Missionary to China- GLADYS AYLWARD (1902 - 1970) - She lived her life before God and for God and is an example of what He can accomplish using the least of us.

Gladys Aylward stands out as an example of how God can use someone of meager means and abilities when they give themselves over to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Born into a working class family in Edmonton, London on February 24, 1902. Daughter of a mailman and oldest of two sisters and 1 brother. Unlike many famous Christians in history, she didn't excel scholastically or set her self apart based on her exhaustive knowledge of the Bible and the classic languages, rather her early life was marked with a propensity for play acting and a willingness to serve. God prepares those He calls for the roles they are to play and these propensities would come to be contributing factors in her success as God put them to good use.

Though raised in the Angelican Church, she was not a particularly religious person in her early years and her "adequate" education and working class social position left her with few options. She became a parlor maid at the age of only 14. Her call to missions came about when she attended a revival at when she was 18 in which the preacher expounded on giving ones life over to the service of the Lord. The message struck a cord in her heart and an awakening desire to serve on the missionary field began to blossom. Having spent the last four years serving others surely gave her a unique insight to a servant's heart. She gave her life to Christ willing to be used in whatever way He sought fit. Some sources indicate that her decision to pursue a missionary assignment to China may have come about from having read a magazine article about China, a nation where millions of people had never heard the Gospel.

She continued her work as a parlor maid with little chance to realize her calling. In her mid-twenties, she applied and was given a probationary position with the China Inland Mission Center in London but this endeavor didn't bear fruit. At the age of 26 her probation ended in failure. She had fallen short of their expectations and was rejected for service as a missionary to China. However, no one can frustrate the will of God or reject for service those who are called of God "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Rom 11:29)

Determined to follow God by whatever means available, she continued to work and to save her money and after four years, at the age of 30, her opportunity came in the person of an aging missionary, Mrs. Jeannie Lawson,1 who was looking for a young assistant to carry on her work. Gladys was accepted but Mrs. Lawson didn't have the means to assist her with the passage to China. Adding to the difficulties, save as she might, Gladys lacked the funds to travel by ship, the preferred method of travel to distant lands. So she put her affairs in order and with only her passport, her Bible, her tickets, and two pounds ninepence, set off for a perilous, overland journey to the inland city of Yangchen, in the mountainous province of Shansi, a little south of Peking. An area where few Europeans visited and the people didn't trust foreigners.

The two women set about planing the best way to attract an audience to hear the message of Jesus. Knowing that the city in which they lived was an overnight stop for mule caravans and that the building in which they lived has once been an Inn, they determined to do some repairs and restore its original purpose offering food and care for the mules along with hospitality, food and a warm bed for the drivers at a fair price. It is reported that Gladys would run out and grab the halter of the lead mule and lead it into their courtyard. The other mules followed and the drivers went along for the ride.

In the evenings after serving a meal and before bed, the women would gather their guests and tell them stories about a man named Jesus. In this fashion, the Gospel message began to be proclaimed, not only at their Inn but by the drivers who carried the stories with them to other stops along their journey. It also served to open Gladys' mind to the new challenge of learning the language as she sat and listened to these stories, participating as she was able. She spent many hours each day learning to communicate in the vernacular of the locals until she finally was competent, something the China Inland Mission Center thought beyond her ability.
Shortly after this, her mentor, Mrs. Lawson fell and was seriously injured leading to her death a few days later. Gladys, along with the Chinese cook, who was a Christian, determined to continue the work. Fluent in the language, she began to share the Gospel in surrounding villages and through circumstance, became aware of the many unwanted children. Her missionary work turned in a different direction, care for these unwanted little ones. But her care wasn't limited to children only. During those years China was under attack by Japan and many Chinese soldiers were wounded. So she added their numbers to those for whom she provided succor. Her Inn became a refuge for 20 orphans and as many as 30 to 40 injured soldiers at a time.

The war intensified and her children charges now numbered around 100. She had become a citizen of China in 1936 and her activities in support of the local populace, including a bit of spying on the Japanese made it unsafe to remain in Yangchen. Being warned of a bounty for her capture, dead or alive, by Colonel Linnan a member of the local Chinese resistance, she gathered up the children and narrowly escaped the city.

Unable to use roads or transportation, she was forced to lead her children, on foot, over the mountains to the safer province of Sian some 100 miles distant. The trek took twenty seven days in which they had to endure the elements and many hardships. She herself had become ill en route and when they finally arrived safely, she collapsed. The doctors were amazed by the feat as she was suffering from typhus, pneumonia, a relapsing fever, malnutrition, and supreme exhaustion.

She regained some strength but never recovered totally from her illness yet this didn't stop her from continuing her ministry, now located in Sian. She started a church and once more she was sharing the Gospel in the villages, prisons and among the sick and helpless. Her ministry continued until 1947 when the new Communist regime told control. Gladys and other missionaries had to leave China and her choice of destination was decided because she had a burden for the spiritual condition of her native England.

In 1958, after ten years in England, she left for Taiwan and started another orphanage. She remained here for the rest of her life serving God by serving His children. She died January 3rd, 1970 ..

D. L. (DWIGHT LYMAN) MOODY 1837–1899

MOODY, DWIGHT LYMAN (RYTHER): Evangelist; b. at Northfield, Mass., Feb. 5, 1837; d. there Dec. 22, 1899. He was the sixth of the nine children of Edwin and Betsy Moody (nee Holton). His father, who was a mason, died in 1841 (aged 41) and the family was in dire financial circumstances for years. His mother died in 1895, aged ninety. Moody received his first religious impressions in the village Unitarian church and his first missionary work was in getting pupils for its Sunday-school, which he attended. His schooling was carried only as far as the district school could take him, and while a young boy he had to earn his living. In 1854 he resolved to try his fortunes in Boston, and there was hired by his uncle, Samuel Holton, as a clerk in his boot and shoe store. One of the conditions of his engagement was that he should regularly attend his uncle's church, the Mount Vernon (Orthodox) Congregational Church, and also its Sunday-school. This promise he faithfully kept and was so much impressed by the truths he heard taught that in 1855 he applied for admission into the church. But his examination was not considered satisfactory and his application was held over for a year when he was thought to have made sufficient attainments in theology for church membership. In Sept., 1856, he went to Chicago and quickly found a more lucrative position than his uncle could offer, and made a reputation as a salesman and traveler in the shoe trade. He also accumulated $7,000 toward the $100,000 upon which he had set his heart. But while diligent in his business and uncommonly successful he became absorbed more and more in religious work. His energies were first spent upon the Sunday-school as teacher, gathering-in new pupils, and most unpromising ones, who under his instruction improved marvelously, and then as superintendent of the North Market Hall Sunday-school which he built up until it had a membership of 1,500 and out of it in 1863 the Illinois Street Church was formed. He thus was well known in the state as a Sunday-school worker. From the time of his coming to Chicago he had entered heartily into the work of the Young Mens' Christian Association, and he raised a large part of the money for its building, not once hut twice, for the first was burned in 1867, and the second in 1871. In 1881 he gave up business and was an independent city missionary, then agent of the Christian Commission in the Civil War, and after that again in Sunday-school work and the secretary of the Chicago Young Men's Christian Association. But as yet he had done nothing to give him international fame.

In 1867 he made a visit to Great Britain on account of his wife's health-he had married in 1862. He made some valuable acquaintances and did a little evangelistic work. One of his converts was John Kenneth Mackenzie. In 1872 he was again in Great Britain, held numerous meetings and won the esteem of prominent Evangelicals. From these he received an invitation to return for general revival work. He came the next year, bringing with him Ira David Sankey, who was henceforth to be linked with him in fame as a revivalist. They landed at Liverpool on June 17, 1873, and held their first services in York. Moody's downright preaching and Sankey's simple but soul-stirring singing won attention, and as they passed from city to city they were heard by great crowds. They spent two years in this arduous labor, and then returned to America. Their fame was now in all the churches and invitations poured in upon them to do at home what they had done abroad, so they repeated these services and duplicated their successes, and that in all parts of the country. In 1881 and again in 1891 and 1892 they were in the United Kingdom. One of their most loyal supporters was Henry Drummond, who owed to them the quickening of his religious life in 1874.

In 1892 Moody by invitation of friends made a brief visit to the Holy Land. It was on his return to London that autumn that he first knew of the heart difficulty which ultimately caused his death. It may have been this knowledge that induced him during his remaining years to seek rather to deepen the spiritual life of professing Christians through church services of the ordinary quiet type, than to address the enormous miscellaneous crowds in all kinds of buildings as he did in earlier days. It was while holding services in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 16, 1899, that he broke down, and, although he was able to reach home, he was fatally stricken and soon after died.

Moody had "consecrated common sense." He was honest, preached a Calvinistic creed which he accepted with all his heart, and was master of an effective style. His sermons and shorter addresses abound in personal allusions, in shrewd remarks and home thrusts. He had a hatred of shame and scant respect for notable persons whose fame was owed solely to their position. He was often abrupt, sometimes brusk. He had no polish, small education, but he knew the English Bible and accepted it literally. He was fond of treating Bible characters very familiarly and enlivening his sermons by imaginary conversations with and between them. But that he was truly bent upon promoting the kingdom of God by the ways he thought most helpful there is no doubt. Like other great revivalists he had much praise which was undesirable, but he never lost his head. He also never allowed excitement to carry his audiences off their feet. For sanity, sincerity, spirituality, and success Moody goes into the very first ,rank of revival preachers.

During Moody's and Sankey's mission at Newcastle, England, in 1873, the first form of the familiar hymn-book which hears their name appeared in response to the necessity of having a book which was adapted to their needs. This book was originally little better than a small pamphlet, but it was enlarged and has taken on various shapes and had varied contents while preserving its main features. The sale of the book in its different forms has been enormous. Up to 1900 more than one and a quarter million dollars had been paid to its compilers in royalties. Of his share in this money Moody made noble use, and thus opened a chapter in his life which is less known to the public, but will have more permanent interest than his preaching. For with it he founded, or helped to found, the chain of educational institutions which does not bear his name but which is his greatest monument. The first was the Northfield Seminary for Young Women, erected and carried on in his native town. It dates from 1879. This is a school which trains girls for college, if they go so far, but in any case gives them good instruction permeated with religion. All the work of the house is done by the students. In 1881 Mount Hermon School for Young Men was started. The two schools are only a few miles apart. The students are taken at very low rates and combined manual training with the usual school courses both under strong religious influences, The Bible Institute for Horne and Foreign Missions in Chicago, open to both sexes, is another of the educational aids which owe their origin to him. The Students' Conferences and the Northfield Christian Workers' Conference, both of which meet Annually at Northfield, were inaugurated by him. They have exerted a great influence, and of a very sane and thoughtful type.

In church connection Moody belonged to the independent Chicago Avenue Church. In his activities he belonged to the Church universal.

Biography of Mary Mitchell Slessor (2 December 1848 – 13 January 1915) was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria ..

Mary Slessor was born on 2 December 1848 in Gilcomston,Scotland in a poor working class family. She was the second of seven children of Robert and Mary Slessor. Her father, originally from Buchan, was a shoemaker by trade. In 1859, the family moved to Dundee in search of work. Robert Slessor was an alcoholic and, unable to keep up shoemaking, took a job as a labourer in a mill. Her mother, a skilled weaver, also went to work in the mills.^..At the age of eleven, Slessor began work as a "half-timer" in the Baxter Brothers' Mill, meaning she spent half of her day at a school provided by the mill owners and the other half working for the company.

The Slessors lived in the slums of Dundee. Before long, Mary's father died of pneumonia, and both her brothers also died, leaving behind only Mary, her mother, and two sisters. By age fourteen, Slessor had become a skilled jute worker, working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with just an hour for breakfast and lunch.

 Her mother was a devout Presbyterian who read each issue of the Missionary Record, a monthly magazine published by The United Presbyterian Church (later the United Free Church of Scotland) to inform members of missionary activities and needs.^[1] Slessor developed an interest in religion and, when a mission was instituted in Quarry Pend (close by the Wishart Church), she wanted to teach. Slessor was 27 when she heard that David Livingstone, the famous missionary and explorer, had died, and decided she wanted to follow in his footsteps.

Eventually, Slessor applied to the United Presbyterian Church's Foreign Mission Board. After training in Edinburgh, she set sail in the S.S. Ethiopia on 5 August 1876, and arrived at her destination in West Africa just over a month later.

Slessor, 28 years of age, red haired with bright blue eyes, was first assigned to the Calabar region in the land of Efik people. She was warned that the Efik people there believed in traditional West African religion and had superstitions in relation to women giving birth to twins. Slessor lived in the missionary compound for 3 years, working first in the missions in Old Town and Creek Town. She wanted to go deeper into Calabar, but she contracted malaria and was forced to return to Scotland to recover. She left Calabar for Dundee in 1879. After 16 months in Scotland, Slessor returned to Africa, but not to the same compound. Her new assignment was three miles farther into Calabar, in Old Town. Since Slessor assigned a large portion of her salary to support her mother and sisters in Scotland, she economised by learning to eat the native food.

Mary Slessor with adopted children Jean, Alice, Maggie and May. Image taken  in Scotland Issues Slessor confronted as a young missionary included the lack of Western education , as well as widespread human sacrifice at the death of a village elder, who, it was believed, required servants and retainers to accompany him into the next world. The birth of twins was considered a particularly evil curse. Natives feared that the father of one of the infants was an evil spirit, and that the mother had been guilty of a great sin. Unable to determine which twin was fathered by the evil spirit, the natives often abandoned both babies in the bush. Slessor adopted every child she found abandoned, and sent out twins missioners to find, protect and care for them at the Mission House. Some mission compounds were alive with babies. Slessor once saved a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, but the boy did not survive. Mary took the girl as her daughter and called her Janie.

According to W. P. Livingstone, when two deputies went out to inspect the Mission in 1881-82, they were much impressed. They stated, "…she enjoys the unreserved friendship and confidence of the people, and has much influence over them." This they attributed partly to the singular ease with which Slessor spoke the language. After only three more years, Slessor returned to Scotland on yet another health furlough. This time, she took Janie with her. During the next 3 years, Slessor looked after her mother and sister (who had also fallen ill), raised Janie, and spoke at many churches, sharing stories from Africa.

After this hiatus, Slessor returned to Africa. She saved hundreds of twins out of the african bush, where they had been left either to starve to death or be eaten by animals. She helped heal the sick and stopped the practice of determining guilt by making the suspects drink poison. As a missionary, she went to other tribes, spreading the word of Jesus Christ.

During this third mission to Africa, Slessor received news that her mother and sister had died. She was overcome with loneliness, writing, "There is no one to write and tell my stories and nonsense to." She had also found a sense of independence, writing, "Heaven is now nearer to me than Britain, and no one will worry about me if I go up country."

Slessor was a driving force behind the establishment of the Hope Waddell Training Institute in Calabar, which provided practical vocational training to African.

In August 1888, Slessor traveled north to Okoyong, an area where previous male missionaries had been killed. She thought that her teachings, and the fact that she was a woman, would be less threatening to unreached tribes. For 15 years, Slessor lived with the Okoyong and Efik people. She learned to speak Efik, the native language, and made close personal friendships wherever she went, becoming known for her pragmatism and humour. Slessor lived a simple life in a traditional house with Africans. Her insistence on lone stations often led Slessor into conflict with the authorities and gained her a reputation for eccentricity. However, her exploits were heralded in Britain and she became known as the "white queen of Okoyong". Slessor did not focus on evangelism, but rather on settling disputes, encouraging trade, establishing social changes and introducing Western education. Slessor frequently campaigned to devalve traditional efik life and to assist european racism but assist whites in help rob the efik of there god give wealth, for the bible .

In 1892, Slessor became vice-consul in Okoyong, presiding over the native court. In 1905 she was named vice-president of Ikot Obong native court. In 1913 she was awarded the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Slessor suffered failing health in her later years but remained in Africa, where she died in 1915.

Biography of Isobel Kuhn

Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand, died on 20 March 1957. This article was commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her death.
Isobel Kuhn is best known as an inspirational writer on mission. She was born in Toronto on 17 December 1901. Her parents, Sam and Alice Millar, were Christians, but when she was a student at the University of British Columbia a professor sneered at her for blindly accepting her parents' faith. Henceforth she determined to question everything for herself.

She threw herself into student life and was soon one of the most popular students in the university - vivacious, attractive, a wonderful dancer and a leading light in the Dramatic Society. But none of this satisfied her, and in By searching she tells the story of her conversion and subsequent call to missionary service.

Isobel enrolled at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. As well as Bible training, the students were expected to take part in evangelism such as open air work (when they were often pelted with rotten fruit), slum visitation and prison ministry. To survive she worked long hours as a waitress and learned many lessons about 'living by faith'.

When Isobel volunteered to serve with the China Inland Mission she was initially rejected. One referee held a personal grudge against her and gave a negative character reference. This painful episode was used to form her character and inculcate greater humility.

The delay also gave her the opportunity to serve in a girls' evangelistic mission in Vancouver - invaluable preparation for the mission field. Many of the young women she reached became persevering prayer supporters of her ministry among the Lisu people.

Isobel sailed for China in 1928 and commenced language training. After one year she married John Kuhn, also serving with the CIM, who had arrived in China some time before her.

Many missionary biographies gloss over personal difficulties, but one of Isobel Kuhn's most endearing characteristics was her transparent honesty. She freely admitted that she and John were both strong-willed, and that 'Science has never discovered what happens when the Irresistible Force collides with the Immovable Object. Whatever would happen if they married each other?'

John and Isobel resolved to make 'God first' their motto throughout marriage. Isobel's autobiographical work Vistas recounts vividly and amusingly some of the conflicts they went through and which were used to refine their characters.

The gospel to the Lisu :

Between 1929 and 1934 John and Isobel served in Chengchiang, and then Tali, in Yunnan province, South West China. In 1934 they moved into the mountains of North West Yunnan to work among the animistic Lisu people.

The opening chapter of Nests above the abyss is a polemic against the myth of 'happy heathendom', depicting vividly the fear and hopelessness of animism, the dire effects on family life and the degradation suffered by women.

Western missionaries have sometimes been accused of patronising unevangelised peoples, but one of the most striking characteristics of Isobel's writing is her transparent affection for and understanding of the Lisu people. She tells many stories of individuals that bring their personalities to life.

Her accounts of gospel advance among the Lisu document the way God uses intercessory prayer to further his purposes. After one significant meeting, at which a tribal leader renounced a long-standing feud, Isobel recorded the exact time, knowing there must have been definite prayer support.

Months later an elderly prayer supporter wrote asking what had happened on that date and at that time. This lady had experienced such a heavy burden to intercede for the Three Clans village that she had phoned two friends. The three of them deferred their household chores and spent the morning interceding for the quarrelling clans.

Isobel commented, 'Now these prayer-warriors were not seemingly of the earth's mighty ones. Mrs K was delicate, had a heart condition. Mrs W was expecting a serious operation, and Mrs J was going blind. All three were ... too frail physically to cross the small town and gather in one place, but each in her own kitchen was joined to the others in spirit'.
By 1950 conflict between communists and nationalists made the situation of CIM personnel untenable. Isobel and six-year-old Daniel escaped over the border to Burma and returned to America - where they were reunited with daughter Kathryn who was by now at college.

John was asked to survey the needs for evangelistic work among the tribes of northern Thailand. He wrote to his wife appealing to her to join him - 'The field is before us. The door is still open. The government is friendly. The tribes are approachable. The time may be short.

'Missionaries have been in Thailand over a hundred years and yet have not been able to reach beyond the Thai people to the aborigines of the mountains. If we don't pioneer, they may never be reached'.

Isobel was initially appalled. 'At fifty years of age, must she go pioneering again, climb up rough trails, learn another tongue? Already she had worked on the Chinese and Lisu languages. Now must she study Thai too?' But the Lord convicted her. 'To choose ease rather than effort is to choose slow decay'. Or, as Amy Carmichael had said so memorably, 'Climb or die!'

Isobel Miller Kuhn was diagnosed with cancer in 1954 and died on March 20, 1957, with her husband at her side in Wheaton. Her funeral was held at Wheaton College Church