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