. During this time, Hudson became persuaded God was calling him to go to China as a missionary.

Schoolgirl

Amelia, like most girls of her set, was schooled entirely at home until this point. But she soon left to join the small boarding school run by her aunt in a nearby city. There she continued her sheltered, protected existence, never going out without an escort. You can imagine her delight when, for her sixteenth birthday, her brother arranged to bring her on a remarkable outing – to spend a week in London!

“She had never been there before. Whether she actually saw Queen Victoria and her consort is not recorded, but it is certain that her kindly uncle took her around to see the sights, including the newly opened British Museum within a few minutes walk of his home.

"She saw the coaches of the wealthy conveying dignified gentlemen and elegantly dressed ladies, clip-clopping along the broad thoroughfares of Regent’s Park and Piccadilly, the bands playing in the park, and the magnificent homes on Park Lane, though it is doubtful if she ever caught more than a glimpse of the filthy narrow back streets and yards of Dickens’ London. A Victorian uncle would have shielded an innocent young niece from anything so sordid.

"She must be shown only the splendid sights, the most wonderful of all being the fabulous Crystal Palace, the masterpiece of cast iron and glass dominating the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.

"It was Hudson who took her there, on her birthday, and after wandering among the fairy-like scenes set among ferns and flowers, he crowned it all for her by taking her to a restaurant where they were served, among other delicacies, with a pineapple.” (Thompson, p. 19)

Nice! I do like the bit about the pineapple. While they were in London they met with others interested in China and moved things further along on that front.

Decisions

Amelia’s schooldays came to an abrupt ending when one of her aunts died, leaving an uncle and brood of young cousins in need of someone to keep house for them. It was clear to everyone that this was where Amelia’s duty lay. Oh yes. Such were the times.

That’s where she was when the news came that her brother had made an arrangement with the China Evangelization Society to leave for China as soon as his passage could be arranged. Though this had been his dream for some years, its realization was sudden. It was September when he left, and she got her first letter from him – written the day he arrived in China – in April or May. He was to write frequently, and often he mentioned his earnest desire for Amelia to come join him in China.

But she hesitated; much as she loved her brother, she did not want to leave her parents "bereft" of two children, and she did not feel that compelling sense of calling which her brother had. She went back and forth on it.

And then there was Benjamin Broomhall, a young man in her father’s Sunday school class, and a friend of Hudson’s, who in time asked permission to begin corresponding with her. This was equivalent to engagement in their circles, and Hudson made no secret how deeply grieved he was by the news:

“For the last ten years I have hoped to have you with me in China; now you have disappointed me, you know not how much. This week this thought has sometimes come over me with such force that I have felt almost heartbroken.” (Thompson, p. 24)

Amelia apparently had a similar struggle when her brother, having found the woman who would be his wife and partner (after being rejected by the lovely Miss Vaughn, Amelia's music teacher!), he no longer put Amelia first in his affections but only had eyes for Maria! In her letters, Amelia mentions that her brother had often said he wished she wasn't his sister so she could be his life's companion. Doesn't that sound a bit creepy? So maybe it's best they both married!

The Broomhalls and the CIM

Amelia was by no means selling out when she married Benjamin: Both were devoutly seeking God and willing to serve in China, but came to the conclusion, after much struggle, that they were not called there. So they lived a more common life; Benjamin built a career and Amelia raised ten healthy children. (No small achievement, that. Certainly not one her friends and relations who went to China managed).

Thompson describes how she carefully trained her children to pray, and to sit still when necessary; she seemed to have a knack for running a happy, orderly household. In fact, she was really good at homemaking and raising kids. Those are important if unglamorous skills. Not just everyone can do them well.

Amelia's life was quite different from that of some of the outspoken, adventurous, independent women God raised up in and through the CIM – women like Maria and Jennie – but she was to play an important part in her own way.

At age 40, when her youngest was just three months old, she put those skills and talents to work in some new ways. The CIM had survived its shaky beginnings and reputation problems and begun to grow. Fresh, capable leaders were needed for the home office and training program. The ever-steady Benjamin and Amelia seemed just the couple to step into that role.

He became the imperturbable administrator, advocate, and spokesperson, roles in which he thrived. She, while shrinking from the limelight, kept the mission home running smoothly – with meals on the table, a welcoming, hospitable and peaceful environment, and a listening ear for mission candidates and anyone else who needed encouragement. She was always there. She knew everyone's name. She prayed for them.  When Hudson’s second wife, Jennie, went back to China by herself for an important mission, Amelia took in their seven children in addition to the ten of her own; they were a rollicking brood of 17. The neighbors naturally thought someone had opened a school!

I love the way Thompson describes the impact the Broomhalls had on soothing and supporting the members of the young mission:

“As for Mr. Broomhall, he always seemed to have at his fingertips all sorts of useful information… If you had been in inland China for ten years, it was very bewildering to find yourself in the busy streets of London where everyone seemed in a hurry and the horses pranced along at such a pace… It was helpful to have someone who could find out the time of your train back home to Scotland, and tell you which station it went from.

"But when he did all that and then escorted you there, saw about getting your luggage into the van, tipped the porter, bought your ticket, saw you comfortably settled in your compartment, ensured that you had all you needed for the journey... well, it somehow put new life into you and made you forget how shabby and old-fashioned you felt wearing the clothes you’d pulled out of the trunk you’d left behind ten years ago.” (Thompson, pp. 34-35)

Legacy

The Broomhalls ran the mission home for 20 years, and saw four of their own children go to China with the CIM (one married Hudson Taylor's successor D.E. Hoste). Even after Benjamin died and she was old and frail, having to be pushed about in her "bath chair," Amelia continued to take an active role through prayer and relationships. The Candidate Secretary liked her to meet the prospective new missionaries so she could "size them up." Amelia was considered a kind but shrewd judge of character. Her encouragement helped candidates through the rough patches; her discernment kept the mission from making mistakes.

Thompson sums up her legacy like this:

“She never went to China, performed no acts of outstanding courage, had no spectacular achievements to her credit, swayed no audiences with her eloquence. Hers was an unusually sheltered life, from beginning to end surrounded by deep family love… On the face of it she has no claim to a place in the annals of a mission that has worked and suffered in the Far East for over one hundred years, and she certainly would not have claimed it for herself. But the sum total of a mission’s quality is not contained in its outward activity, any more than the value of a tree lies only in its fruit. Without the root under the ground, there would be no tree. Without the Amelias, there would be no Mission.” (Thompson, pp. 40-41).

* Thompson's book also includes biographical essays on Jennie Taylor, Margaret King, Jessie Gregg, Dr. Jessie McDonald, and Lilian Hamer. This work is evidently written more for a popular audience than an academic one, and her sources are not well documented. A. J. Broomhall (grandson of Amelia) ended up writing a seven-volume history of the CIM which probably includes a great deal of what is known about this early cast of characters, but I haven't checked it out.

6/23/15 See a recent piece about the Broomhall family (though focused on the men) here: http://omf.org/us/the-broomhalls-and-china/

Women of the China Inland Mission: Emily Blatchley and Jennie Faulding

More on this topic here. Primary Source: Not Less Than Everything, by Valerie Griffiths.

Photo: public domain image of Emily Blatchley; reprinted in Wikipedia here.

When the CIM was founded in 1865, its leaders approached many things differently than the existing agencies did. While some of us might consider the CIM’s policies and practices enlightened and ahead of their time, others were less impressed.

“None [of Hudson Taylor’s] policies was more radical than his decision to send single women as well as men to go to China as equal members of the mission. He scandalized Victorian Britain, just as Florence Nightingale had done ten years earlier when she took nurses to the Crimean War. In England, unmarried women lived with their families and never set up house on their own. However… [Taylor] knew that without the help of Christian women, the women of China were inaccessible.

“The call went out for single women to be equal members of the mission with men, and before they sailed, he realized that since he expected the married women to work alongside their husbands, they too should be recognized as full members. Later he would spell it out even more clearly to recruits.

“‘It is most important that married missionaries should be double missionaries… unless you intend your wife to be a true missionary, not merely a wife, homemaker, and friend, do not join us…’

"Taylor was indeed breaking new ground." (Griffiths, p. 56)

Taylor’s wife, Maria, was a tremendously hard worker. She’d begun her ministry in China while still in her teens, and with marriage increased her stresses and responsibilities much more than they would today: Back in England (while keeping house, raising children, and suffering a great deal in pregnancy), she served as secretary to her husband, taught Chinese to new recruits, worked on Bible translation, and ran the new mission agency when her husband was sick or traveling.

Among those who served alongside these the Taylors were two young women whose parents had entrusted them to the couple’s care. Jennie Faulding and Emily Blatchley were barely out of their teens.

Emily became the governess for the Taylors’ four children, running the household when Maria was on bed rest or coughing up blood (!) from a lung disease. (Maria’s health was always a problem). Jennie helped with correspondence. The four of them and more than a dozen more (the Lammermuir party) left for China in 1866.

Yes, some disapproved; when rumors flew, the Taylors had to put much energy into proving that there was no impropriety in the situations concerning the single women. [And Hudson, the dear man, had to stop giving the two 'girls' goodnight kisses (!)]

Emily’s Story

When they got to China Emily continued to care for the care for the children and also stepped into Maria’s shoes as Taylor’s secretary. Together she and Maria weathered the difficult summer when all the children had the measles, two of them apparently at death’s door. Maria was pregnant again and nursing a very sick baby when the house was attacked by an angry anti-foreign mob. The crowd set fire to the house. The missionaries staying there threw mattresses down and made a rope ladder out of sheet which they used to lower several of the women and children down before the crowd set the mattresses and rope on fire. Maria and Emily had to jump from the roof and both were injured.

By 1870 it became apparent that the two older Taylor children ought to return to England for schooling, and the younger two had health problems which suggested they would do better in England as well. One, in fact, died before they could be sent away. Reluctantly Hudson and Maria decided to send their other children home, keeping only the baby with them. Who did they send home with the kids? Emily. Emily was like a second mother to the children. Maria sent her with a letter encouraging the grandparents to consider her one of the family.

Emily was heartbroken at leaving China but it seemed necessary. Emily’s health was also suffering: She had tuberculosis, and it was spreading. Moreover, the home office of the CIM needed someone with her skills and insight. That's right, though only 25 years old, she knew much more of China than those on the council back in London.

The men who formed the London Council were not very responsible and did not appreciate what it really took to keep the mission running. They were happy to leave as much responsibility as possible to “competent, reliable Emily” without actually giving her much authority. Meanwhile, her strength was ebbing away. Imagine what it would be like, especially without today's advances and conveniences, to practically be a single mom to three kids and run a ministry (while appearing not to) at the same time. Oh yeah, and slowly dying of TB. 

But if being a single missionary woman (on the field or on the home front) was challenging, being a married missionary woman (in either place) was more so. With so much illness and high maternal mortality rates, getting pregnant could almost be a death sentence. Evidentally birth control was either unavailable or not considered an option. Back in China, Maria had not lived long after saying goodbye to her older children. She died at age 33 shortly after giving birth to her sixth child. 

Hudson was far from well himself. He had faced great criticism from all sides, and stress always brought on an attack of dysentery. He had lost his wife and two children in five months, and he was still carrying tremendous responsibility for leading, caring for, and tending to the medical needs of many others.

Within the year his mother wrote to him suggesting he marry again. He needed a wife; his children needed a mother. Naturally, she suggested Emily. Her son, though, recognized that Emily was probably too ill and frail to step into the gap. (Not that his health was that good, but his body would never pay the price of childbirth.)

But remember Emily's good friend Jennie Faulding, the other adopted member of the family? Though much stronger, she was also exhausted by her five years in China and a battle with malaria. She had to go back to England for a rest, and she and Taylor ended up on the same ship.

He liked her. She liked him. By all accounts she was very congenial. By the time they reached London they were engaged.

“One of Taylor’s hardest tasks was to break the news to Emily Blatchely by letter before they reached home.” (Griffiths, p. 38)

How hard it must have been on Emily! Was she in love with the man? I don't know. But what is clear is that she truly expected to be the next "Mrs" as was sorely disappointed when he married her friend instead. Emily continued to raise the kids and run the home office while Hudson and Jennie got well and got to go back to China. If Taylor chose Jennie over Emily because he did not think Emily was strong enough, we was proven right: she was not to live long.

Jennie, of course, has a story of her own. I’ll save it for another day.

Another Western Woman in Eastern Lands: Miss Mary Ann Aldersey

Source: Not Less Than Everything, by Valerie Griffiths.

In 1834 a group of British women came together to form a new ministry with the good Victorian name The Society for the Promoting Female Education in [India, China, and] the East. Over the next 40 years they sent more than 150 single women, mostly mature women with teaching experience, to China, Southeast Asia, India, South Africa, and the Middle East, to set up schools for local children. Other agencies that refused to accept single women nevertheless depended on the SPFEE for a supply of teachers.

One of the founding committee members of this ministry was Mary Ann Aldersey. When she was 30 she gave a large donation to the London Missionary Society to encourage them to send out a pair of single women, and canvassed her friends to do the same. A clergyman impressed by her enthusiasm finally asked, “Why don’t you go yourself, Miss Aldersey?”

She was on the point of doing so when her brother was widowed. Mary Ann was expected to take over supervising his household and eight children [another source says five]. While she resented the delay, the experience with children certainly helped equip her for future ministry. When her brother remarried in 1837, Mary Ann, now 40, was free to go. She was also able to support herself through her own means - always handy when you are doing the unexpected!

Foreigners were still forbidden to live in China so she sailed for Indonesia, and ended up spending her first years in the city of Surabaya. Living outside the capital and teaching Christianity in a Muslim area she might have faced more opposition that she could withstand, but, as she said, 

“‘My weakness was my strength. It was not expected that a woman missionary’s activities would do much good or harm.’ There would be many times in the future when women missionaries could go where men could not, simply because of that assumption.” (Griffiths, p. 20)

In time, treaties between China and Western governments allowed foreigners to live in China. In 1843 Mary Ann became the first single Western woman to set foot there. Her 12-year-old adopted daughter came with her, and they were soon joined by two Javanese girls who had become Christians at her school in Surabaya.

The government may have allowed them to live there, but plenty of hardship and local opposition remained. Dysentery, cholera, and typhoid were constant threats, and summer temperatures were stifling. When disasters struck the Chinese believed someone must have offended the spirits and the foreigners were obvious scapegoats. Mary Ann, committed to preserving her health, also took daily morning walks along the city walls, which led to rumors that she was communing with "the spirits of the night." 

“Moreover she wanted to teach their girls, and everyone knew that was a waste of money: girls married and left home, and they were a burden on the family from the day they were born until the day their married. Rumours abounded that Mary Ann had murdered all her own children and now wanted theirs.” (Griffiths, p. 30)

Mary Ann persisted. By 1852, when she was 55, this British lady was a pillar of the community, held in high respect by both the foreigners and the Chinese. 

“The local Chinese decided that, since Britain was ruled by a woman, the Queen had sent Miss Aldersey to rule the British in Ningbo.” (p. 34)

Miss Aldersey fits certain missionary stereotypes. A visitor remarked, admiringly, that “the orderly and self-respecting habits of her early years remained unchanged.” The product of an upper-middle class home, she felt it was important to maintain discipline and decorum. Does that show integrity, or inflexibility?

I first heard about Miss Aldersey as the one who had forced young Maria Dyer to reject Hudson Taylor’s first offer of marriage. Maria was serving under Miss Aldersey, teaching in the Ningbo school. In Miss Aldersey’s eyes Taylor was uncouth, unqualified, and a Sabbath-breaker to boot! But was it necessary for Miss Aldersey to oppose Maria’s interest in him (and his in her) so vehemently? She actually dictated Maria’s letter of rejection, including the sentence instructing him to never bring up the matter again. (They ended up getting married in the end anyway, but that’s another story.)

Considering the world she grew up in, the world to which she had come, and the role she played in bridging the two, I find more sympathy for Miss Aldersey than I thought I would. 

“These were the early days for overseas missions. Arguments raged between those who believed in preserving their Western culture and dignity in other lands, and those who abandoned the trappings of the West and adopted the ways of the place where they had lived.” (Griffiths, p. 34)

I’m still a big fan of cultural sensitivity and identifying with those you wish to serve, so you can say, “follow me as I follow Christ.” You might expect Mary Ann Aldersey’s white table cloths and Victorian manners to get in the way, but perhaps they did not. She still offered hospitality unstintingly, and she loved and served the Chinese even if she was not willing to live as they did. She was effective; she was well loved. Maria would live her life quite differently, but it wasn’t just their relative positions that caused her to see Miss Aldersey as a role-model.

One woman who reminisced about meeting Miss Aldersey said she had expected to meet “a tall, masculine-looking person with a mind and will of her own,” and must have certainly found that mind and will were there, but also called her “one of the loveliest little women it has been my privilege to meet. She captured my heart from the start.” (Griffiths, p. 35)

Would that we could all transcend the limitations, personality issues, and prejudices we all have, to love and bless those around us!

Women of the China Inland Mission: Nellie Marchbank

More on this topic here.

"Am so tired – Oh, for someone to understand, someone to lean on just for a little while to feel real human sympathy. But there is more need to sympathise than to get sympathy. Oh, Master, at such a time, Thou art the One I need." (1895 Diary, Nellie Marchbank, after seven years in China. She was leading the CIM work in Guixi.)

The Guangxin River area was one of the CIM's most successful areas of church-planting, and all the key players were single women. Most had little education; previously many had been clerks, dressmakers, governesses. Nellie had come from a poor Scottish family, and did not arrive on the field until after her widowed mother passed away. Nellie was nearly 30 – older than most of her colleagues. Only three years after leaving her work as a household servant, however, she found herself the senior missionary in her district in China.

Back in England and in his travels around the world, Hudson Taylor was praying and calling for 1000 more workers. Nellie soon found herself supervising six of them. Her responsibilities continued to increase. During her 35 years in China 37 women of many nationalities were trained by serving alongside her. They traveled from village to village (often in wheelbarrows!) tirelessly teaching and ministering to men, women, and children. They worked side by side with Chinese "Bible women" and other local Christians. Thousand heard the gospel because of their ministry, and hundreds responded.

While the CIM missionaries may have, at times, felt they were at a disadvantage because they were all single women, it was clear that their status had significant advantages as well.

"...Missionaries and nationals worked together in teams as brothers and sisters. If missionary men had been around, oriental culture decreed that the nationals would have deferred to them. The missionary women, however, provided someone with experience and wisdom who could be consulted, but still allowed the local leaders to take responsibility in the local churches." (Valerie Griffiths, Not Less Than Everything, pp. 117-118)

Not only did the work prosper more because it was entrusted to single women, but their safety was also increased, not decreased, by the fact that there were no Western men present. When anti-Western riots ransacked the town, Nellie wrote, "our peace and our safety lies (under God) in the fact that we are women." (quoted in Griffiths, p. 121)

I love the way God uses people with different kinds of personalities, breaking out of our expectations and ideals. Consider what Geraldine Taylor (married to Hudson Taylor's son Howard) said when she and her husband visited Nellie (then aged 60). Geraldine wrote,

"We had never imagined anything like the station and work we found in Kweiki. And it is all the expression of this woman's soul. How well I remember meeting her for the first time 30 years ago. I wondered then whether she would ever learn the language, and get in touch with the people. I little realized then that she was already far more of a missionary than I. She had been out a few months longer, but was so reserved, that I, taken up with dear Katie Mackintosh – my ideal of all a missionary should be – was wholly unconscious of the depth and power..." (Griffiths, p. 129)

Probably the apostle Paul said it best:

"Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” (I Corinthians 1:26-30)

Women of the China Inland Mission: Mary Ann Nicol, Fanny Clarke

Here's another glimpse from the lives of pioneering missionary women, based on Valerie Griffiths' excellent book Not Less Than Everything. More postings like this here. I'm planning to write another one about Emily Blatchley and Jennie Faulding. We'll see what others rise to the surface.

* * *

In September 1879, a year after the two women had arrived in China, Mary Ann and Fanny married their husbands, George Nicol and George Clarke, in a double ceremony. Both couples were members of the China Inland Mission, founded in 1865. The two men had arrived in China in 1875. In November of 1879, two months into their marriages, the four set off on a ten-week journey up the Yangtze River.

After a difficult voyage (which included two shipwrecks in the icy river) they reached their destination, where the Nicols were to stay, during Chinese New Year’s. Local women were busy with preparations for the festivities, but their curiosity was greater than their busy-ness; they wanted to see the foreign women.

Every day about 200 Chinese women would make their way down the narrow street in the heart of the city, through the courtyard and into the house to catch a glimpse of the foreign women. When the holiday was over, the numbers rose to 500! The lane outside the house was jammed with their sedan chairs and bearers, reports Valerie Griffiths; the room full of smoke from the women’s pipes.

“Mary Ann’s language skills improved by leaps and bounds, but as the crowds continued month after month, and the summer heat increased, she became more and more exhausted. She would snatch moments during the day to write letters home in the midst of the crowds, or else she would write late at night. Often she was called out to the opium suicide victims, sometimes two or three times in a night.

“After Fanny Clark moved on, Mary Ann did not see another European woman for two years, but the local women gave her their friendship and support. One elderly lady saw her plight in the summer head and would take her back to her own home to rest and relax, and sit and fan her while she slept. Mary Ann had open access into the upper-class homes of the Mandarins, and women confined to their homes welcomed her and listened to the Bible stories she told them.”

(Not Less Than Everything, pp. 90-91)

I don’t like to hold up one example of what life was like then – or is like today – for missionary women, and imply that that’s how it was.

Consider how different things turned out for Fanny than they had for Mary Ann. The Clarkes kept going several weeks further inland, over slippery mountain trails made slick by winter rains. Fanny was the first Western woman to reach Guizhou. Within a few months were joined by Jane Kidd, the first single woman to go so far inland, and the recently widowed Ellen McCarthy, who had only arrived in China the previous year. (Can you imagine being in the shoes of any of these women?)

But building relationships among the local people was much more difficult for the Clarkes than it had been for the George and Mary Ann. George Clarke tried to start a school, but only one boy came. The Clarkes planned to stay in Guizhou only a short time; they were waiting for their baby son to be old enough to travel. When died at the age of five weeks, there was nothing to keep them. They continued their journey on into Yunnan Province. Their nearest coworkers were now 500 miles away, and mail now took five months to reach or come from the coast.

“Their surroundings at Tali were incredibly beautiful, with snow covered mountains rising 15,000 feet around the great lake. The town was quite a different matter. A house had been rented for them, but the other occupants refused to move out and they had to share it for six months. Further attempts to rent a house were blocked, and the whole atmosphere was one of rumor and suspicion.”

Moreover, the community was marked by addiction, violence, abuse, and mistrust.

“Fanny was mobbed if she went out, so she received women at home. At first she could get no house help. She felt as if she were up against a brick wall, and achieving nothing.”

“Kunming was harder, if anything. The women there were fearful and withdrawn, and would not go near Fanny or invite her to their homes.”

(Not Less Than Everything, pp. 92-93)

Fanny never recovered from the birth of her second son, but died six weeks after he was born. Her husband buried her, conducting a short service at her graveside, and walked home alone carrying their six-week-old baby.

As Fanny Clarke lay dying she felt she had accomplished very little, but she said, “Others will come after us.”

Tough stuff, huh? Was Mary Ann doing things right and Fanny doing things wrong, than one had so much more of a positive experience than the other? I don't think so. And when we go out today, should we expect to be overwhelmed by opportunities and relationships, or isolated and alone, unable to make a friend? Either may easily be the case. When put ourselves forward to be used for God’s purposes, we can be confident that we will be used, but we don’t know what part we will play. This is nothing new.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 11:13-16, NIV)

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I met a woman at the conference in Thailand who said something that really got my attention. I don't even know who it was, so I can't follow up with her. "Are you going to write another book?" she said. Um, should I? "You should! You should write about expectations. We have so many people who come out to our field who have unrealistic expectations. Especially Americans. We need some tools to help people set appropriate expectations."

Well, I have tremendous struggles on that front, myself; everything to learn, nothing to teach. But that's the beauty of being a researcher/writer. I could actually do this. All I'd need to do is put myself in a position to learn from those who have something to say, faithfully listen to them and write down what they say. I'd get so much out of it. Just one of those sneaky ways I could do a master's (well, the functional equivalent) without paying for it. [Though, on that front, a major Christian U. is offering members of our organization a 50% discount on tuition, which might make doing things the formal way a possibility for me.]

Of course that's just one of many research projects I could pursue in years to come. Who knows what will rise to the surface? It's fun to have lots of ideas and opportunities. I'm trying to avoid making any promises I cannot keep.

More Missionary Women Stories

More on this topic here.

One of best books I've read in years is Valerie Griffiths' Not Less Than Everything, which is about the first missionaries in the modern era to go to China, and, in particular, the first women missionaries. I remember seeing parallel after parallel to situations in the Muslim world today, but I couldn't remember the details. So when I packed for my study/rest/reflection time in the Seattle area, I tucked Griffiths' book into my suitcase. Time for a re-read.

In the early nineteenth century foreigners were not allowed to make permanent residence in China - so, no foreign missionaries. The London Missionary Society was very interested in taking the gospel to the Chinese people, but the best they could do was settle in the nearby coastal cities with large Chinese populations, places like Singapore, Penang, and Jakarta.

In the years to come China would open up, and many of the first to walk through those open doors were women. There may have been many reasons for that, but one must have been that more women than men were needed. Think about it:

"Two hundred years ago the women of China spent most of their lives in their homes. For over a thousand years the custom of foot-binding (to produce 'lily' feet three or four inches long) had crippled millions of women, and made walking painful, if not impossible. The first missionaries to China soon realized that unless Christian women could visit them in their homes - a massive task - they would never hear the message of God's love." (Griffiths, p. 10)

One of the first openings came with setting up schools for girls. While in some Chinese families, the birth of a daughter was welcomed, in other cases daughters were seen as a financial burden, and it was rare for a girl to be educated. Even beyond the times and places where foot-binding was practiced, girls typically lost much of their freedom by the time they were 11 or 12. They would be confined to home until their early marriages, after which they would rarely leave the house. So one of the first things missionary wives and widows (not typically identified as being actually missionaries themselves, since that 'rank' was reserved for ordained men) did, was to set up set up schools for young Chinese girls in the coastal towns.

Among the early Christian school teachers were a pair of sisters named Maria and Burella Dyer, daughters of a London Missionary Society missionary couple. It was their father's dying wish that his wife and children carry on his work serving the Chinese people. After their parents died they girls spent five years in England until returning to East Asia at the ages of 15 and 18.

"When Maria Dyer married Hudson Taylor in 1858, she had already packed more adventure and achievement into her 21 years than most Victorian ladies experienced in a lifetime." (Griffiths, p. 45)

She was not the only one. By 1900 there were two missionary women in China for every man, and their work among women (and beyond) was crucial to the growth of the church in that country. Such is the case today in places like the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And while the cultures (ours and theirs) still provide varying levels of opposition to the development of the gifts of women, I'm encouraged at how these obstacles were overcome in China. And, as Griffiths points out,

"In the process, these Western women were liberated from Victorian customs and expectations; they found themselves gifted for work in teaching and evangelism which would have been impossible in their churches at home. At the same time, the Christian message liberated their Chinese sisters too. For the first time in their lives the Chinese saw women living far away from their families, educated, unmarried, able to travel, and capable of more than they had ever dreamed. They were soon working together. The uneducated Bible women taught the missionaries how to communicate with the Chinese women, and the missionaries enabled the local women to take the message of God's love to their neighbors." (Griffiths, p. 10)