Gladys Aylward was an English woman who, though young and on her own, bravely ventured into China as a missionary. She had read in a Christian magazine of the millions of Chinese people who were without the gospel. She later said,

“To realise that millions of Chinese had never heard of Jesus Christ was to me a staggering thought, and I felt that surely we ought to do something about it. First I visited my Christian friends and talked to them about it, but no one seemed very concerned. Then I tried my brother. Surely if I helped him he would gladly go off to China! “Not me!” he said bluntly. “That’s an old maid’s job. Why don’t you go yourself?” Old maid’s job, indeed! I thought angrily. But the thrust had gone home. Why should I try pushing other people off to China? Why didn’t I go myself?” (1)

Gladys attended a missionary college for three months. At the end of the time the committee told her that she was not accepted, due to her lack of qualifications and education. They told her that the Chinese language would be far too difficult for her. Disappointed, she took on a ministry as a housekeeper for a retired missionary couple, in Bristol. She later moved to Swansea where she sought to reach women and young girls with the gospel. She would go into pubs and rescue girls (whom the sailors made drunk) and take them back to a hostel. She later said, “I enjoyed this work and felt it was something worthwhile, but still the thought of China tormented me. Always it was China! I could not rid myself of the idea that God wanted me there.” (2)

Various people tried to persuade her against going to China. Some told her, “Put the thought of China out of your head.” (3) Dejected, she opened her Bible one day during a train journey from London to Swansea. She read,

“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from they father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee..”

She wondered if perhaps God wanted her to do the same. She was then challenged as she read of Moses’ willingness to leave his home in the desert to do the will of God. So she decided to begin saving for a fare to China. She found out that the cheapest way to reach China was by train through Europe, Russia and Siberia. When she asked a booking clerk how much a ticket to China was he replied, “Now come on, miss, we haven’t time for jokes.” (4)

She found out that the fare would cost 47 pounds and 10 shillings. She gave the clerk three pounds as a deposit, and over the following months added further money to it as she was able. By the providence of God, she was able to save within months what should have taken three years. She wrote to an elderly missionary in China, who agreed to meet her at the Tientsin railway station.

On October the 15th, 1932, Gladys set off on the long train journey to the land of her calling. She knew that she had no money to buy food on the way, so packed her suitcase with corned beef, baked beans, fish, crackers, hard-boiled eggs and other items. She experienced mixed emotions on the journey. She felt very much alone, but had an abiding peace that she was doing the will of God. She arrived in China on the 8th of November, 1932. She was met by Jeannie Lawson, a widowed Scottish missionary in her seventies.

Gladys obtained a position as a “feet inspector”. The Chinese had an ancient custom whereby young girl’s feet would be bound to prevent them from growing. The custom was declared illegal by the government, and Gladys was given authority to go into homes and ensure that the feet-binding custom was not being practiced. It was a paid position, and she was accompanied by two soldiers. While inspecting women’s feet, she preached the gospel to them. Gradually, souls were saved and small groups of Christians began meeting together. Gladys also began an orphanage. She took care of many neglected children who no one wanted.

Gladys lived like a Chinese woman. She wore Chinese clothes, ate Chinese food, spoke their language, and, in 1936, became a Chinese citizen. She was given an official Chinese name – Ai-weh-deh.

The Chinese-Japanese war of the 1930’s greatly affected Gladys’ life and those around her. She says, “From 1938 onward, we were in the middle of the fighting. Four times Yangcheng changed hands. First the Nationalist armies would take it, then the Japanese, and each time we had to flee to the hills and live where we could, in caves or holes in the ground, and eat if we were lucky. Each army, in turn, looted the city, until none of us had anything left. Yet, when the army left the city, we went back to the ruins of our homes, only too thankful to get there. I had two planks for a bed, two stools, two cups and a basin.” (5)

During the war, the number of children in her orphanage grew to over one hundred. One night, a soldier came to her door with startling news. He held up a poster he had found which said, “Wanted: Ai-weh-deh” along with three other names. It read, “Any person giving information which will lead to the capture, alive or dead, of the above mentioned will receive a reward of 100 pounds from the Japanese High Command.” (6)

The next morning she fled. “I got through the Gate of the Dead, across a stream, and started to run across a field. Then the Japanese saw me. Bullets splattered all around, and there was a great deal of shouting. I fell down. The bullets came closer. I pulled off my thick padded coat, and rolled under a bush. The bullets riddled my coat, but eventually I crawled out and ran on again. I fell, got up, ran, crawled and climbed, but eventually the firing ceased, and I sank down utterly exhausted.” (7)

This is just one of several stories of God’s sovereign intervention in Gladys’ life. The complete story is told in the book “Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman,” by Gladys Aylward and Christine Hunter.

May God give each of us the faith and courage to obey Him and go wherever He sends us.

David Hunt

Footnotes
(1) Aylward & Hunter, Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman, (Moody, Chicago, USA, 1970) p7-8.
(2) ibid p10.
(3) ibid p10.
(4) ibid p13.
(5) ibid p69.
(6) ibid p84.
(7) ibid p85

David Livingstone is one of history’s best known missionaries. He was a pioneer in the true sense of the word, being greatly used of God to open up the interior of Africa for the gospel.

David Livingstone was born in Scotland in 1813. He grew up in a poor home. He started work at age ten, at a cotton mill. He worked there for thirteen years, for fourteen hours a day (6am to 8pm), six days a week. This was undoubtedly part of God’s training for him for his future work. He made good use of his time at work by taking books along, including a Bible and a Latin book. He won his Bible in a contest by reciting Psalm 119 (all 176 verses!). He also mastered Latin before he was sixteen, often sitting up until midnight studying by candlelight. His biographer says of him “He milked every minute out of every day” (1).

By the time David was twenty-seven, he had completed courses in medicine and theology. He applied to the London Missionary Society, and was accepted in 1838. His desire was to go to China. But a Reverend later approached him with the ‘bad’ news that he would not be recommended for missionary service because of his faltering speech. He was devastated. A friend encouraged him that all was not lost. He told him that he had overheard someone say of him, “When Livingstone walks he has a very particular stride, solid and determined, not fast, not slow – his stride simply guarantees he is going to get there!” (2).

To Livingstone’s surprise, the Reverend who broke the bad news later had a change of heart. David was given another chance. In the meantime, however, another setback occurred. The London Missionary Society decided not to send any more missionaries to China for the time being. A conflict between England and China over opium had caused things to become unsettled. Again, Livingstone was disappointed, but God had not deserted him. He had other plans for this zealous young man.

A missionary from South Africa told Livingstone that vast areas of Africa’s interior were untouched by white men. So he told the mission board that he wished to go to South Africa, and requested to do further medical training. The board approved, and in 1840 he began work at a London hospital. There he gained valuable experience in examining and diagnosing a wide range of diseases, including pneumonia, tuberculosis, and cancer. This was excellent preparation for his future ministry.

The time finally came for Livingstone to leave for the mission field. He returned to Scotland to say goodbye to his family, caught a steamer to England, then sailed to Africa. In March 1841, aged 28, he arrived in Cape Town. He found that some of the missionaries were ministering only among white people. His desire was to push into unevangelised territory in the north. In September 1841, he, a fellow missionary, and two native Africans began a journey northeast, by ox wagon.

Livingstone learned a native dialect (Bakwain), but, like many missionaries, encountered difficulties in communication. After he had been preaching for a while, he discovered that the word he had been using for love was the Bakwain word for sexual love. And the word he had been using for sin meant cow dung if the wrong tone was used.

He married, and he and his wife were blessed with several children. One of their children, Elizabeth, died after a month from respiratory illness. Livingstone was separated from his wife for four years when she returned to Scotland for the children’s education. They were later apart for another four years. He did not see his daughter, Anna Mary, until she was nearly six years old. In 1862, Mary returned to Africa and she and David were happily reunited. In April that year, Mary, contracted river fever and died within six days, aged just forty-one. David was heartbroken.

During his thirty-two years on the mission field, Livingstone “walked, crawled, climbed, waded, canoed, boated, ridden, and been carried” over 40,000 miles of rugged territory in Africa, a country referred to as “the white man’s grave”. “He took notes and made maps every step of the way. He told every African he saw the good news about Jesus Christ.” (3)

He suffered many trials and hardships, but refused to give in. He was once attacked by a lion, which left eleven teeth punctures in his left arm. He suffered from river fever for ten years, and later from recurrent bleeding. Towards the end of his life he lost his front teeth due to eating uncooked corn on the cob. He also suffered from foot ulcers, lung problems, dysentery, haemorrhoids, and internal bleeding, and became emaciated. On April 10, 1873, he wrote in his diary, “I am pale, bloodless, and weak from bleeding profusely.. an artery gives off a copious stream, and takes away my strength.” (4)

David Livingstone died on the thirtieth of April, 1873. Two Africans, Susi and Chuma, buried his heart and internal organs under a tree. They preserved his body, wrapped it up, and along with other natives carried it for eight months to Zanzibar, over 1000 miles away. “On the way, a stranger encouraged them to abandon the bundle. Chuma explained, “No. This is a very big man!””(5). His body was shipped to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.

His father-in-law said of Livingstone, “He sacrificed everything – home, Christian intercourse, lucrative prospects, and earthly honours – for one grand object, to carry the Gospel of the Son of God to the heart of Africa.” (6). He made such an impact that Africans in the remotest of areas still spoke of him years later.

David Livingstone was one who took up his cross and followed Jesus, making sacrifices for the cause of the gospel. His sufferings are now behind him, and he abides in the presence of the Lord he so faithfully served. No doubt, his reward will be great!

David Hunt

Footnotes
(1) Wellman, S. David Livingstone: Missionary and Explorer, (Barbour, Uhirichsville, OH, 1995) p31.
(2) Ibid p39.
(3) ibid p203
(4) ibid p200
(5) ibid p203
(6) ibid p203

James Fraser was born in England, in 1886. He was one of six children. When he was five, his family moved to St. Albans near London. His mother faithfully taught the children music and drawing, as well as lessons from the Bible. For years she prayed that at least one of her children would become a missionary. Years later, as a missionary in China, James Fraser wrote that his missionary call was due to his mother’s prayers.

As James grew older, he developed the quality of endurance which was to stand him in good stead in China. He once walked to and from London in one day, a distance of forty-four miles. On another occasion he rode 199 miles on his bicycle without dismounting. He ranked twelfth in England by passing a London University matriculation exam, and later completed a course in engineering. While a student at the University, he was given a book entitled “Do Not Say”, written by a missionary in China. The book contained challenging and thought-provoking statements such as,

“If our Master returned today to find millions of people
unevangelised and looked, as of course He would look, to us for an explanation, I cannot imagine what explanation we should be able to give. Of one thing I am certain – that most of the excuses we are accustomed to make with such good conscience now, we should be wholly ashamed of then.”

Fraser’s response was to give himself wholly to the Lord for His purposes. His biographer says of him, “the young man handed over not the latch key but the master key of his whole being.” (1) Fraser began reaching out to lost souls in his locality, then, aged twenty-one, applied to the China Inland Mission. The C.I.M. was founded by Hudson Taylor, and had grown to over a thousand members. Fraser was accepted into the mission, and set sail for China. This caused mixed emotions for his mother. To part with her son was difficult, but she was also full of joy. She wrote, “Jim, dear, I am the happiest woman in London today.” (2) She once said, “I could not pour out the ointment on [Jesus’] blessed feet, as Mary did, but I gave Him my boy.” (3)

Upon arriving in China, Fraser spent several months at the mission language school, and later moved to Tengyuey, a city in China’s far western province. He could not bring himself to settle there for life, as he believed the people were within reach of the gospel, while thousands of Lisu people in the mountains still waited to hear the good news for the first time. He later wrote of the burden he felt to reach the people, “I was very much led out in prayer for these people, right from the beginning. Something seemed to draw me to them, and the desire in my heart grew until it became a burden that God would give us hundreds of converts among the Lisu of our western district.” (4)

Fraser could not speak Lisu, but in the meantime diligently pressed on in his study of the Chinese language. Though just twenty-two, he was becoming one of the best Chinese speakers among the C.I.M. missionaries. On one of his short-term evangelistic journeys, he climbed a hill and looked out over a huge plain, populated with lost souls yet to hear the gospel. He said,

“The whole plain, with a population of perhaps 100,000, is without the light of the Gospel. I believe God would be glorified by even one witness to His name amid the perishing thousands. ..It does seem a terrible thing that so few are offering for the mission field. I can’t help feeling that there is something wrong somewhere. Surely God must be wanting His people to go forward. Does not the Master’s last command still hold good?” (5)

Almost a year after Fraser’s arrival in Tengyueh, a Lisu tribesman escorted him through the hills to his village. He was warmly welcomed, the people laying straw mats on the ground alongside the fire for him to place his bedding on. He was given a generous meal of rice, eggs and cabbage. During his stay, Fraser jotted down Lisu words and phrases and gathered a vocabulary of around 400 phrases. This impressed the Lisu, as the Chinese had always said that the Lisu language could not be written.

Fraser continued on with his study of Chinese, devoting five hours per day to the task. He also preached on the streets and held services in the local chapel. However, he felt more at home witnessing one-on-one. He once wrote,

“I have..been feeling lately that this personal work is quite as important as preaching. To have a man come to see you at your own house and be able to talk with him plainly and directly about his soul’s welfare – what could be better? Of course preaching to crowds must be done, but it is not the only way of bringing men to Christ. It may seem a strange thing for a missionary to say, but I feel that if God has given me any spiritual gift it is not that of preaching. I know my own clumsiness very well – but the Lord has always helped me in the one-by-one work, and He is giving it to me here.” (6)

Fraser counted his mother as a fellow-worker in prayer, and would send her names of people to pray for. He placed much emphasis on prayer, and wrote to a friend, “Solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees. What I covet more than anything else is earnest, believing prayer, and I write to ask you to continue to put up much prayer for me and the work here” (7)

In July 1912, Fraser completed all six sections of his Chinese language study, after three and a half years of hard work. He was then able to return to the Lisu village, this time to live among the people and learn their language. Over the years he had the joy of seeing many Lisu come to Christ, eventually numbering in the thousands as Lisu believers led others to Christ.

As is normal in missionary life, Fraser faced hardships. On one occasion his feet and legs broke out in ulcers after he was bitten by a dog and by insects and leeches. During this trial he also suffered from depression. He endured heartache when some Lisu believers put away their Christian books and stopped praying, reverting back to their old ways. They had been in bondage to demons for so long that the “pull” was still strong. Seeing believers backslide was a cause of much grief to him.

In January 1914, he wrote home to his mother and asked her to consider forming a small “prayer circle” of believers who could stand with him in prayer. His mother soon gathered a group of friends to intercede for him. The writer of the introduction to Fraser’s biography made this observation,

“It was not primarily Fraser’s energetic evangelism and wise counsel that made his work so effective. It was his emphasis on prayer in his own life and his gift of fostering prayer groups in the homeland. This constant prayer barrage covered the whole operation, protecting it from the deadly fire of Satan’s forces. Surely here lies the secret of a truly successful missionary enterprise.” (8)

James Fraser faithfully served the Lord in China until his home-call in 1938. A complete account of his life is recorded in the excellent biography, “Behind the Ranges”, by Mrs. Howard Taylor. May we be inspired by James Fraser’s example, and be encouraged to play our part in the great task of world evangelism.

David Hunt

Quotations
(1) Taylor, H. Behind the Ranges” (Moody Press, Chicago, USA, 1964) p23
(2) ibid p26
(3) ibid p27
(4) ibid p32-33
(5) ibid p44
(6) ibid p57
(7) ibid p58
(8) ibid p9