Category Archives: Biography

Spiritual people’s bio

《難泯歲月》Update

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（希望購買《難泯歲月–我和上海教會及倪柝聲》一書者可到亞馬遜網站購買。）以下是在《難泯歲月》一書出版一年後她的update，經過同意發表在下面：

《難泯歲月》自出版以來，承蒙不少弟兄姐妹表示支持，也有不同看法。出版已經一年，應當予以小結，以資勉勵、提醒：

一．得到從地方教會內部來的鼓勵和認同。

1.在國內某地區的負責弟兄將本書、別的弟兄的體會以及他自己所寫的：“給教會負責人的信”轉發給鄰近的地方教會傳閱，並說：“這是盡我的本分。”
2.倪柝聲親屬的認可：看到要尊重事實，尊祂為大。本書也得到當年上海地方教會同工們子女的認同。
3.當年同時代年輕人的回響。

二．廣大地方教會以外的牧者、學者和肢體們的鼓勵和支持。對於本書作爲教會的歷史資料和屬靈鑒戒加以肯定。至今，我所得知的反應中，還沒有見到有人因拙作而信心軟弱跌倒的，多數的反映是以此自勉。當然，內心的震憾和困擾是免不了的。

三．對於本書所報道的事實，沒有重大的質疑。只是有地方教會以外的弟兄認爲：“凡是來自當局的，我全不信。”我所擔心的是，當他們認識到這些都是無可否認的事實時，會感到萬分痛心和失落。我只能爲此禱告。

四．有肢體認為倪弟兄已被寶血赦免，如今何竟敢于掀開贖罪蓋，又何必舊事重提？其實我在本書中已經不厭其煩地多次提到要以史爲鑒。豈不見到過去所遺留的隂影，至今還存留在有些地方教會中嗎？為何還要對此熟視無睹，置若罔聞？保羅說出神的心意：“這恩典是神用諸般智慧聰明，充充足足賞給我們的，都是照祂自己所預定的美意，叫我們知道祂旨意的奧祕，要照所安排的，在日期滿足的時候，使天上地上一切所有的，都在基督裡面同歸於一。”到什么時候我們才能認識神的旨意，在基要的問題上不是分裂，而是彼此接納，使神心意得到滿足？

五．至于對我個人的抨擊，我並不在意，也不必予以澄清。

敬祝主內平安！
弱肢
許梅驪敬上

难泯岁月–我和上海地方教会及倪柝声（作者：许梅骊）

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陈鸽推荐一本新出版的好书：难泯岁月–我和上海地方教会及倪柝声（作者：许梅骊）

我偶尔收到一本书，起初没在意，后来才发觉原来是作者亲自签名赠送的一本宝贵的、可歌可泣的个人见证与历史宝藏。可惜，我已经把信封与地址丢了，只有在这里谢谢许梅骊老姊妹的爱心。我与迦南（我太太）读后，深受启迪。感谢主赐您的胆量与诚实，不依照中国人的错误传统“隐恶扬善”，乃遵循圣经的榜样（林前10:11-12；提前5:19-21），留下这一份赤裸裸的、中国教会史的血的见证，成为后人的鉴戒。（陈鸽）

內容簡介： 难泯岁月 — 我和上海地方教会及倪柝声（简体版） 许梅骊医师 倪柝声领导的中国地方教会是二十世纪中国教会史中的重要篇章。对它成 ? 探索的经验及惨烈失败的教训的认真反思，都将成为宝贵的属灵遗产，为今日教会所借鉴。然而历史的迷雾为反思带来了极大的困难。本书作者青年时代在上海地方教会受洗，此后在地方教会经历了轰轰烈烈的风波。她追求过、崇拜过、惊憟过、跌倒过、冷淡过，而最终在神长阔高深的恩典中又重新委身。她以极大的勇气，以自己的经历及对地方教会历史孜孜不倦的求索，对这场属灵运动进行了历史的反思，目的是为今日教会及基督徒提供一个积极的、切身的启迪和警戒。本书是一份以难得的视角所作的珍贵记录与思考。 作者：许梅骊 Lily M. Hsu, M.D.

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Pauline G. Hamilton

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Pauline G. Hamilton
(1915 ~ 1988)

Known to many as “Dr. P” in English and “Grandma Han” in Chinese, she won the hearts of thousands during her faith-filled ministry to delinquent boys, students, and many others in Mainland China and Taiwan.

Early Life and Conversion

Pauline Hamilton was born the youngest of five children in Pennsylvania, USA, on January 29, 1915. She did not know that her parents had dedicated her to serve God in China, nor did she know that she had been named after Paul, whom her parents considered to be the greatest missionary who ever lived.

As a young adult, Pauline had become rebellious and proud. She was addicted to smoking, drinking, and drugs; diagnosed with tuberculosis; deserted by her boyfriend, who eloped with her best friend; and dismissed from medical school. In her despair, Pauline decided to commit suicide. When the tire of her car blew out just as she was about to drive over a cliff, she believed that God had saved her life and that he loved her. She trusted in Christ, and the burden on her heart was lifted.

Education, Work, and Calling to China

Pauline began to hear God speaking directly to her through the Scriptures, and she was gradually released from her addictions, anger, and pride. She began to heal from her tuberculosis and was soon accepted as the first female student in the medical program at the University of Pennsylvania. At this time, Pauline decided to live by faith, trusting God for all her needs. Soon, she began to see his miraculous provision all around her.

She completed her PhD in physiology while struggling with another life-threatening illness, and began to work as a researcher for the University of Pennsylvania and Marine Biological Laboratories, then as a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts. However, with her respected position and comfortable salary, Pauline began to have the unsettling sense that God was asking her to give up all she had and serve as an “ordinary” missionary in China. Though at first she balked at the idea, before long she surrendered herself to God, plowing her way through obstacles to reach the land to which he had led her, adopting as her motto, “Anywhere, anytime, anyhow, bar nothing.”

Ministry in China

With only a crash course at Biblical Seminary in New York and no understanding of Chinese language or culture, Pauline arrived in China in 1947 at the age of 32. She was supported by Park Street Church in Boston and was a member of the China Inland Mission, which provided her language training and close supervision. Once in China, Pauline received a letter from her mother explaining how she had been dedicated at birth.

Pauline was first asked to teach science for missionary children at the Chefoo Children’s School. With no text books or lab equipment, she prepared all of 5th-12th grade for the Oxford and Cambridge examinations. She later realized that it was through her difficulties at Chefoo that she learned some of the most important lessons for her life as a missionary: her own frailty, trust in God, and the importance of caring for the needs of others.

After a year, Pauline began Bible teaching in Nanking [Nanjing], and then in Shanghai, but as Communist activities escalated, fewer students attended her Bible classes. In 1950, CIM withdrew from China, forcing Pauline to leave the country. Many years later she learned that some of the Bible study notes she had written while in China had been pasted to the bottoms of drawers and memorized as a basis for Bible teaching.

Ministry in Taiwan
Though unable to serve in Mainland China, Pauline was allowed to work in Taiwan, where she arrived in 1952. She taught Bible courses in Mandarin at the Taichung [Taizhong] Bible Institute for a short time, but later concentrated on youth, student, and women’s ministry. She began an annual youth conference at Grace Church, which later became an all-Taiwan conference, and the students started to publish a magazine. She worked with university students through Bible studies, fellowship meetings, and counseling. After a time, her student work was incorporated into the Campus Evangelical Fellowship, which joined smaller fellowships from all over the island. As students matured and began to take leadership, Pauline handed the reigns over to indigenous workers and took an assisting role, training staff, counseling, and advising.

Her “open door policy” brought many to her home, including soldiers, neighborhood women, and young people who had been referred to her from churches all over Taichung. Hamilton began to see the fruits of her labor as many heard the Gospel for the first time and some came to faith, then engaged in witnessing, discipling others, and attending church. One woman continued to attend meetings at her home despite her husband’s beatings; her husband later came to faith and was delivered from his violence and seizures.

Ministry to Delinquent Boys

One day a bloody, dirty boy showed up on Pauline’s doorstep. She welcomed him into her home, where he stayed for weeks. Her comical, courageous, humble, and loving demeanor won his trust; soon she learned that he was estranged from his parents and was the leader of a gang of 70 street boys. He became increasingly interested in devotions, and began to invite other boys from his gang to join in.

Before she knew it, Pauline was heavily involved in ministering to the street boys throughout her city. As the boys began coming to believe in Christ, she talked with them about the cost of being a Christian, how to live the Christian life, and temptations and battles to come. They began to lead others to the Lord and experienced persecution, often from their own families or gang members. She intercepted suicide and murder attempts, prevented gang fights, reunited families, tutored boys who wanted to stay in school, and inaugurated a Bible class named “The Hope of China Band.” Though she never married or had children of her own, Pauline became the beloved “Grandma Han” to these boys. In one instance, eight different gangs worked together for five weeks to guard her house from a man who had threatened to kill her.

Not long after, Pauline was invited to a governor’s tea. The officers commended her for her work with the youth and asked if she would be willing to serve as a counselor and English teacher at a new school for problem boys. She stood up and said,

If you have heard of any success in my work, it has not been because of anything I have done—it has been through the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And as a Christian missionary, I would like your permission to use the Bible, God’s Word, in my counseling—because no change in the boys’ environment, no pressure on them from the outside, and no new restrictions will change them for the good. No, change has to be in the heart, and this is what God does through His Word.
Though none of the officers were Christians, they accepted her condition, along with the added stipulation that she would not accept a salary, so she was soon working at the boys’ school. Instead of having the boys meet her in her office, she went out into the playing fields with a camera, and they began coming to her, sharing their lives, and seeking her for counsel. She also used her English class to share the gospel and talk with the boys about their situation, often telling them of her own troubles and waywardness. Despite the boys’ threats that they would steal her possessions, she often invited them to her house, hiding nothing but charging them to “only steal according to [their] conscience.”

Hardships

Though Pauline had many happy experiences, she also passed through numerous tests to her faith, including life-threatening illnesses, paralysis, robbery, attempted murder, financial difficulty, and depression. However, she was always brought through her trials through faith and prayer, often in miraculous ways, and often leading to more opportunities to minister and give glory to God. For instance, she conducted Bible classes for nurses from her hospital room and “chatted” the gospel with fellow patients, even when she was recovering from cancer. People would open up to her, believing that she could understand their troubles. Pauline wrote, “Living by faith means more than just trusting God for finances or direction; it also means trusting Him when all does not go well.”

Return to America

Once again, Pauline’s work was gradually taken over by native Chinese, and at 55, she began focusing on counseling and mentoring new OMF/CIM missionaries. By this time, she had taken on so much of her adopted culture that she was once asked by an American if she was Chinese. At 63, however, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and mission leadership ordered her to retire early and return to the US. Chinese friends overwhelmed her with gifts as she left her beloved home and set off for America in 1978, where she would enjoy 10 more years of good health, speaking throughout the US and other countries and writing her autobiography, To a Different Drum. Pauline died in her sleep while traveling on an OMF ministry trip in the Northwest US. “Dr. P.” is remembered as a “jolly, humble, intelligent, down-to-earth, beloved… person of faith.” Near the end of her life, she wrote, “Whatever I had given up to follow the Lord, he had returned to me a hundredfold.”

Mary Andrews

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Mary Andrews
(1915 － 1996)

Mary Andrews was born in 1915 at Dry Plain Station near Cooma in NSW. She later moved to Sydney and had a varied career as a psychiatric nurse, a Bible college student, a student deaconess and a part time assistant in several Sydney parishes and unemployment camps. From a young age, Mary Andrews had a desire to serve God in China. In 1938 she joined the Church Missionary Society and sailed for Peking, where she studied in the College of Chinese Studies until the outbreak of war. At one point she was forced to escape from the Japanese invasion of China.

In 1939 Mary was appointed to the district of Lin Hai in Chekiang. There she conducted a school for poor children, while continuing her studies. During this time, continual attacks from the Japanese made life dangerous and uncertain. A highlight of this period for Mary was nursing Captain Ted Lawson, war hero and author of the book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.

Mary was again forced to escape the Japanese advance into China, this time by trekking across the Himalayas into India. In India, she took up work at St Faith’s Children’s Home in Lahore, and at a home for destitute women and girls. After a brief return to Sydney, Mary went back to her beloved China in 1947, where she brought many to know Jesus. These Christians eventually grew into a very large congregation.

Mary was again forced to leave China in 1951 after the Communist Party came into power. When it became obvious that mission work in China was no longer possible, Mary returned to Sydney and was appointed as the Head Deaconess of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.

In 1952, Archbishop Howard Mowll convinced a reluctant Mary Andrews to consider becoming the Principal of Deaconess House with the vision that, under good leadership, the college could ‘become a training place from which women will go to the farthest parts of the world equipped to serve God’. Indeed, many women who trained under her went on to serve God in Sydney and throughout the world. Mary served as Principal for twenty-three years until 1975. While in semi-retirement, Mary became chaplain at three retirement villages and served on countless local and overseas committees, councils and international bodies. She was presented with the Order of Australia Medal (AM) by the Queen in 1980 for her contribution to the church and Australia.

Deaconess Mary Andrews was a woman who deeply loved God and served him faithfully until her death in 1996. In 1997 Deaconess House was renamed Mary Andrews College in her honour.

Rosalind Goforth

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Rosalind Goforth
(6 May 1864-31 May 1942)

Florence Rosalind Bell-Smith (Married name: Rosalind Goforth) (6 May 1864-31 May 1942) was a Presbyterian missionary, and authoress. Rosalind was born near Kensington Gardens, London, England. When she was three years old she moved with her parents to Montreal, Canada.

Her father, John Bell-Smith, was an artist, and Rosalind also intended to go into art. She graduated from the Toronto School of Art in May 1885, and began preparing to return to London that autumn in order to complete her art studies. Something that never happened.

Instead, she married Jonathan Goforth on 25 October 1887 at Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto, Canada, and together they served God in Manchuria and China.

They had eleven children, five of which died as babies or very young children. Rosalind died in Toronto, Canada, and is buried alongside her husband at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

Works authored

How I Know God Answers Prayer (1921)
Chinese Diamonds for the King of Kings
Goforth of China (1937)
Climbing: Memoirs of a Missionary’s Wife (1940)

Mary Slessor: The White Queen of Calabar

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Mary Slessor
(2 December 1848 – 13 January 1915)

“Run, Ma! Run!” Whenever Ma, the white woman, heard these words she knew that serious trouble was brewing, so she hurried out of the house and down the path into the forest. Presently she found Etim, the oldest son and heir apparent of chief Edem, lying unconscious under a tree which had fallen on him. For a fortnight she nursed him in his mother’s house, but her efforts were in vain.

Early one Sunday morning, while she was resting in her own hut, the boy’s life began to ebb. This news sent a spasm of terror throughout the district, for every violent death was attributed to witchcraft and it was certain that a number of persons would be put to death on the charge of having caused the tree to fall on the boy. Hurrying to the chief’s house, Ma found the natives blowing smoke into the dying lad’s nostrils, shouting into his ears and rubbing ground pepper into his eyes. As soon as life had fled, the chief shouted: “Sorcerers have killed my son and they must die! Bring the witch-doctor!”

At these words everybody fled. When the witch doctor arrived, he tried out his divinations and placed the responsibility for the boy’s death on a certain village. Forthwith armed warriors marched to that village, seized a dozen men and women, brought them back loaded with chains and fastened them to posts in the yard…

The chief endeavored to persuade Ma to let the prisoners submit to the poison ordeal, for, said he, “If they are not guilty, they will not die.” Ma knew that the poison would kill them, irrespective of their innocence, and refused to agree.

Finally, eleven of the prisoners were released and the death of the one remaining, a woman, was demanded. When Ma stubbornly refused, the chief stormed, threatened to burn down the house, and in blazing passion declared, “She caused my son’s death and she must die!” Bowing her head, the white Ma prayed for strength and patience and love. And, after several days of terrific strain she eventually won out. The last of the prisoners was released and the chief contented himself with the sacrifice of a cow. It was the first time in this entire district that a chief’s grave had not been saturated with human blood.

How was the lone white woman able to endure this long and terrible ordeal? Let her give the answer: “Had I not felt my Saviour close beside me, I would have lost my reason.” Empowered by that divine Presence, she held her ground and preached to the natives. Quoting the words of Jesus, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life,” she sought to show the terrors of divine judgment and the wonders of life everlasting.

Who was this woman who could triumph over such conditions? She was Mary Slessor, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, December 2, 1848, and known as the White Queen of Calabar, a region on the west coast of Africa. Concerning this intrepid woman, J. H. Morrison pays this tribute: “She is entitled to a place in the front ranks of the heroines of history, and if goodness be counted an essential element of true greatness, if eminence be reckoned by love and self-sacrifice, by years of endurance and suffering, by a life of sustained heroism and purest devotion, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to name her equal.”

She was indeed a queen — a queen ruling in love over natives in Africa and a queen among the heroines of the Christian church.

I. The Queen and Her Royal Retinue

One day in 1898 the newsboys and porters in Waverley Station, Edinburgh, were astonished to see a woman of slight build, with a face like yellow parchment in hue and with short straight hair, get off the train accompanied by four wide-eyed African girls. The spectators’ amazement would have been vastly intensified had they known that they were gazing at a queen and her retinue; that, in early life she was the mainstay of the family after her father’s death at Dundee and had been a Scottish factory girl, toiling at her weaving machine from six in the morning till six at night amid the flash of the shuttles, the rattle of the looms and the roar of the machines; and, like David Livingstone, had educated herself by reading good books, a few sentences at a time, while tending her machine.

Wherever Mary Slessor went on her triumphal tour among the churches, the people were enthralled as they heard her tell, in a simple and humble manner, how she had endured hunger and thirst under the flaming sun of Africa, had been smitten down by tropical fevers, had controlled drunken cannibals brandishing loaded muskets, had mastered hundreds of frenzied natives lusting for blood and had faced death a thousand times in her endeavor to bring redemption’s story to Africa’s perishing peoples. They were moved to tears as she told of the slave markets, of human sacrifice, of cannibalism, and told specifically how, upon a certain chief’s death, twenty-five heads were cut off and, at the death of another chief, sixty people were killed and eaten. But the stories the Scotch Christians liked best of all were those telling how she had rescued from death hundreds of baby twins and other deserted babies thrown out in the forest to perish of hunger or to be eaten by ants or leopards. The stories were made doubly impressive by the presence of four of these children who had been cast off and then rescued.

II. The Queen and Her Royal Mission

As a young girl, Mary had given her heart and life to Jesus and, due to the influence of stories told her by her mother, had formed a secret desire to be a missionary to Calabar. She became not only an active member of her own church but also a zealous worker in several missions. Early in 1874 the news of the death of David Livingstone stirred the land and created a great wave of missionary enthusiasm. The call for workers for Africa thrilled many a heart into action. One of these was Mary Slessor. She offered her services to the Foreign Mission Board, was accepted and brought to Edinburgh for special training. August 5, 1876, she sailed from Liverpool on the steamer Ethiopia. Seeing a large number of casks of spirits being loaded, she exclaimed ruefully: “Scores of casks of rum and only one missionary!”

Soon after landing in Calabar she began to realize the difficulty and seeming impossibility of the work to which she had committed herself. She saw huge, hideous alligators sunning on the mud banks and swimming in the streams. One day her canoe was attacked by a hippopotamus and she saved her life, and the lives of the children with her, by throwing a cooking pot into the gaping jaws. She saw the barracoons where the captured natives were penned until the slave-ships arrived. She found herself in a land where terrified prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their guilt under some accusation, where wives were strangled or buried alive to go with their dead chief into the spirit-world, where heartless chiefs could order a score of men and women to be beheaded for a cannibal orgy and sell a hundred more into the horrors of slavery. What could one frail, timid woman do, confronted by such an appalling situation? Overwhelmed and depressed, she knelt and prayed, “Lord, the task is impossible for me but not for Thee. Lead the way and I will follow.” Rising, she said, “Why should I fear? I am on a Royal Mission. I am in the service of the King of kings.”

She commenced the study of Efik, the language of the Calabar people, and in time mastered it so that the natives admitted that she could use their tongue better than they themselves could.

What a memorable day it was when she went out on her first “preaching” trip. Two boys carried a drum and beat it to call the people together. Hearing that a white woman was in the vicinity, a great crowd quickly gathered. Her first message to the dark throng of superstitious and barbaric Africans was delivered under the shade of a large tree beside a devil-house built for a dead man’s spirit. After reading John 5:1-24, she spoke in tender tones, dwelling especially on verse 24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

In a land of death, she brought a message of life. To souls in deepest sorrow, she brought a message of comfort and hope. To people dwelling in the habitations of cruelty, she spoke of love and kindness. To lives steeped in barbarism and sin, she pointed to the redeeming Lord.

“In Christ,” the missionary says, “we become new creatures. His life becomes ours. Take that word life and turn it over and over and press it and try to measure it, and see what it will yield. Eternal life is a magnificent idea which comprises everything the heart can yearn after. Do not your hearts yearn for this life, this blessed and eternal life, which the Son of God so freely offers?”

“From death in this world unto life in the next,” says Jesus.
“If we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him,” says Paul.
“Eternal life comprises everything the heart can yearn after,” says Mary Slessor.

III. The Queen and Her Subjects

Mary wanted to leave the coast and live in the interior, in the midst of the head-hunters and cannibals. When one of the men missionaries went into this district to seek permission to settle, he was captured and narrowly escaped with his life. Nevertheless, Mary determined to go. “I must go forward and onward,” she declared. On the third of August, 1888, she set out on her great adventure. She stepped into the canoe with five native orphans, children she had rescued from death, the oldest a boy of eleven, the youngest a baby in her arms. All day long it rained. Night had fallen when the canoe was pulled up in the river bank. The village of Ekenge, to which they were going, lay four miles back in the forest. Taking the baby in her arms and urging forward the weeping children who were terrified by the darkness and the knowledge that snakes and leopards abounded, Mary struck out along the forest path, leaving the men to follow with the bundles of food and clothing. Soaking wet, hungry and exhausted they waited for the loads to arrive. After awhile news reached her that the men were tired and had gone to sleep in the boat. Exhausted as she was, Mary retraced the four miles through the forest, aroused the sleeping men in the canoe and brought them all on to Ekenge by midnight. It was this indomitable spirit which in subsequent years carried her through a thousand toils and perils where most women would have given up in despair.

The chief liked her brave spirit and gave her permission to stay in the village. She soon made herself quite at home among the people. With her own hands she helped in the building of a mud-walled house. Incredible as it sounds, she went about with bare head and bare feet, lived on native food, drank unfiltered water, slept on the ground, and did many other things that would have quickly brought death to any ordinary person. Two incidents out of a thousand will illustrate how she defied perils and won over the natives with nought but love and courage.

A Journey of Perils

A strange quiet lay over the village by the river and the Calabar people were in great suspense, for the chief was ill and they knew that if he died many of them would be slain to be his attendants in the spirit world. Presently a woman who was a visitor from another village entered the chief’s harem and said to his wives, “Through the forest at Ekenge there lives a white Ma who by her magic can cast out the demons who are killing your chief. She saved my own child and has done many other wonders by the power of her juju. Why don’t you send for her?” The women were eager to do this, for their very lives depended on the chief getting well. When they told the chief about the strange white woman, he ordered: “Send for her at once.”

All through the day the messengers hurried across streams and through the forest till at last, after a journey of eight hours, they came to Ekenge. Coming to Mary’s house they told their mission. She knew that the way was full of perils but she also knew that if the chief died, scores of lives would be sacrificed. “I must go,” she said. Chief Edem tried to restrain her: “There are warriors out in the woods and you will be killed. You must not go.” Ma Eme, a fat African widow who loved Mary, declared, “The rains have come. The streams are deep. The woods are full of wild beasts. You could never get there.” But the missionary lady said, “I must go.”

All through the night she lay awake, wondering if she should go on such a journey with so many risks and only a possibility of saving the sick chief’s life. Early in the morning she knelt, praying that she might know the will of God in the matter. Assured in her heart that her Lord would accompany her, she set out at dawn. All day unceasing torrents of rain fell. Soon it became impossible to walk in her water-soaked boots, so she threw them into the bush and plowed on through the mud with bare feet. On and on she went, her head throbbing with fever, her weak and trembling body being driven forward by a dauntless spirit till, after more than eight hours of walking, she staggered into the house of the sick chief.

Although wet, exhausted, hungry and aching all over from fever, Ma did not lie down for even a moment’s rest but went immediately to the chief who lay unconscious on a mat on the mud floor. After examining him she took from her little medicine chest a certain drug and gave him a dose. She continued to nurse him and the next day, to the astonishment of all the villagers, the chief regained consciousness and took food. Some days later he was quite well and all the people laughed and sang for joy, knowing that there would be no slaying.

In gratitude and wonder they gathered around Mary Slessor and inquired concerning her magic powers. She said to them: “I have come to you because I love and worship Jesus Christ, the Great Physician and Saviour, the Son of the Father God who made all things. I want you to know this Father and to receive the eternal life which Jesus offers to all those with contrite and believing hearts. To know Jesus means to love Him, and with His love in our hearts we love everybody. Eternal life means peace and joy in this world and a wonderful home in the next world. My heart longs for you to believe in Jesus, to walk in His paths, and to know the blessings of eternal life through Him.”

Years passed by and the white Ma’s name was known far and wide. They knew her to be good and brave and kind, but they thought she was mad because she was always rescuing twin babies upon whom rested a curse, according to the Calabar people. She was held in such high esteem, the chiefs often asked her to help them decide quarrels and in palavers between villages she often kept the people from going to war. They thought her notions very strange, but many of them began to realize that her brave and loving spirit came from the great God of whom she spoke so much.

Dangers Defied

One day she received a secret message saying that, in a district far away, a man of one village had wounded the chief of another village and that the warriors of both villages were holding a council of war. “I must go and stop it, else much blood will be spilt and many will be killed,” said Mary Slessor. “No, you cannot,” replied her friends at Ekenge. “You have been ill and can scarcely walk. There are wild beasts lurking in the woods. The warriors are out and will kill you in the dark, not knowing who you are.” “I must go,” she said and quickly made ready. Accompanied by two men with lanterns she set out through the darkness. At midnight she came to a certain village and asked the chief to provide her with a drummer so that people might know, on hearing the drum, that a protected person was travelling.

The chief was surly. “You are going to a warlike people,” he said. “You are likely to get killed on the way. Anyhow, they would not listen to what a woman says.” Mary took this as a challenge. “When you think of the woman’s power,” she said to the chief, “you forget the power of the woman’s God. I shall go on.” Whereupon she plunged into the darkness. The villagers thought she must be mad, to defy their chief, who had the power to kill her, and to go into the forest where at any moment she might be killed by ferocious leopards or by savages infuriated by anger and by drink.

At dawn she came to the place where a large company of warriors were preparing to assault a village. She was too weary to walk, but her attendants shouted, “Run, Ma, Run!” She heard wild yells and the roll of war drums. Running as fast as she could, she caught up with the maddened warriors and demanded that they desist from fighting. Stunned by her courage, they hesitated, while she walked boldly toward a regiment of fierce savages standing in the village ready to fight. Drawing near she called out, “I have come to help you settle this matter peaceably and justly. There is no need to shed many lives.” Just then, to her amazement, an old chief stepped toward her and knelt down at her feet! “Ma,” he said, “we are glad you came. We admit that one of our drunken young men wounded the chief over there. It was an act in which the rest of us had no part. We are glad for you to speak with our enemy and help make peace.”

Looking into the man’s face, she saw to her joy that this was the very chief who was about to die several years before and whom she had cured by going on that long, dangerous journey through the forest in the rain. How glad she was that she had gone and that now she could be a peacemaker between the two parties of wild savages, who, if she had not come, would have fought to the death.

IV. The Queen’s Final Coronation

Though stricken with fever, diarrhea, and other diseases scores of times, she toiled on in Calabar for nearly forty years.

Repeatedly she moved deeper into the interior to take redemption’s sweet story to new tribes and new areas. “Anywhere, provided it be forward” was an oft-repeated saying of hers. Her house was filled with orphans, upon whom she lavished the love of her motherly heart. She had a string running from her cot to the hammock of each of the twenty-five or thirty little ones, so that, whenever one of them began to fret or cry in the night — as often happened — she could pull the right string and swing the youngster to sleep.

She supervised the building of a new house every time she moved. The earlier houses were very simple structures. Eventually she built a house with a cement floor. When an incredulous visitor inquired how she managed to mix the cement, she replied, “All I did was to stir it like porridge and pray!”

During an epidemic of smallpox the people fled in terror of the dread disease. Ma nursed and fed the forsaken victims, tenderly pointed them to Jesus, and, without assistance, buried the many who died. In a letter describing her experiences she wrote: “It is not easy. But Christ is here and I am always satisfied and happy in His love.”

Miss Slessor worked from cock-crow till star-shine. And what was the grand object of all her striving and ordeals? One who knew her well stated, “It was for souls she was always hungering.” One night she walked twelve miles through the bush to reach a dying woman and rescue her twins from death. As life ebbed away, the poor woman who had experienced so much of cruelty as a slave and the disgrace of giving birth to twins, listened wistfully as Mary told of a Saviour’s love and of a heaven of happiness to be forever her portion, if in sincerity she would heed the gracious invitation of Mary’s favorite text: “He that heareth my words and believeth … is passed from death unto life.”

Mary rescued hundreds of twin babies thrown out into the forest, prevented many wars, stopped the practice of trying to determine guilt by the poison ordeal, healed the sick, and unweariedly told the people about the great God of love whose Son came to earth to die on the cross that poor sinful human beings might have eternal life. The Master she loved and served so ardently crowned her labors by permitting her to establish a number of churches and to see hundreds of erstwhile savages partake of the sacred emblems of their Saviour’s death.

Shortly before her death, January 13, 1915, she said to her twins, now grown to young manhood and womanhood: “Never talk about the cold hand of death. It is the hand of Christ. For I am persuaded, with the apostle Paul, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Another time she said, “The time of the singing of birds is where Christ is.” For Mary Slessor, the winter was past, the tempests were over and the time of the singing of the birds had come. At the last she was thinking of the love of Christ and the glories of life eternal.

Mary Slessor, the Queen of Calabar, was constrained to offer to her Lord her very best, and with gladness she broke the alabaster box of her consecrated life and gave the precious ointment to Him for the redemption of many in Africa. “Life is so grand and eternity is so real,” she had said. When she crossed over the river, she carried an armful of precious sheaves, gathered amidst much toil and tribulation, and she received from the hand of her adored Lord the soul-winner’s “crown of rejoicing.”

by Eugene Myers Harrison

Isobel Selina Miller Kuhn

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Isobel Selina Miller Kuhn
December 17, 1901 – March 20, 1957

“Over my dead body!” cried her mother

Isobel’s heart was moved as she listened to J.O. Fraser’s plea for workers to come and share the gospel with the Lisu people of China. She sat attentively as she learned of the Lisu who had not heard of the living God who loved them and Jesus who could save them from the judgment of their sin. In fact, the Lisu didn’t even have a word for forgiveness, mercy, repent, compassion, or justice in their language.

On the other hand, there were hundreds of words to describe the most efficient way to skin a person alive. Living in fear of spirits, the Lisu were extremely superstitious, using mediums to contact the spirits and practicing witchcraft to appease them. Brokenhearted for these people she had never met, she told the Lord, “I’m not a man- but I’d go! Oh, I’d go!”

Only a few years prior, Isobel Miller (often called Belle) would never have dreamed of leaving the comforts of home to share Christ with those who had not heard. It was the Roaring Twenties, and Belle was enjoying every minute of it. A sweet and popular honor student at the University of British Colombia, she was making a name for herself both in the theater and through dance. Belle was born on December 17th, 1901 in Toronto Canada. Although both her parents were Christians, her dad even being a lay Presbyterian preacher, Belle was a self-declared agnostic after being patronized publicly by one of her professors for believing the creation story. After an emotional breakup with a young man whom she had once hoped to marry, Belle began to spiral into depression and recognize that the world could not bring her joy. One night, Belle contemplated suicide, but instead cried out to God to give her peace. It was through this that she began to turn back to the Christian faith and came to know Jesus as her Lord and mature in her faith.

Now, in 1924, her encounter with Fraser had left her unable to return to the ordinary. She explained to her parents her desire to reach the Lisu, only to have them regard this desire as fanatical, and even selfish. “Over my dead body!” cried her mother. Her mother, the president of the Women’s Missionary Society for many years, was not opposed to missionaries- just opposed to her daughter being a missionary. Her parents had done all they could to give their daughter the finest education and provide her with the greatest comforts, and yet now she was throwing it all away. Not only did they view this as ungrateful, but Belle was currently the only breadwinner for the family, her brother being unemployed and her dad having lost his life savings in a bad business venture. Unexpectedly Belle lost her mother during an operation, but learned that the night before her death; her mother had told a friend that Belle had “chosen the best way.”

Belle continued in obedience to what she knew God had called her. She packed her bags and headed to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. While she was there, a young man named John Kuhn caught her attention. They were opposites to be certain. Belle was passionate and impulsive, and John was prudent and full of common sense. Yet they both had the same vision and heart for China. In 1926, John left for China with China Inland Mission (CIM), but they continued to write each other for 2 years while Belle stayed in Canada as God prepared her for the foreign field. In 1928, after CIM’s requested 2 years of new missionaries staying single, Belle headed to China to be married to John.

After arriving in China, John and Belle first settled down in Chengchiang for the first couple years of their marriage, although “settling” may not be the appropriate word. Belle probably would have described them as quite uncomfortable. The Lord taught Belle just what dying to herself looked like. Unaccustomed to the diet, the customs, the lack of personal space, and all the while adjusting to the life of a newlywed, Belle was faced with the cost of leaving the comforts of home. She was elated that she was able to share the gospel with the first visitors into her home, but sat horrified when one of the Chinese women blew her nose onto Belle’s nice quilt, while another allowed her child to spit up all over her nice rug. After choking down her frustration, she immediately realized that her valued belongs needed to go, or else she was tempted to value her possessions over the people themselves. Although constantly struggling to die to self, as Belle and John would travel in the villages and preach, she would watch the Chinese hearing the gospel for the first time and remember it was all worth it.

The Kuhn’s then moved to Tali, Yunnan from 1930-1932 and then to Yongping, Yunnan from 1932-1934 under the mentorship of J.O. Fraser. They continued to do itinerary work sharing the gospel as well as training new missionaries to go into unevangelized areas. In 1934, the Kuhn’s finally arrived in Lisuland; 10 years after Belle first had her heart set to go to the Lisu. They learned that during the rainy season, the Lisu villages practically came to a stand still. Belle took advantage of this time and set up the Rainy Season Bible School, teaching the gospel and the very basics of Christianity to the Lisu. As people began coming to know Christ, she trained them and sent them out to surrounding Lisu villages that had not yet heard the gospel. Thanks to the Rainy Season Bible School, the Lisu Christians were also missions minded crossing into other tribes with which they had once warred in order to share the gospel

Although there were certainly difficult times, Isobel saw incredible fruit amongst the Lisu people. In 1950, during the communist takeover of China, Belle and her family were forced to flee over the snowy mountainous pass into Burma. At the time of their escape, 16 years after the Kuhn’s began working among the Lisu, 3,400 of the 18,000 Lisu were believers and 7 other tribes had been evangelized directly by Lisu missionaries. Today, there are 200,000 Lisu Christians- part of the legacy left by Isobel and other missionaries laboring among the Lisu.

After leaving China at the age of 50, Isobel had a decision to make, whether or not to continue to work among the Lisu that were living in Northern Thailand. As she wrestled with the decision, she cried out “Lord, I’m tired! I’m 50. In the past 20 years I’ve seen wars, I’ve been separate for months and even years from my husband and children, I’ve been sick to the point of death. Going to Thailand would mean learning a new language and a new place and a new culture. I want to sit in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere and rest!”

She felt the Lord gently respond, “Belle, do you really choose ease?” That was enough to get Isobel back to the Lisu, where she labored the rest of her life.

Isobel’s life is a reminder that God has proven Himself sufficient for those who have gone before us in reaching the nations with the Gospel of Christ. Isobel was used by the Lord not because she was or flawless or better trained or less apt to selfishness, but because she considered Him worthy of her life and responded in precious obedience.

“I need men. Consecrated men, men willing to live a lonely life for Christ,
willing to suffer and do without the comforts of civilization.”

Gladys May Aylward

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Gladys May Aylward
(24 February 1902-3 January 1970)
Gladys Aylward was born in London in 1904 (or a few years earlier). She worked for several years as a parlormaid, and then attended a revival meeting at which the preacher spoke of dedicating one’s life to the service of God. Gladys responded to the message, and soon after became convinced that she was called to preach the Gospel in China. At the age of 26, she became a probationer at the China Inland Mission Center in London, but was failed to pass the examinations. She worked at other jobs and saved her money. Then she heard of a 73-year-old missionary, Mrs. Jeannie Lawson, who was looking for a younger woman to carry on her work. Gladys wrote to Mrs. Lawson and was accepted if she could get to China. She did not have enough money for the ship fare, but did have enough for the train fare, and so in October of 1930 she set out from London with her passport, her Bible, her tickets, and two pounds ninepence, to travel to China by the Trans-Siberian Railway, despite the fact that China and the Soviet Union were engaged in an undeclared war. She arrived in Vladivostok and sailed from there to Japan and from Japan to Tientsin, and thence by train, then bus, then mule, to the inland city of Yangchen, in the mountainous province of Shansi, a little south of Peking (Beijing). Most of the residents had seen no Europeans other than Mrs. Lawson and now Miss Aylward. They distrusted them as foreigners, and were not disposed to listen to them.

Yangchen was an overnight stop for mule caravans that carried coal, raw cotton, pots, and iron goods on six-week or three-month journeys. It occurred to the two women that their most effective way of preaching would be to set up an inn. The building in which they lived had once been an inn, and with a bit of repair work could be used as one again. They laid in a supply of food for mules and men, and when next a caravan came past, Gladys dashed out, grabbed the rein of the lead mule, and turned it into their courtyard. It went willingly, knowing by experience that turning into a courtyard meant food and water and rest for the night. The other mules followed, and the muleteers had no choice. They were given good food and warm beds at the standard price, and their mules were well cared for, and there was free entertainment in the evening–the inkeepers told stories about a man named Jesus. After the first few weeks, Gladys did not need to kidnap customers — they turned in at the inn by preference. Some became Christians, and many of them (both Christians and non-Christians) remembered the stories, and retold them more or less accurately to other muleteers at other stops along the caravan trails. Gladys practiced her Chinese for hours each day, and was becoming fluent and comfortable with it. Then Mrs. Lawson suffered a severe fall, and died a few days later. Gladys Aylward was left to run the mission alone, with the aid of one Chinese Christian, Yang, the cook.

A few weeks after the death of Mrs. Lawson, Miss Aylward met the Mandarin of Yangchen. He arrived in a sedan chair, with an impressive escort, and told her that the government had decreed an end to the practice of footbinding. (Note: Among the upper and middle classes, it had for centuries been the custom that a woman’s foot should be wrapped tightly in bandages from infancy, to prevent it from growing. Thus grown women had extremely tiny feet, on which they could walk only with slow, tottering steps, which were thought to be extremely graceful.) The government needed a foot-inspector, a woman (so that she could invade the women’s quarters without scandal), with her own feet unbound (so that she could travel), who would patrol the district enforcing the decree. It was soon clear to them both that Gladys was the only possible candidate for the job, and she accepted, realizing that it would give her undreamed-of opportunities to spread the Gospel.

During her second year in Yangchen, Gladys was summoned by the Mandarin. A riot had broken out in the men’s prison. She arrived and found that the convicts were rampaging in the prison courtyard, and several of them had been killed. The soldiers were afraid to intervene. The warden of the prison said to Gladys, “Go into the yard and stop the rioting.” She said, “How can I do that?” The warden said, “You have been preaching that those who trust in Christ have nothing to fear.” She walked into the courtyard and shouted: “Quiet! I cannot hear when everyone is shouting at once. Choose one or two spokesmen, and let me talk with them.” The men quieted down and chose a spokesman. Gladys talked with him, and then came out and told the warden: “You have these men cooped up in crowded conditions with absolutely nothing to do. No wonder they are so edgy that a small dispute sets off a riot. You must give them work. Also, I am told that you do not supply food for them, so that they have only what their relatives send them. No wonder they fight over food. We will set up looms so that they can weave cloth and earn enough money to buy their own food.” This was done. There was no money for sweeping reforms, but a few friends of the warden donated old looms, and a grindstone so that the men could work grinding grain. The people began to call Gladys Aylward “Ai-weh-deh,” which means “Virtuous One.” It was her name from then on.

Soon after, she saw a woman begging by the road, accompanied by a child covered with sores and obviously suffering severe malnutrition. She satisfied herself that the woman was not the child’s mother, but had kidnapped the child and was using it as an aid to her begging. She bought the child for ninepence–a girl about five years old. A year later, “Ninepence” came in with an abandoned boy in tow, saying, “I will eat less, so that he can have something.” Thus Ai-weh-deh acquired a second orphan, “Less.” And so her family began to grow…. She was a regular and welcome visitor at the palace of the Mandarin, who found her religion ridiculous, but her conversation stimulating. In 1936, she officially became a Chinese citizen. She lived frugally and dressed like the people around her (as did the missionaries who arrived a few years after in in the neighboring town of Tsechow, David and Jean Davis and their young son Murray, of Wales), and this was a major factor in making her preaching effective.

Then the war came. In the spring of 1938, Japanese planes bombed the city of Yangcheng, killing many and causing the survivors to flee into the mountains. Five days later, the Japanese Army occupied Yangcheng, then left, then came again, then left. The Mandarin gathered the survivors and told them to retreat into the mountains for the duration. He also announced that he was impressed by the life of Ai-weh-deh and wished to make her faith his own. There remained the question of the convicts at the jail. The traditional policy favored beheading them all lest they escape. The Mandarin asked Ai-weh-deh for advice, and a plan was made for relatives and friends of the convicts to post a bond guaranteeing their good behavior. Every man was eventually released on bond. As the war continued Gladys often found herself behind Japanese lines, and often passed on information, when she had it, to the armies of China, her adopted country. She met and became friends with “General Ley,” a Roman Catholic priest from Europe who had teken up arms when the Japanese invaded, and now headed a guerilla force. Finally he sent her a message. The Japanese are coming in full force. We are retreating. Come with us.” Angry, she scrawled a Chinese note, Chi Tao Tu Pu Twai, “Christians never retreat!” He sent back a copy of a Japanese handbill offering $100 each for the capture, dead or alive, of (1) the Mandarin, (2) a prominent merchant, and (3) Ai-weh-deh. She determined to flee to the government orphanage at Sian, bringing with her the children she had accumulated, about 100 in number. (An additional 100 had gone ahead earlier with a colleague.) With the children in tow, she walked for twelve days. Some nights they found shelter with friendly hosts. Some nights they spent unprotected on the mountainsides. On the twelfth day, they arrived at the Yellow River, with no way to cross it. All boat traffic had stopped, and all civilian boats had been seized to keep them out of the hands of the Japanese. The children wanted to know, “Why don’t we cross?” She said, “There are no boats.” They said, “God can do anything. Ask Him to get us across.” They all knelt and prayed. Then they sang. A Chinese officer with a patrol heard the singing and rode up. He heard their story and said, “I think I can get you a boat.” They crossed, and after a few more difficulties Ai-weh-deh delivered her charges into competent hands at Sian, and then promptly collapsed with typhus fever and sank into delirium for several days.

As her health gradually improved, she started a Christian church in Sian, and worked elsewhere, including a settlement for lepers in Szechuan, near the borders of Tibet. Her health was permanently impaired by injuries received during the war, and in 1947 she returned to England for a badly needed operation. She remained in England, preaching there.

In 1957, Alan Burgess wrote a book about her, The Small Woman. It was condensed in The Reader’s Digest, and made into a movie called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman. When Newsweek magazine reviewed the movie, and summarized the plot, a reader, supposing the story to be fiction, wrote in to say, “In order for a movie to be good, the story should be believable!” Miss Gladys Aylward, the Small Woman, Ai-weh-deh, died 3 January 1970.

Frances Ridley Havergal

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Frances Ridley Havergal
(December 14, 1836 – June 3, 1879)

was an English religious poet and hymn writer. Take My Life and Let it Be and Thy Life for Me (also known as I Gave My Life for Thee) are two of her best known hymns. She also wrote hymn melodies, religious tracts, and works for children.

She was born into an Anglican family, at Astley in Worcestershire. Her father, William Henry Havergal (1793–1870), was a clergyman, writer, composer, and hymnwriter. Her brother, Henry East Havergal, was a priest in the Church of England and an organist.

In 1852/3 she studied in the Louisenschule, Düsseldorf, and at Oberkassel. Otherwise she led a quiet life, not enjoying consistent good health; she travelled, in particular to Switzerland. She supported the Church Missionary Society.

She died of peritonitis at Caswell Bay on the Gower Peninsula in Wales at age 42. Her sisters saw much of her work published posthumously. Havergal College, a private girls’ school in Toronto, is named after her. The composer Havergal Brian adopted the name as a tribute to the Havergal family.

Works

Ministry of Song (1870)
Take My Life and Let it Be (1874)
Under the Surface (1874)
The four happy days (1874)
Royal Commandments (1878)
O Merciful Redeemer
Loyal Responses (1878)
Kept for the Master’s Use (1879) memoirs
Life Chords (1880)
Royal Bounty (1880)
Little Pillows, or Goodnight Thoughts for the Little Ones (1880)
Morning bells, or, Waking thoughts for the little ones (1880)
Swiss Letters and Alpine Poems (1881) edited by J. M. Crane
Under His Shadow: the Last Poems of Frances Ridley Havergal (1881)
The Royal Invitation (1882)
Life Echoes (1883)
Poetical Works (1884) edited by M. V. G. Havergal and Frances Anna Shaw
Coming to the King (1886)
My King and His Service (1896)
Forget Me Nots of Promise, Text from Scripture and verses by Frances Ridley Havergal, Marcus Ward&Co.

Queen of the Dark Chamber – Christiana Tsai

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Queen of the Dark Chamber
Christiana Tsai
(1890-1984)
Living in Spiritual Darkness. Cai Sujuan, known in the West as Christiana Tsai, was born in Nanjing, the 18th of 24 children of the vice-governor of Jiangsu Province. Despite her luxurious surroundings, Sujuan was a sad, serious girl, and she considered becoming a Buddhist nun. Instead, her fascination with the English language led her to two missionary schools, the first in Nanjing, where Mary Leaman was the principal, and the second in Suzhou. Sujuan entered these schools determined to shut her ears to all discussion of the Gospel, but when a visiting American pastor preached at the Suzhou school, Sujuan attended to listen to his English. His message, Christ, the Light of the World, struck her to the heart, and she believed.

Coming to Light. Her infuriated family forbade her to return to school, and mocked her mercilessly to pressure her into changing her mind. Enjoying inner peace for the first time in her life, Sujuan read the Bible and prayed with one mind, and was filled with peace and joy. Finally, her mother allowed her to return to school just to get her out of the house. Sujuan grew in love and faith, and after graduation she turned down job offers to return home and bring her family to Christ. God rewarded her faithfulness, as 55 members of her family eventually followed the Lord. Sujuans mother came to Christ when He healed her from opium addiction, and for several years Sujuan, her mother, and Mary Leaman had a fruitful ministry in the Nanjing area, especially among women.

Shining in Darkness. With these blessings came trials. When Sujuans fianc, whom she had met at church, turned away from Christ, Sujuan broke their engagement. In 1930, Sujuan contracted a devastating case of malaria. She was left bedridden, and was so sensitive to light and noise that she was obliged to remain continually in a darkened room. Sujuan thought her painful confinement would bring an end to effective ministry, but her loving Savior was refining her like gold. From her bedside, Sujuan was able to comfort lost and broken souls more effectively than she had from her pinnacle of wealth and accomplishment. Her physical circumstances deteriorated further when Mary was imprisoned with other missionaries in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. Sujuan was left alone during the day, surviving on bread and salt vegetables and crawling about on the floor to take care of her needs. Even in this, she saw the hand of her Savior, as several of their friends were converted by the peace and strength with which Mary and Sujuan faced their trials.

After the war, Marys poor health forced her to return to the United States, and she took Sujuan to live in the Leaman family home in Paradise, Pennsylvania. Sujuan continued to minister to those who visited her there. Her autobiography, Queen of the Dark Chamber, was translated into 30 languages, and she later wrote a devotional book, which includes these words on the importance of prayer. How can we still be useful? Maybe you think people only pay attention to the educated those with Ph.D.s? Never mind. The Lord loves us. We can have a degree, too a P.D. a doctorate in prayer. If we will be faithful in our corner, praying for those who are on the front lines of battle, we will have a reward, too. There is not a day that I have not prayed for China, my homeland, and the millions there who need Christ. Sujuan entered the presence of her Lord on August 25, 1984.

Corrie ten Boom

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Corrie ten Boom
(1892-1983)
Everybody in the Netherlands knows about the Anne Frank House, but relatively few Dutch people will have heard of another important wartime hide-out: that of Corrie ten Boom in Haarlem – the place where this brave and deeply religious woman used to live, who in WWII offered help and refuge to hundreds of people.

Her wartime home is now a museum and, to mark the anniversary of her death, on April 15 a new book about her life and works will be presented at the museum.

Walk through Haarlem’s old city centre and you could easily overlook the modest jewellery and watchmaker’s shop on a corner of Barteljorisstraat.

The business still bears the name Ten Boom though it’s no longer related to the family. The living quarters on the second floor again resemble the way they looked during the war and now serve as a museum. You almost expect to bump into Corrie, her father Casper or her sister Betsie while taking one of the regular guided tours of the house

Natural leader

Shortly after the Nazi’s invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Ten Boom family became active in the resistance. For years they offered a hiding place to hundreds of people in their house. One of the museum’s tour guides, Aty Bennema, tells how Corrie turned out to be a natural leader:

“She was 48 when the war began and very soon got involved in underground work. Eventually she was head of a resistance group of about 80 people and had built up a whole network of addresses and contacts.”

The network was used to find hiding places for people on the run from the Nazis, Jews mostly, but also members of the resistance and young men who had been called to work in German factories. Some people only stayed for a couple of hours with the family Ten Boom, until a safe house had been found, others -usually up to six or seven people- lived there for weeks or months even.

Corrie ten Boom’s Haarlem hide-out at Barteljorisstraat 19

Hiding place

On the second floor, in Corrie’s bedroom, a hiding place was constructed behind a brick wall, accessible through a removable panel in a built-in closet. A small space where seven people could only fit in if they stood close together. In case of unwanted Nazi visitors an alarm bell would ring and the people had to get to the hiding place within 70 seconds, taking even their plates and cutlery if they happened to be having dinner at the moment. Usually it was a matter of hours until all was safe again.

“Corrie and her family didn’t know fear,” Aty Bennema says “They believed God would help them.” With customers coming and going the shop proved to be a good cover. Until they were betrayed and the house was raided by the Gestapo.

Six people made it to the hiding place in time and weren’t discovered, but they had to stay there in absolute silence for four days. Aty Bennema tells that the Gestapo kept the house under close surveillance for a long time because they knew there were people hiding somewhere.

“They arrested everybody else in the house and also people who dropped by later that day. You see, the Ten Booms had an all safe signal, a wooden plate advertising Swiss Clocks, which they put in a side window. But they had forgotten to remove the plate and when Corrie’s sister Betsie saw that, it was too late.”

Many people walked into the trap that way. The Gestapo arrested Corrie, Betsie and their father as well as 36 other people.

Miracle release

They were taken to the nearby police station and later to Scheveningen prison, where father Ten Boom, who was 84 at the time, died ten days after his arrest. Most of the others were released at one time or other, but Corrie and Betsie were eventually transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Aty Bennema:

The hiding place in Corrie ten Boom’s bedroom. It was constructed behind a brick wall, accessible through a removable panel in a built-in closet

“Betsie died there in December 1944, but Corrie survived. She was released through a clerical error. The Nazis had made a list of all the women of 50 and older but Corrie – she was 52- was put on a list for release. It was a miracle. Corrie later heard that all the elderly women went to the gas chambers and died there. Thousands of them.”

After the liberation Corrie wrote a best-selling book entitled “The Hiding Place”, recounting her family’s wartime experiences. She also set up homes where war victims could recuperate and then the deeply religious woman travelled the world as an evangelist. In the 1970s, Corrie ten Boom moved to the United States, where she continued to write books and give sermons. Several years after her death in 1983 her old house in Haarlem became a museum, which annually draws tens of thousands of visitors, many of them from abroad.

While Corrie ten Boom is widely known among Christians around the world, here in the Netherlands she’s not quite as famous as that other wartime icon, Anne Frank. Aty Bennema thinks there is a logical explanation for that:

“First of all we are no longer a Christian nation and here at the museum we give a Christian message. The other reason is, there are more people who did the same as the Ten Boom family, even in Haarlem.”

Susannah Spurgeon

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Susannah Spurgeon
(1832-1903)

January 15th, 1832, Susannah was born to Mr. and Mrs. R.B. Thompson. She spend most of her younger years in Southern suburbs of the city of London. Her parents occasionally visited New Park Street Chapel, where she first was instructed in the things of God. It was one Sunday at this chapel that the pastor preached on Romans 10:8, it was this morning that she was first awakened to her own lost condition.

She says:

“From that service, I date the darning of the true light in my soul. The Lord said to me, through His servant, ‘Give me thy heart’, and, constrained by His love, that night witnessed my solemn resolution to entire surrender to Himself.”

Despite her recognition of her sin and decision to seek Salvation is Jesus Christ she kept all religious thought to herself.

“Seasons of Darkness, despondency and doubt had passed over me,” she says, “but I had kept all my religious experiences carefully concealed in my own breast.”

It was the hesitation and reserve in this respect being the cause, in Mrs. Spurgeon’s judgment of the sickly and sleepy condition of her soul.

It was on December 18, 1853, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a youth of 19, preached for the first time at the New Park Street Chapel. Susannah was not at the service that morning but heard glowing reports of the preacher from many friends. To please her friends, and out of curiosity to see the new preacher, Susannah accompanied her friends to the evening service. She later recalled her thought of the day:

“Ah! how little I then thought that my eyes looked on him who was to be my life’s beloved; how little i dreamed of the honor God was preparing for me in the near future! It is a mercy that our lives are not left to us to plan, but that our Father chooses for us; else might we sometimes turn away from our best blessings, and put form us the choicest and loveliest gifts of His providence. For, if the whole truth be told, I was not at all fascinated by the young orator’s eloquence, while his countrified manner and speech excited more regret than reverence. Alas, for my vain and foolish heart! I was not spiritually-minded enough to understand his earnest presentation of the Gospel and his powerful pleading with sinners; -but huge, black, satin stock, the long badly trimmed hair, and the blue pocket handkerchief with white spots which he himself has graphically described, – these attracted most of my attention and I fear awakened some feelings of amusement. There was only on sentence of the whole sermon which I carried away with me, and that solely on account of its quaintness, for it seemed to be an extraordinary thing for the preacher to speak of the ‘living stones in the Heavenly Temple perfectly joined together with the vermilion cement of Christ’s blood’”

The young miss Thompson, after she quickly over came her prejudices against the young preacher, was soon awakened to her back sliding state of indifference and became very alarmed. Yet through conversation with the Mr. Spurgeon and through the young man’s preaching, she soon found the rest her soul longed for at the cross of Jesus, where sin’s are washed away.

The first meeting of Charles and Susannah neither of them could ever remember, but they came to know each other through conversation and few outings. It was in June of 1854 that Charles first declared his love for Miss Thompson, the two where then engaged two months later.

Many where the trails ahead for the two young lovers. Mr. Spurgeon being extremely busy with his preaching, Susannah often felt slighted because of what she considered a lack of care of his part. Yet with some wise counsel from Mrs. Thompson, Susannah came to understand that she must never begrudge her future husband to God. The Lord Jesus would and should always be first in Charles life. She soon repented of her folly and became a willing and able helpmate to him.

The couple where married on January 8th 1856, in the New Park Street Chapel. The wedding was anything but a quite one; people came from miles around to see the couple exchange their marriage vows. Their honeymoon was spent in Paris, France, visiting museums and places of historical interest.

In September of that of that year the couple had their first children, a set of twins who they named Charles and Thomas. The Couple was so happy about the arrival of the new babies, but their happiness was soon over shadowed with a sad cloud. Their was a very bad scare at one of Mr. Spurgeon’s preaching appointments at Music Hall. It left in a sad state of temporary mental anguish. Susannah and the babies joined him at some friends home in Croydon for some much needed rest. Charles Spurgeon soon recovered from his restlessness and was preaching again.

The couple spent 10 happy years together. Raising children, taking care of their own country home, Mrs. Spurgeon had the task of caring for her husband in a few illnesses, yet over all it was a joy filled time. Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon both enjoyed gardening in their spare time, and built a lovely flower garden around their home.

Mrs. Spurgeon did not retain good health for much of her life. She was almost constantly suffering from physical ailments. She did her best to support and encourage her husband in his ministry despite her weakness.

In 1875 Mrs. Spurgeon begun was would soon become known as “The Book Fund”. After her husband wrote his first volume of “Lectures to my Students”, Susannah proof read it. She told her husband, “I wish I could place it in the hands of every minister in England!” Charles Spurgeon responded, “Then why not do so? how much will you give?” Thus the book fund began. Mrs. Spurgeon begun with saving her own money, and then announcing her intent of giving the book to ministers who asked for them. Money soon began to come in for the fund and it continued to grow. s

Despite her illness, Mrs. Spurgeon found many ways to help her husband in his ministry. She raised her sons, begun and worked on the “book fund”, and also wrote a number of devotionals. Her life was filled with much work and dedication for the cause of Jesus Christ.

In the Summer of 1903 Mrs. Spurgeon had a severe attack of pneumonia which prostrated her, and from this she never recovered, being confined to her bed. She was bed ridden from several months, slowing growing weaker and weaker. On October 22nd 1903 Susannah Spurgeon passed away quietly in her sleep, leaving a rich legacy of self-less love and devotion for Jesus Christ.

Amy Wilson Carmichael

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Amy Wilson Carmichael
1867-1951

Amy Wilson Carmichael (16 December 1867 – 18 January 1951) was a Protestant Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur. She served in India for fifty-five years without furlough and authored many books about the missionary work there.

Early life

Amy Wilson Carmichael was born in the small village of Millisle, County Down, Northern Ireland to David and Catherine Carmichael. Her parents were devout Presbyterians and she was the eldest of seven siblings. One story of Carmichael’s early life tells that as a child, she wished that she had blue eyes rather than brown. She often prayed that Jesus would change her eye color and was disappointed when it never happened. She loved to pinch her brother’s cheeks to make the prettiest color blue in his eyes. But she always repented afterwards for hurting her brother. As an adult, however, she realized that, because people from India have brown eyes, she would have had a much more difficult time gaining their acceptance if her eyes had been blue.

Carmichael’s father died when she was 18. Carmichael was the founder of the Welcome Evangelical Church in Belfast. The Welcome’s story begins with Carmichael in the mid 1880’s starting a Sunday morning class for the ‘Shawlies’, i.e. the mill girls who wore shawls instead of hats, in the church hall of Rosemary Street Presbyterian which proved to be very successful. Amy’s work among the shawlies grew and grew until they needed a hall to seat 500 people. At this time Amy saw an advertisement in The Christian by which an iron hall could be erected for £500 that would seat 500 people.

A donation of £500 from Miss Kate Mitchell, and a donation of a plot of land from one of the mill owners saw the erection of the first Welcome hall on the corner of Cambrai Street and Heather Street in 1887. Amy continued at the Welcome until she received a call to work among the mill girls of Manchester in 1889 before moving onto missionary work. In many ways she was an unlikely candidate for missionary work. She suffered neuralgia, a disease of the nerves that made her whole body weak and achy and often put her in bed for weeks on end. It was at the Keswick Convention of 1887 that she heard Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission speak about missionary life. Soon afterward, she became convinced of her calling to missionary work. She applied to the China Inland Mission and lived in London at the training house for women, where she met author and missionary to China, Mary Geraldine Guinness, who encouraged her to pursue missionary work. She was ready to sail for Asia at one point, when it was determined that her health made her unfit for the work. She postponed her missionary career with the CIM and decided later to join the Church Missionary Society…..

Amy Carmichael with Indian children

Initially Carmichael traveled to Japan for fifteen months, but after a brief period of service in Sri Lanka, she found her lifelong vocation in India. She was commissioned by the Church of England Zenana Mission. Hindu temple children were young girls dedicated to the gods and forced into prostitution to earn money for the priests. Much of her work was with young ladies, some of whom were saved from forced prostitution. The organization she founded was known as the Dohnavur Fellowship. Dohnavur is situated in Tamil Nadu, thirty miles from the southern tip of India. The fellowship would become a sanctuary for over one thousand children who would otherwise have faced a bleak future.

In an effort to respect Indian culture, members of the organization wore Indian dress and the children were given Indian names. She herself dressed in Indian clothes, dyed her skin with dark coffee, and often traveled long distances on India’s hot, dusty roads to save just one child from suffering.

While serving in India, Amy received a letter from a young lady who was considering life as a missionary. She asked Amy, “What is missionary life like?” Amy wrote back saying simply,

“ “Missionary life is simply a chance to die.” ”

Carmichael’s work also extended to the printed page. She was a prolific writer, producing thirty-five published books including Things as They Are: Mission Work in Southern India (1903), His Thoughts Said . . . His Father Said (1951), If (1953), Edges of His Ways (1955) and God’s Missionary (1957).

Final days and legacy

In 1931, Carmichael was badly injured in a fall, which left her bedridden much of the time until her death. She died in India in 1951 at the age of 83. She asked that no stone be put over her grave; instead, the children she had cared for put a bird bath over it with the single inscription “Amma”, which means mother in the Tamil.

Her biography quotes her as saying:

“ “One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.” ”

Her example as a missionary inspired others (including Jim Elliot and his wife Elisabeth Elliot) to pursue a similar vocation.

Florence Nightingale

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Florence Nightingale OM, RRC ( /ˈflɒrəns ˈnaɪtɨŋɡeɪl/; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed “The Lady with the Lamp” after her habit of making rounds at night. An Anglican, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse.

Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King’s College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.

In her diary, an entry shortly before her seventeenth birthday reads: “On February 7th, 1837, God spoke to me and called me to his service.” She did not know what the service would be, and therefore decided that she must remain single, so as to have no encumbrances and be ready for anything. With this in mind, she rejected a proposal of marriage from a young man whom she dearly loved. She suffered from “trances” or “dreaming” spells, in which she would lose consciousness for several minutes or longer, and be unaware when she recovered that time had passed. (Could this be a form of petit mal epilepsy? No biographer of hers that I have read uses the word.) She found the knowledge that she was subject to such spells terrifying, and feared that they meant that she was unworthy of her calling, particularly since she did not hear the voice of God again for many years. In the spring of 1844 she came to believe that her calling was to nurse the sick. In 1850 her family sent her on a tour of Egypt for her health. Some extracts from her diary follow:

March 7. God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for Him, for Him alone without the reputation.
March 9. During half an hour I had by myself in my cabin, settled the question with God.
April 1. Not able to go out but wished God to have it all His own way. I like Him to do exactly as He likes without even telling me the reason.
May 12. Today I am thirty–the age Christ began his mission.
Now no more childish things. No more love. No more marriage. Now Lord let me think only of Thy Will, what Thou willest me to do. Oh Lord Thy Will, Thy Will.
June 10. The Lord spoke to me; he said, Give five minutes every hour to the thought of Me. Coudst thou but love Me as Lizzie loves her husband, how happy wouldst thou be.” But Lizzie does not give five minutes every hour to the thought of her husband, she thinks of him every minute, spontaneously.

The Lady with the LampDuring the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale gained the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp”, deriving from a phrase in a report in The Times:

She is a ‘ministering angel’ without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow’s face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds.

“Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari”, a portrait by Jerry BarrettThe phrase was further popularised by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1857 poem “Santa Filomena”:

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

On Christmas Day when she was sixty-five, she wrote: “Today, O Lord, let me dedicate this crumbling old woman to thee. Behold the handmaid of the Lord. I was thy handmaid as a girl. Since then, I have backslid.” She wrote a manual called Notes for Nurses, and a set of instructions for the matron in charge of training nurses, emphasizing the importance for a nurse of a schedule of daily prayer. A few years before her death, she was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit from the British government. She died at ninety, and, by her directions, her tombstone read simply, “F.N. 1820-1910”.

Hudson Taylor’s wives

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Maria Dyer Taylor (1837-1870): Daughter of one of the first missionaries to China, she was orphaned at the age of 10. She was a missionary to China when she married Hudson Taylor, January 20, 1858. They had seven children: Grace, Herbert Hudson, Frederick Howard (who would later co-author Hudson’s biography), Samuel, Maria, Charles Edward, and Noel. Being fluent in the Ningpo dialect, she helped Hudson with translation work. They had been married for 12 1/2 years when at 33 yrs. of age, Maria died of cholera in 1870. She was a “tower of strength” and a comfort to her husband. In her own words, she was “more intimately acquainted than anyone else can be with his trials, his temptations, his conflicts, his failures and failings, and his conquests.”

Jennie Faulding Taylor (1843-1904): Another CIM missionary, she became the second wife of Hudson Taylor in 1871. They had two children (a son, Ernest, born in 1875 and a daughter, Amy, born in 1876), plus the four from his previous marriage and an adopted daughter. Jennie cared for her husband through injury and illness, edited the periodical China’s Millions for the China Inland Mission, had a special ministry among the women. In her later years she traveled with Hudson Taylor, speaking, writing, and organizing the work of the Mission. She died in 1904, preceding Hudson Taylor who died in 1905.

Jennie Taylor in 1866

Fanny Crosby

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Frances Jane van Alystyne (Fanny Crosby)
1820-1915
Hymn Writer

Quotes:

About her blindness, Fanny said:

“It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me.”

If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind…for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.”

Biography:

Frances Jane Crosby was born into a family of strong Puritan ancestry on March 24, 1820. As a baby, she had an eye infection which an incompetent doctor treated by placing hot poultices on her red and inflamed eyelids. The infection did clear up, but the result was that scars formed on the eyes, and the Fanny became blind for life. A few months later, Fanny’s dad became ill and died. Mercy Crosby, widowed at 21, hired herself out as a maid while Grandmother Eunice Crosby took care of little Fanny.

Fanny’s grandmother took on the education herself and became the girl’s eyes, vividly describing the physical world. Grandmother’s careful teaching helped develop Fanny’s descriptive abilities, she also nurtured Fanny’s spirit. She read and carefully explained the Bible to her, and she always emphasized the importance of prayer. When Fanny became depressed because she couldn’t learn as other children did, Grandmother taught her to pray to God for knowledge.

A landlady of the Crosby’s also had an important role in Fanny’s development. Mrs. Hawley helped Fanny memorize the Bible, and often the young girl learned five chapters a week. She knew the Pentateuch, the Gospels, Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms by heart. She developed a memory which often amazed her friends, but Fanny believed she was no different from others. Her blindness had simply forced her to develop her memory and her powers of concentration more. Blindness never produced self-pity in Fanny and she did not look on her blindness as a terrible thing. At eight years old she composed this little verse:

Oh, what a happy child I am, although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world contented I will be!
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t!
So weep or sigh because I’m blind, I cannot – nor I won’t.

In 1834 Fanny learned of the New York Institute for the Blind and knew this was the answer to her prayer for an education. She entered the school when she was twelve and went on to teach there for twenty-three years. She became somewhat of a celebrity at the school and was called upon to write poems for almost every conceivable occasion.

On March 5, 1858, Fanny married Alexander van Alystyne, a former pupil at the Institute and now taught there as a professor. He was a musician who was considered one of the finest organists in the New York area. Fanny herself was an excellent harpist, played the piano, and had a lovely soprano voice. Even as an old woman (Fanny lived to be 95) Fanny would sit at the piano and play everything from classical works to hymns to ragtime. Sometimes she even played old hymns in a jazzed up style.

After her marriage, Fanny left the Institute, and in a few years she found her true vocation in writing hymns. She had an agreement with the publishers Bigelow and Main to write three hymns a week for use in their Sunday school publications. Sometimes Fanny wrote six or seven hymns a day. Though Fanny could write complex poetry as well as improvise music of classical structure, her hymns were aimed at bringing the message of the Gospel to people who would not listen to preaching. Whenever she wrote a hymn, she prayed God would use it to lead many souls to Him.

In her own day, the evangelistic team of Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey effectively brought Fanny Crosby’s hymns to the masses. Today many of her hymns continue to draw souls to their Savior for both salvation and comfort: ” Blessed Assurance,” “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” “To God Be the Glory, ” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” ” Safe in the Arms of Jesus,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” and many more.

Though her hymn writing declined in later years, Fanny was active in speaking engagements and missionary work among America’s urban poor almost until the day of her death in 1915. She sought to bring others to her Savior not only through her hymns but through her personal life as well. What happened when Fanny died? Perhaps one of her later hymns tells it best:

When my lifework is ended and I cross the swelling tide,
When the bright and glorious morning I shall see,
I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side,
And His smile will be the first to welcome me.

I shall know Him, I shall know Him,
And redeemed by His side I shall stand!
I shall know Him, I shall know Him
By the print of the nails in His hand.

Fanny Crosby was probably the most prolific hymnist in history, writing over 8,000 hymns. As many as 200 different pen names were given to her works by hymn book publishers so that the public wouldn’t know she wrote so large a number of them. She produced as many as seven hymns/poems in one day. On several occasions, upon hearing an unfamiliar hymn sung, she would inquire about the author, and find it to be one of her own!

If you were to take fifteen hymnals and stack them one on top of another. Taken all together, that’s about the number of hymns Fanny wrote in her lifetime! Of course, many of those have been forgotten today, but a large number remain favorites of Christians all over the world. In her lifetime, Fanny Crosby was one of the best known women in the United States and a strong Christian whose legacy of faithfulness to God is exhibited by the hymns that will be sung for all eternity!

Emily Chubbuck Judson

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Emily Judson
(1817-1854)

Emily Judson was an author and third wife of Adoniram Judson. Professional writer under the pen name of Fanny Forester. Adoniram met her while in the United States after the death of his second wife and requested that she write a biography of Sarah. They married in 1846 and returned to Burma. After Adoniram’s death in 1850, she returned to the United States, where she died in 1854.

Dora Yu

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Dora Yu
(Yu Cidu, 1873–1931)

Dora Yu was hailed by western missionaries as “the most prominent” Chinese evangelist in China in the first part of 20th century. Her revival ministry was particularly efficient among Chinese cultured upper class people.

In one of Dora Yu’s revival meeting in Church of Heavenly Peace, Fuzhou, in 1920, a young man called Watchman Nee, at the age of seventeen, experienced a powerful salvation and immediately consecrated himself to serve God fulltime. Besides being Watchman Nee’s “spiritual mother”, Dora You was also his mentor through whom he was introduced to fundamental biblical truths and to inner life experiences.

Ann Hasseltine Judson

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Ann Hasseltine Judson
(1789-1826)

Ann Hasseltine Judson was the first American woman missionary to go overseas. She sailed with her husband, Adoniram, for Calcutta, India, in 1812. Ordered to leave India, they began their missionary work in Rangoon, Burma in 1813. Ann learned the Burmese and Siamese languages, did translation work, taught Burmese girls, and managed her household and cared for her husband during his 18 month imprisonment in 1824-25.

Helen Emily Chapman Springer

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Helen Emily Chapman Springer
(1868-1949)

Helen Emily Chapman Springer was a pioneer Methodist Episcopal Church missionary to Rhodesia and the Congo. She graduated from Holyoke High School in Massachusetts and Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. In 1890 she sailed for Africa and soon married William Rasmussen (n.d.-1895). The Rasmussens arrived in Lower Congo, Africa, in 1891. Due to ill health they were forced to return to the United States after only a year and a half.

When they return to the mission field in 1894, they were assigned to Isangila, Congo, but she was forced to leave Africa again due to failing health. In 1901 she returned to Africa and was stationed in Rhodesia at Old Umtali where she stated a girl’s boarding school. On January 2, 1905, she married John McKendree Springer, and they continued to work as missionaries in Africa. Helen Springer’s work focused on translating Christian literature and scriptures into native languages. She also assisted her husband in his duties as bishop and missionary.