More about Lilias Trotter: newsletters, show and tell, and single women on short-term teams

As I mentioned briefly in The Legacy of Lilias Trotter, Lilias served in and around Algiers, on the coast of North Africa, with easy access to Europe. In contrast with some other pioneering missionaries (say, David Livingstone, who famously dropped off the radar and refused to go back to England when he was finally found) Lilias made time for public speaking tours, refreshing vacations in the Alps, mission conferences, and Keswick conventions. Keeping up with her contacts in Europe does not seem to have dampened her commitment to Africa or her appreciation of Arab ways and mindsets. And the ministry seems to have benefited a great deal through her connections.

The growth and support of the ministry may have owed something to her faithfulness in sending what we now call prayer letters:

“At the beginning of 1907 Lilias started the habit of sending out a bi-monthly prayer circular to a large group of friends in England and France. They were beautifully written and illustrated and, no doubt, greatly increased the volume of believing prayer that ascended to God at that time; and all this tied in with what she had been learning the past few months, for God was about to send new workers and open new doors of opportunity in a remarkable way” (Patricia St. John, Until the Day Breaks, p. 118).

Around that time, Lily got a letter from a friend letting her know that a two ships carrying some 600 American delegates to Rome for an international Sunday School convention would be stopping in Algiers for a few hours. The leader was hoping they could stop in and meet with missionaries in Algiers and learn about the work. Sounds like Lilias was felt pressured to sum up her work in such a short visit, and embarrassed that they didn’t have schools, hospitals, and what she calls "the ordinary outworks of a Mission Station to show,” but she told them they could have the chance to see a work just at its beginnings and carefully prepared an engaging, hands-on exhibition that introduced the visitors to some of those they were serving among and showed their work at its best advantage.

When an offering was later taken, that short shore excursion would bring in full funding for five women who arrived to begin work in that year (Rockness, A Passion for the Impossible, p. 199; St. John, p. 119).

A few years later, in 1911, Lily used a summer visit to England to recruit short-term missionaries, “educated girls who could ‘come on a self-supporting basis for a time of service in all the countless ways in which such can be rendered with a small knowledge of the language, if hands and hearts are ready.’”

The short-term mission movement would not take off for another 50 years or more and I’m not sure what other early models may have existed. But a steady stream of young ladies-of-leisure came to Algiers for periods of different lengths until World War I interfered. Lilias, who would have been in her late fifties at this point, seems to have enjoyed having the young people around (Rockness, p. 200).

The tributes that came in after Lily’s 1928 death claim “she never lost her enthusiasm or her capacity for wonder,” that she was “always interested in new points of view, or new methods, even though she might not agree with them,” and never failed to offer mercy and encouragement to her younger coworkers (Rockness, p. 274-5).

Sending out engaging reports, inviting fans and supporters to see the ministry up close, hosting short-term teams, and committing oneself to benefiting from the fresh wind of new people and ideas also characterize many of the healthier ministries I know today... just as they did in Lily’s day.

The Legacy of Lilias Trotter (1853-1928)

Isabelle Lilias Trotter:
Missionary, artist, writer,
and mission leader

Life in England

Lilias Trotter grew up in the golden age of Victorian England, educated at home by governesses but encouraged to develop her potential and use her gifts. These included an unusual appreciation of beauty and facility for drawing and painting. Her early life was punctuated by family trips to Europe where she reveled in the natural beauty she found at every turn and was seldom without a sketchbook. Lily kept illustrated journals through every phase of her life and left behind a wealth of published materials as well as letters and diaries capturing her thoughts and experiences.

But the real focus of her life wasn't art, it was God. Her faith was kindled through the Holiness movement which swept through England in the 1870's, led in part by Quaker and Methodist revivalists from America, including the popular Dwight L. Moody. Throughout her life Lilias would attend "Keswick Convention" events which grew out of their revival meetings whenever she could. And through these meetings, Lilias and her friends surrendered their lives to Christ and his service. Her writings make clear that relationship with God was of primary importance.

Lilias gave more and more of her time to serving the needy in the slums of London through the YWCA, then in its infancy. When she was 35, she felt a call to ministry in North Africa.

Life in Algeria

Lilias and two friends, all well-educated single women, traveled to Algeria to make a home for themselves there. They moved into the Arab section of the casbah, amid narrow winding streets, hoping to be used by God. Rejected by mission agencies, they were not discouraged, apparently, from going out on their own. As Lilias later wrote:

"None of us would have been passed by a doctor for any missionary society. We did not know a soul in the place, or a sentence of Arabic, nor had we a clue as to how to begin work on such untouched ground. We only knew we had to come. If God needed weakness, he had it! We were on a fool’s errand, so it seemed, and we are on it still, and glory in it.”

Algiers may seem far away and exotic to us, but for Lilias, it was not really that far from home; Britons who wished to visit North Africa need only take a train across France and board a ship for a relatively short journey from Marseilles to Algiers. She seems to have initially expected to live there six months of the year, keeping a commitment to come home and nurse an invalid sister the other six. The sister died unexpectedly. In the years to come, though, Lilias (whose own health was shaky) took frequent and sometimes extended breaks to rest in England, Switzerland, or other parts of Europe.

For 40 years Lilias lived and served in North Africa, sacrificing the comfortable life and promising art career she might have had in England with what she called “the liberty of those who have nothing to lose because they have nothing to keep.” She and her coworkers learned Arabic, taught the Bible, set up classes of all kinds of men, women, and children, traveled extensively, and pioneered all kinds of strategies for connecting with the lives and hearts of their Arab friends in culturally appropriate ways.

No mention is made, in anything I've read, about giving up marriage and family; perhaps she had no desire to pursue that path. I'm not sure. Maybe nobody thought that was a sacrifice. At her death she left behind only relationships, a wealth of devotional material that spoke to the hearts of the people, and a band of 30 missionaries, mostly women, who looked to her as their leader and continued reaching out to the people of North Africa years before breakthrough came to the region.

Learning about Lilias: Three Books

The "Algiers Mission Band" eventually became part of the North Africa Mission (renamed Arab World Ministries) which merged with Pioneers in 2010... not long after I came into Pioneers, also through a merger, so I guess that gives me a tie to Lilias Trotter.

I wonder what she would think if she peered into the new Pioneers building in Orlando and saw signs directing visitors to the Trotter Conference Center, named in her honor? It was in writing some material to describe her legacy (and perhaps explain why we were using her name) that I decided I needed to learn more about her.

Decided to start at the school library. CIU was founded by Robertson McQuilkin, a holiness movement leader in America and an avid supporter of world missions. Both streams are still a strong part of the CIU culture. Some students major in "Muslim Studies" and take classes from the "Zwemer Center," named after another pioneering missionary who was a friend and colleague of our friend Lilias. With that many connections, I should not have been surprised to find a collection of Lilias Trotter biographies in the school library. I checked out three and read them through, one after the other.

I started with Patricia St. John's 1990 biography. It follows the conventions of missionary biography, providing an easy to read, inspirational narrative strong on devotion but sometimes weak on details, explanation, or analysis. I was surprised to realize it was a 1990 book, as it felt as if it were written for an earlier time.

I then picked up a more modern work by Miriam Rockness (2003) which has some of the same flavor as St. John's book but is written for a contemporary audience. It is stronger academically. Rockness cites her sources more carefully and fills in some of the gaps with background or analysis. It's harder to read, though; I can see where someone who wasn't determined to finish it might not make it through. Long, unedited quotes are formatted somewhat awkwardly (double-spaced italics with original spelling and punctuation). In reviews, some readers were quite critical of Rockness, calling her a poor writer compared to Trotter herself. I don't think I'd agree. But the tone slips back and forth between devotional and scholarly, and one looking for one or the other might struggle with that.

Finally, I skimmed a 1929 book primarily made up of Trotter's letters and journal entries, edited and published shortly after her death by her friend and coworker Blanche Pigott. I suspect Lilias, who often reworked her journal entries for publication, would appreciate Blanche's efforts to clean up her work. But it does mean we're not getting quite the real deal; I can see why Rockness went back to the archives. This one reads as more a collection of pieces than a narrative. If you didn't know who Lilias Trotter was or why she's considered significant, you'd be at a disadvantage in navigating this book and might be turned off by the language and some of the emphases.

Looking for Legacy

All three works covered many different stages and aspects of Trotter's life. I was most interested in her ministry strategy and experience in North Africa, her leadership of the Algiers Mission Band, her connections with other mission leaders of the time like Samuel Zwemer and Amy Carmichael, and her legacy as a missiologist focused on reaching Arabs. She was an accomplished leader of people, both a visionary and a detail-oriented administrator. Missiologist Christy Wilson said Lily's evangelism approaches were "one hundred years ahead of her time." The book she wrote for Sufi mystics introducing them to Christ through the "I Am" statements in the Gospel of John sounds like a masterpiece, one rooted in a great deal of study and sympathy for the Sufi "talebs" she met during her travels in the south of the country.

Judging from the biographical sketches I've found, however, what most people know and emphasize about Lilias Trotter (if they know anything) is that she was an artist who put aside a potentially great career in the arts, for ministry, but who left behind a number of devotional booklets illustrated by her own drawing and paintings.

I don't think art is her real legacy.

Rockness explains that her interest in Lilias came through friends who gave her their collection of those booklets, one by one, and enlisted her in their quest to save them from disappearing. That may be why she puts the "artist" narrative front and center, though her chapter on legacy is much more balanced.

The documentary Many Beautiful Things focuses in on the art v. God narrative, though. I haven't seen it, but here's the IMDB description:

From Executive Producer Hisao Kurosawa, (Dreams, Ran), comes the untold story of one of the world's greatest women artists and why her name was nearly lost to history. Many Beautiful Things plunges viewers into the complex age of Victorian England to meet Lilias Trotter, a daring young woman who defied all norms by winning the favor of England's top art critic, John Ruskin. In an era when women were thought incapable of producing high art, Ruskin promised that her work could be "immortal." But with her legacy on the line, Lilias made a stunning decision that bids us to question the limits of sacrifice. As Lilias journeys to French Algeria in the late 1800's to pioneer work with women and children, viewers are left to wonder, "Could you abandon a dream to pursue your true calling?" Featuring the voices of Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) and John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones).

So, like Chariots of Fire, it seems to paints a picture of a Christian "sacrificing" remarkable skills by putting their faith first (appealing to evangelicals, though perhaps bewildering to others).

After soaking up enough Lilias Trotter, I'm having a hard time seeing where someone would question whether she "wasted" her gifts as an artist by becoming a missionary. Likely Ruskin was right that if she wanted to be a great artist, she would have to put art first. She turned away from that, saying she didn't think she could devote herself to art and still "seek first Christ and his kingdom." Some Christians find ways to pursue both simultaneously. They serve God through their gifts as artists, athletes, musicians, writers, or whatever. But to live a life surrendered to God, even if that means not following gifts that might demand more of you than you can give... well, that is better, isn't it?

Lilias would say her duty is not to her gifts, but to her God. Lilias Trotter had a wonderful life, and if she wasn't one of the world's greatest artists because she thought seeking to save souls was more important, it didn't stop her from seeing the world's beauty and from the joy of painting and drawing most every day, alongside writing, teaching, and investing in her coworkers and the Arab communities in which they served.

(Continued in More About Lilias Trotter.)

Lottie Moon's sister, missionary to Palestine and lady physician to Confederate rebels?

Dr. Oriana (Moon) Andrews
and her husband,
Dr. John Summerfield Andrews.

"One of the most famous single women missionaries of all time would have to be Charlotte Moon," I told my Perspectives students. "She and two of her sisters, touched by the revival that swept America just before the Civil War, ended up as missionaries."

"One sister was supposedly the first female doctor south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and ended up going as a medical missionary to Arabs in Palestine, then came home to be a doctor for the Confederate Army."

"I would love to read her story," I added, before going on to tell a little of Lottie's.

Next day, though, I started wondering if this was one of those things I really could learn more about than in days gone by. I might not need to prowl through archives in Virginia; more and more things can be found online!

After a few tries, Google and I came up with a name and even a biographical sketch of Dr. Oriana Moon. There is also this fun dramatic reading which mentions Lottie's sisters alongside Lottie, apparently drawing on the same secondary sources I'd used previously. (I think that would go well in a Perspectives course, as well.)

So, did I have it right? Or what else might be helpful to share?

The Moon girls were certainly a remarkable bunch. Growing up surrounded by books and well supplied with tutors, they were allowed by their parents to pursue their own interests and given educational opportunities usually restricted to sons. I had to smile when I read that their father purchased an unusually large library for Orie,

"...Consisting of the leading histories, poetry, fiction, and scientific works of the time. For the first sixteen years of her life, Orie was an ardent and persistent reader, often so wrapped up in her readings that she refused to stop for meals. Orie seemed to prefer mental nourishment to material food and craved learning..."

After writing a thesis on the relationship between coronary and respiratory diseases, Oriana got her MD in 1857 from a women's medical college in Philadelphia. That's decidedly North of the Mason-Dixon line, and she certainly studied and worked in the company of other female doctors (though, as the article points out, the women were not allowed to practice in Philadelphia hospitals, limiting their work to a clinic the school set up to treat women and destitute patients). Later she did practice medicine in Virginia, though "despite much urging, Dr. Moon consistently declined to 'hang out her shingle' as a general practitioner," at least at that time. Later she did, and further south.

Oriana seems to have been just as outspoken as Lottie, warning another sister's fiance that he must be brave to marry into a family that included someone like herself. Nothing in this article, though, confirms that she was the first female doctor in the South. Have to look elsewhere for that. Meanwhile, I should at least soften my summary with a "one of" or "some say."

Shortly after earning her MD, Oriana returned to Virginia and signed on to accompany her uncle, an ordained minister and physician, as he and his family made an extended "missionary journey" to the Holy Land. "Orie was determined to join Barclay and assist him where possible by providing providing medical services to the Bedouins." Here's a telling vignette:

"She sailed to Europe, carrying for protection a revolver with which she was an expert marksman. In Turkey, while crossing the Bosphorus from Constantinople to Adrianople, Orie hired two boatmen to row her across the water. In an incident she often retold in later years, Orie paid the two men an agreed-upon sum before they started rowing. However, midway in the trip, the two boatmen threatened to turn back unless she paid them a second time. Orie pulled out her revolver and barked the command "Go to Adrianople!" So motivated, the two boatmen rowed with great speed, and when the boat touched the Adrianople shore, they fled with equal haste. Orie proved to be a fearless American that even these Turks respected."

Religious zeal for God's glory does not seem to have played much of a part in Oriana's initial decision to go to Palestine; though raised in the church and in a Christian family, she had never been particularly religious. So much for the revival connection, at least in Oriana's case. But some serious conversations with her uncle on the journey across the Atlantic seem to have had an impact, and she had her uncle baptize her in the Pool of Siloam.

It may, then, be overstating things to call her a missionary doctor in Palestine without some disclaimers. We could call her uncle a missionary, and she was part of his party, though, so maybe. On the other hand, she was only in the Middle East for 14 months before returning home in 1859. So, similarly, any claim that she only left her missionary calling in the Middle East to patch up Confederate soldiers is misleading. The war didn't start until 1861.

What does seem clear, however, is that her "missionary journey" played a clear part in her personal development, that she felt she made a difference among the Bedouin, and that she looked back on the experience as a significant one. She told the stories for the rest of her life. So, call it a transformative mission trip, a short-term rather than a missionary career.

One thing that the article does confirm is that when the war broke out, Oriana was quick to offer herself to the Confederacy as a doctor. Until her death in 1883 she served in both informal and formal roles as a physician (sometimes, later, alongside her husband, also a doctor).

Oriana's zeal for service and evangelism resurfaces throughout her life, as when she set up, led, and preached in an open-air church in a nearby black village. She stood up to threats from the KKK... once again armed and ready to repel them if they carried out a threatened attack against her! And it was while visiting her sister Oriana that Charlotte Moon decided to go to China as a missionary. In this, Lottie was following in the footsteps of another sister, Edmonia, of whom I know little so far. I gather Edmonia got sick and came home, whereas Lottie served in China for more than 30 years. Time for some more digging, eh? I've never even read a proper biography of Lottie, so let me see what I can find out. 

Remaindered!

I recently re-read Madeleine L'Engle's book A Circle of Quiet. This volume has been a companion of mine for more than 30 years. Some books stick with you, don't they? Not everything has such staying power. L'Engle tells a story about Henry David Thoreau:

"In 1853 Thoreau was informed by his publishers that A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers had sold 219 copies since its publication four years before, so they sent him the remainder. He wrote, 'I now have a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.'

In a small way I can relate. A few weeks ago I heard from InterVarsity Press that sales of Through Her Eyes, published a dozen years ago in 2004, had finally slowed enough to make some changes in their marketing and distribution of this book. Unlike Thoreau's publisher, IVP is billing me for the cost and shipping of my "remainders."

But because a few other things have changed since Thoreau's day, they're still going to keep the book in print. Paper copies may not be worth the warehouse space, but it costs the publisher nothing to keep selling it as an ebook. For those who do want paper copies, "Print on Demand" (POD) volumes will be produced; that's more reasonable than ever before. So even though it's been remaindered, the book will remain in print. Nice.

The publisher told me they still had 210 copies. I spoke for 160. I'm having a case of 40 sent to me and have asked colleagues at Pioneers to stash several cases more so I can pick them up as needed. I'll keep schlepping copies along when I speak or teach, as I've been doing for years. But now I can cut the price in half to $5/each with no qualms about giving them away for free when that seems appropriate.

A year or two ago I had the dwindling royalties redirected to Pioneers as well. The cost of having Turbo Tax submit the paperwork to pay the government its share had exceeded the royalty income.

Staying in print for twelve years is pretty good for a book of this sort. I'm happy that there's still some audience for it and that the publisher has found a way to keep it available.

Thoreau might find it some consolation that these and other dynamics have returned Concord and Merrimack to print, too.

By the way, I would love to give away copies of Through Her Eyes for free to anyone who would be willing to review it on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. When it came out, that was less of a "thing," but now it looks rather pathetic to have none. Well, one. And even that one is brief and has a grammatical error. It would help the book find new audiences if there were more.

(Made friends with one of our neighbors who wrote a book published just a year and a half ago. He has 74 customer reviews. Impressive!)

Women in Missions: William Carey's Praying Sister

It's been many months since my last entry in the series of accounts and reflections on women in missions, but just came across something good I want to share with others who are interested in this kind of thing. This comes from Joni Eareckson Tada. I'll have to do some more digging to find the original source material.

"While he labored in the distant land of India, back in England, William Carey had a sister whom he affectionately called Polly – Polly was bedridden and almost completely paralyzed for 52 years. William wrote to Polly all about the details of his struggle to create primers and dictionaries in the various Indian dialects, as well as the difficulty of figuring out how to get these books typed and printed. And with every letter from William that she received, Polly lifted these needs up before the Throne. Every day for 52 years, she faithfully prayed for her brother.

"Now I don’t have to tell you that really inspired me. There she is Polly for all intents and purposes a quadriplegic, unable to walk or use her hands. But that didn’t paralyze her prayer life. And, oh, were William Carey’s efforts blessed by God – not only was India reached for Christ, but what he did became a model for modern missionaries even to this day… all because a paralyzed woman prayed.

"A lot of people know about the work of William Carey, but not many people know about the sister behind the scenes whose prayers guaranteed the success of his efforts. Polly’s testimony tells me that the life of any Christian can have huge repercussions for the kingdom. Think of it: if God can use bedridden quadriplegics to open doors to the Gospel around the world, what can He do through your prayers?! Little wonder the Bible says, 'Pray without ceasing.' … for God knows what great things are accomplished when people pray."

» Read more.

Teaching on Women in Missions

I need to brush up on this topic in preparation for teaching Perspectives classes this spring. One of the lessons I regularly teach is built around four men who are held us as "pioneers" of new ways of doing mission: William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Cameron Townsend, and Donald McGavran. Since all four men were married (Carey had three wives and Taylor and Townsend each had two), it's a cinch to fold in content about the eight women, and hard to resist adding in a few more women who were a significant part of their ministry teams.

I think it's important not to wave the "girl power" flag too briskly. It's too easy to send out a male-bashing message, and we certainly need more men who are willing to serve in missions even though they long been outnumbered by the women. Yet mission history is still typically written and taught with a focus on men, and the women's stories ought to be told as well.

For anyone who teaches this lesson and wants some ideas, here are a few of the women whose contributions I highlight. I've also blogged about some of them here, it's easy to find more material online, and I'm happy to share my teaching notes.

• William Carey: wives Dorothy, Charlotte, and Grace; teammate Hannah Marshman
• Hudson Taylor: mother Amelia, wives Maria and Jennie, teammate Emily, sister Amelia
• Cameron Townsend: wives Elvira and Elaine, niece Evelyn, the anonymous woman who told him he'd be a coward for going to war and leaving the women to carry out missions, and the teams of single women he sent out like Loretta Anderson and Doris Cox. 
• Others: If there's time I usually fold in stories about Mary Livingstone, Mary Slessor, Ann Judson, Isabel Kuhn, Lottie Moon (and her sister who was a physician in the Middle East), and the women's societies formed to support missionaries and send out single women.

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.  

Learning by expressing ignorance, teaching by example

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! I first learned about this celebration as a young woman visiting Turkmenistan, now almost 20 years ago. How time flies. As part of our research into social structures and events, we asked university students about holidays and celebrations. "You mentioned New Year's, and Korban Bairam (the Muslim festival of sacrifice)... are there others?" They were surprised we did not know about International Women's Day. "It is international day!" one girl exclaimed. (In her country it's a popular national holiday, complete with a day off of work or school.)

Ah, Americans. I felt the same sense of being ignorant and out of touch spending a summer in Mexico City a few years earlier. Everyone was talking about the NAFTA agreement then being put together and expected to have a dramatic affect on the economies of both our countries. NAF-what?

I am not sure how much this strategy works well because I'm a woman, and how much it's just a matter of personal preference ... but whether I'm in Asia, Latin America, or closer to home, expressing my ignorance of and interest in what others have to say is an effective strategy for building relational bridges.

I learn so much that way, too. Knowledge is power. Sometimes it is best to downplay one's own and seek out another's. Is that part of "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"? At any rate, life is just more fun and I enjoy it more when I draw other people out and find out where they're coming from.

Women in Missions

The more I learn, though, the more I want to pass it on to others. Recently I taught missions history for a couple of Perspectives classes. Sometimes I'm the only woman speaker they will have. One of the lessons really lends itself well to a discussion of women's lives and contributions to the world mission. I threw out some questions for the students to wrestle with and told a number of the women in missions stories I started to collect when writing Through Her Eyes.  If you are interested in that topic - or speak on it yourself - look through the collection of blog posts to see if there's something you can use.

All this seemed to really hit the spot for the students in a class in Anchorage, Alaska:

"This lesson was very informative. I like history and had never thought to look at the women in missions. I look forward to reading your book."

"Love the women's perspective on their involvement in missions. I had only ever heard 'about the guys' and was unaware of the great sacrifice and powerful role women played in missions."

I'll admit it, I like it when people's response is to like me better. Like the student who wrote,

"You are fun. You are spunky. You laugh a lot and say things quietly to the side, as an afterthought, almost to yourself. I caught a lot of those things. I laughed a lot when I don't think others understood your jokes. Thank you so much for giving your time. Jesus is shining through you and some of him fell on top of me tonight. You rock."

But what's best of all is when people respond to the material by taking to heart, for themselves:

"I was at a point in this course where I was feeling very inadequate. Marti changed that - she is an engaging presenter with a sincere desire to help the learner see the picture that life as a missionary might present. She did not sugarcoat it, and she did not minimize the fact that God has a plan for each one of us if we are willing to pray and step out in faith. Thank you for taking the time to help us."

Women in Missions History: Dorothy Carey and Hannah Marshman

My organization's headquarters are located on a street they had built for the purpose and named "William Carey Drive." Having studied the life of William Carey I find the reference a bit ambiguous. Maybe appropriately so. Missions history is full of dubious, dangerous stories, and William Carey's life had more than a few of them.

I'm sure some of my colleagues around the world sometimes wonder if they are living a William Carey story. It might also be apt to see the Member Care department located on a side street called Dorothy Carey Lane...

Dorothy Carey

While William was an amazing pioneer, committed to working towards an invisible end, faithful in the face of adversity, brilliant, and loving towards those around him, his wife Dorothy did not do so well. She was among the sizable population of missionaries who go out ill equipped and poorly supported, and, like some of them, cracked under the strain. Following the death of a son she basically lost her mind. They didn't do much for her, just tried to keep her quiet. She was a huge burden on those around her.

After Dorothy's death, William remarried in what may have appeared unseemly haste. This time he was blessed with a woman who had proven she could handle life in India. I don't know much about Charlotte, or about wife #3, Grace - both widows - but neither experienced the tragic existence Dorothy did.

Team

Like many of our missionaries today, William owes much of his success to a strong team. He worked more or less alone in the early years, and in the later ones he encountered irreconcilable differences, resigned from the mission he had founded, and set off by himself again. But for a fairly long season he was sustained by a community of faith that gathered around what went down in history as the Serampore Trio (William Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward).

Hannah Marshman

Hannah Marshman, Joshua's wife, picked up so much of the slack that in a different time or place she would have been esteemed alongside the three men. She bore 12 children, raising the six survivors (!) as well as the Careys' boys - otherwise well on their way to hooliganism. She was largely responsible for setting up and running a ministry/business that did much to support the whole operation (a school for the mixed-race children of India-based Brits).

Like Dorothy, Hannah had begun marriage with no plans to be a missionary - in fact, making it a condition of her engagement that her future husband never require her to leave her homeland. (He had ideas about immigrating to America.) Yet the book Eminent Missionary Women (published by the Student Volunteer Movement in 1900) has this to say about Hannah:

“The first missionary to the women of India, and indeed, the first of all women missionaries in modern times, was Hannah Marshman. Born in England, she spent 47 years of a happy married life and a short widowhood in the Baptist brotherhood formed by her husband, Joshua Marshman, with Carey and Ward, in Serampore, Bengal…”

“She supplied to the brotherhood all the domestic comfort and much of the loving harmony without which her husband and Carey and their associates could not have accomplished half of what the Holy Spirit enabled them to do…”

“Never was there such a Martha and Mary in one as her letters prove her to be, always listening to the voice of the Master, yet always doing the many things he entrusted to her without feeling cumbered or irritable or envious.”

Can You Relate?

Hannah was quite a woman, eh? Myself, I find it easier to identify with Dorothy – pioneering in that way I’d probably just go nuts. Dorothy Carey does not get a chapter in Eminent Missionary Women! Few mission agencies today would have sent the Carey family to the field, or failed to bring them home after Dorothy's breakdown. What would you do?

Gender and Priorities

I recently read a statement from leaders of a rather conservative mission agency written to explain their values and priorities. Under the headline, "We value and support the role of women," they wrote,

"We believe that a mother’s responsibility is to God first, to family next, and then to outside ministry." 

I think that's great.

But it bothered me that they didn't say the same about the responsibility of a father. Am I being idealistic to expect that putting one's family above one's work might be a calling to dads as well as to moms?

Meandering Thoughts on Flexibility vs. Guidance

The year was 1993 and I was not long out of college. While in school I’d earned a degree in journalism and graduated with honors, but what I really majored in was ministry. I led small group Bible studies, helped set the course for our campus ministry, and worked with others to plan our big group meetings, often emceeing those events. All this bore a great deal of fruit as more people on campus followed Jesus and grew in their faith. So I applied to join this ministry full-time.

I was so discouraged when the rejection letter came. They told me they thought it would be better for me to find a ministry where I “wouldn’t be working with people.” I wasn’t sure how to take that. In a way, though, I was relieved. I’d never been blind to the ways I was an odd fit for the ministry’s organizational culture. Surely there was something better out there, a ministry that might embrace me without so many reservations? How would I find it? I didn’t have a plan B and wasn’t sure where to look.

So I asked my church for help. After all, people there knew me pretty well, and I’d been serving on the mission committee and helping out the mission pastor for some time. "Where would you like to send me?" I tried asking. But from the way people responded, I might have been asking them to find me a husband or tell me how to wear my hair. Apparently there are some things it’s just better to do for yourself. One thing I appreciated is that they helped me let go of the condemnation I felt from the ministry that had rejected me. They helped me hold onto hope and not give up.

But I came to realize that the church – at least my church – doesn’t find people ministries in which to serve. They may put out a menu of options and ideas, but they won’t make assignments, and are hesitant to make recommendations. Oh, they know they need people to work in the nursery or manage the foodbank, but it's different with missionaries, at least long-term ones. Few churches will decide they want to be involved in a certain ministry and then look for someone to send; they want prospective missionaries to come to them with a call, with a fit already picked out, saying, “Here’s what I want to do and where I want to go. Can you get behind me?” They might say no, but they aren't likely to be the ones making the proposal.

What would it look like if the church were not behind its missionaries, but, well, in front of them? Could that work? Why or why not?

It seems a little funny to me but many mission agencies seem to work the same way. Certainly the one I'm part of does. I'm given flexibility more freely than I'm given direction. There’s nobody I can call to say, “Here I am! Can you put me to work?” It might work in some situations. But generally I gather they’d rather have the candidate come to them with a strong sense of direction and call.

For our field workers, feeling isolated and ill-prepared comes with the territory. After all, they are pioneers. Many are going "where no one has gone before." It takes a certain kind of strength and courage to do that. Even the best of agencies cannot do much to reduce the ambiguity and take care of their people. Circumstances often conspire to keep what may seem a good strategy from working for very long. You find a great team and learn how to work together, and then something happens and the team falls apart, and you have to start all over. Happens all the time. Luckily, there's grace and freedom to keep trying, to try new things.

Is the business world like that, happier to give "flexibility" and "freedom" than "direction"? I guess sometimes it is; American business cultures may place a high value on people who know where they are going and are ready to take charge and do whatever it takes. If you are looking at a position very far up the corporate ladder, the interviewer will want to know "what would you do if you had this job?" and "what makes you right for this job?" and might look askance at someone who asked "how would you want me to handle this job if you gave it to me?" or "what kind of job would you want to give someone like me?" Someone who wants others to tell them what to do may be seen as not very smart, not very capable. 

Well, even though I'm still exploring what's next and feeling some of these tensions, I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I'm going to be fine. And even if I see the dark or discouraging side of "freedom," I'm grateful for it as well. I'm not really at the point where I want to be "directed" overmuch - though I have some friends who really need that. I'm not at that place, and not quite open enough to say, "Here am I, send me - anywhere! to do anything!"

I wonder what would happen if I did? If I said that to my church, or my agency? What would they do with me?

Having quite a bit of experience as well as being articulate and self-aware are a huge help in charting a course through the sea of opportunities. Also being single; that does make things simpler.

One way in which mission agencies are quite different from other employers is how they treat married people, especially married women. Generally if you raise support it’s supposed to cover all the needs of a family; that’s how the budgets are written. It’s up to you to decide what you "give back” for that support, whether both spouses will “work” or just one. A wife may serve full-time in the ministry work; she may get an additional job (and make some extra money) or she may choose to stay home with the kids. That she’s not punished, financially, for doing so, is supposed to show respect and value for the family and sensitivity to the needs of mothers and children, which is great.

But sometimes it backfires. In most traditional societies the involvement of missionary women is crucial for the ministry to succeed among half the people they are trying to reach (where men can’t reach women) - and still, their active involvement is considered “optional”? And while heavy expectations and little flexibility might be a bigger burden, being under no expectations at all and given too much flexibility can be strangely demoralizing. It's as if what you do doesn't matter. Your ministry is optional.

In some sense, of course, we are all in that boat. Woe to men and women who see themselves as indispensable, as if God "needs" them.

In her book Expectations and Burnout, Sue E. writes about what missionary women want from their sending agencies:

"In a questionnaire conducted only within my own agency in 2005, one of the top five needs missionary women have is to feel respected. …This need for respect is closely followed by the need for encouragement, mentoring, and to be heard, and wisdom as well as freedom in balancing roles.”

If what the missionary woman does doesn't show up on ministry plans and reports, if whether she gets training or participates in meetings and setting direction is a matter of convenience or preference, it's as if it doesn't matter:

"If there is no reporting from women to their leaders, they feel as if their ministry (both in the home and out of the home) is devalued and not appreciated by their mission agency. If there is no guidance, how can a missionary woman determine if she is being as effective as possible in any of her roles? It is true that a woman needs freedom in determining where to invest her time; but she also needs and wants accountability.” (p. 76)

I think this is something my agency has been working on. I'm not really part of the inner circle to see how it's going, but I believe efforts are being made to "count" what women do and treat them as full members of the mission - even while recognizing that their ministries may not look like those of their husbands and others.

Africa Stories: Meet Lilias Trotter, a Victorian Woman in Algeria

Excerpts from the diaries of Lilias Trotter; source here.

“Oh, the desert is lovely in its restfulness – the great brooding stillness over and through everything is so full of God. One does not wonder that He used to take His people out into the wilderness to teach them.”

Lilias Trotter (1853-1928) had a wealthy and privileged upbringing as part of an upper-class family in the golden age of Victorian England, schooled at home by governesses. In her twenties she grew in faith through the “deeper life” conferences being held across England in those days, and volunteered at the YWCA (then in its infancy) reaching out to London’s working girls, including the prostitutes who hung around Victoria Station. 

But her other passion was art. When she was in her early twenties and her family was vacationing in Venice, her mother discovered that the painter John Ruskin was staying in the same hotel, and asked him to look at some of Lilias’s watercolors. This began a lifelong friendship between the two.

He considered her artistic talent so great that he told her he could make her “immortal.” That is, if she would give herself wholly to her art.

Though tempted, she turned him down – a difficult decision but one that once made, gave her a sense of liberty; she was surrendered to God and would not cling to anything else. She later described it as "the liberty of those who have nothing to lose because they have nothing to keep." She wanted to put people first, and threw herself into the ministry in London. 

Lilias never became a great artist. It does take a lot of work to become a master of anything, doesn’t it? And that’s not what she chose. She did however continue to fill up sketchbooks, and her letters and journals are well illustrated. (You can see some of her work here.) And more to the point, she continued to see the world with an artist’s eye.

Ruskin had taught her that someone who paints nature or humanity should not just use the two for their art, but that art is a means of seeing, a means of understanding and loving what you see, and helping others love it too:

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see.”

When she was 35 Lilias left the urban ministry in London and went to Algiers, with two friends. She made a home for herself in the Arab section of the casbah, amid the narrow winding streets. She described her beginnings like this:

“None of us would have been passed by a doctor for any missionary society. We did not know a soul in the place, or a sentence of Arabic, nor had we a clue as to how to begin work on such untouched ground. We only knew we had to come. If God needed weakness, He had it! We were on a fool’s errand, so it seemed, and we are on it still, and glory in it.”

For the next 40 years she served there, as well as traveling along the coasts of North Africa and South into the Sahara on camel-back. She went places never visited by a European woman. They didn’t build anything impressive – nothing, really, but relationships.

She was sick a good bit of the time, and put much of her energy into praying for others who were doing what she could not. She also wrote devotional material that spoke to the hearts of North Africans and is a big part of her legacy. By the time Lilias died in 1928 they’d established 12 mission stations, and Lilias and left behind a team of 30 workers who continued reaching out to the people of North Africa. A biographer says she “pioneered means, methods and materials that were 100 years before her time.”

* * *

So, there's your introduction to Lilias. I wanted to share some of her writings as well, but thought the context would be helpful. (Later - here's the second post: Full Face to the Sun)

See also:

Until the Day Breaks: The Life and Work of Lilias Trotter: Pioneer Missionary to Muslim North Africa, by Patricia St. John (1990)

A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter, by Miriam Huffman Rockness (2003)

A Blossom in the Desert: Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter, compiled and edited by Miriam Huffman Rockness (2007)

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."