Page 172 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 172
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
children. These two, Lingfu and Meimei, were in and out of our house all the time and considered
themselves very much part of our family. Miss Parr was ‘Auntie Bar’ (Ba Gu) to them and I was
Auntie Way (Wei Gu). The other members of the household included a goat boy and an old deaf and
dumb woman whom we referred to as Ya Ba, meaning just ‘deaf and dumb’. Mr. Jiang, my teacher,
also lived on the compound. He had been converted through Mr. Wang Mingdao in Henan many
years before and was delighted when I told him I had heard Wang Mingdao speak while I was in
language school.
Unrest continued all through the country side. Rumours were rife everywhere of communist activities
at Xing’an south of Shiquan, and we heard that their aim was to reach Hanzhong. Our Conference
date had been set for 14-18 November, but we began to wonder if we would not all have to evacuate
to a safer spot before that. I got myself settled in and when November came, we were all able to
travel in safety to Hanzhong that is, all except Miss Begbie and Joy Betteridge who were held up, not
by Communists but by two young fellows on the road from Shiquan, who held them up with a knife and
searched them for money. They took some clothes and a few small things and ran off, leaving their
two victims very much relieved.
I enjoyed the Conference for a number of
reasons. It was so good to meet all the other
South Shaanxi workers and to feel part of a
team. I revelled in the daily Bible Studies lead
by Mr. Moore. The business meetings were a
great help to us young workers in understanding
the Mission policy of making every Church self-
supporting, self-governing and self-propagating,
not dependent on Mission funds or Mission
workers as our South Shaanxi Churches at that
time all seemed to be.
But the highlight of the Conference to me, which
First Conference I confided to nobody else until much later, was
Hanzhong December 1932 that for the first time I met PERCY MOORE. His
It was at this Conference that Percy and father had given him the job of opening the back
Amy first met. gate into the compound, welcoming each group
(Percy can only just be seen as we arrived, and then directing us to where we
in the back row, second from right.) were to sleep. I think that first meeting meant
more to him than to me at that time. He often
said later that “X marks the spot inside the Hanzhong compound back gate” where he “looked into a
pair of blue eyes under a big summer hat - and fell!!” I was only conscious of feeling he was ‘nice’,
but as day by day I sat across from him in meetings, I became more and more conscious of how often
I found his deep brown eyes were looking into mine! This was the first time I had met Mrs. Moore and
I liked her at once, wise and motherly and personally interested in each one of us young people. I
liked the relationship I could see that Percy had with his mother. They were obviously friends who
understood each other and shared many little private jokes. I thought how nice it must be for her, after
all the years of separation from their children, to have her eldest son actually working with them in the
same district.
Percy was given the job of teaching us a new chorus which was just becoming popular, and when
Conference was coming to a close, I asked him if he would give me the music for it. He replied by
172
Amy Moore
children. These two, Lingfu and Meimei, were in and out of our house all the time and considered
themselves very much part of our family. Miss Parr was ‘Auntie Bar’ (Ba Gu) to them and I was
Auntie Way (Wei Gu). The other members of the household included a goat boy and an old deaf and
dumb woman whom we referred to as Ya Ba, meaning just ‘deaf and dumb’. Mr. Jiang, my teacher,
also lived on the compound. He had been converted through Mr. Wang Mingdao in Henan many
years before and was delighted when I told him I had heard Wang Mingdao speak while I was in
language school.
Unrest continued all through the country side. Rumours were rife everywhere of communist activities
at Xing’an south of Shiquan, and we heard that their aim was to reach Hanzhong. Our Conference
date had been set for 14-18 November, but we began to wonder if we would not all have to evacuate
to a safer spot before that. I got myself settled in and when November came, we were all able to
travel in safety to Hanzhong that is, all except Miss Begbie and Joy Betteridge who were held up, not
by Communists but by two young fellows on the road from Shiquan, who held them up with a knife and
searched them for money. They took some clothes and a few small things and ran off, leaving their
two victims very much relieved.
I enjoyed the Conference for a number of
reasons. It was so good to meet all the other
South Shaanxi workers and to feel part of a
team. I revelled in the daily Bible Studies lead
by Mr. Moore. The business meetings were a
great help to us young workers in understanding
the Mission policy of making every Church self-
supporting, self-governing and self-propagating,
not dependent on Mission funds or Mission
workers as our South Shaanxi Churches at that
time all seemed to be.
But the highlight of the Conference to me, which
First Conference I confided to nobody else until much later, was
Hanzhong December 1932 that for the first time I met PERCY MOORE. His
It was at this Conference that Percy and father had given him the job of opening the back
Amy first met. gate into the compound, welcoming each group
(Percy can only just be seen as we arrived, and then directing us to where we
in the back row, second from right.) were to sleep. I think that first meeting meant
more to him than to me at that time. He often
said later that “X marks the spot inside the Hanzhong compound back gate” where he “looked into a
pair of blue eyes under a big summer hat - and fell!!” I was only conscious of feeling he was ‘nice’,
but as day by day I sat across from him in meetings, I became more and more conscious of how often
I found his deep brown eyes were looking into mine! This was the first time I had met Mrs. Moore and
I liked her at once, wise and motherly and personally interested in each one of us young people. I
liked the relationship I could see that Percy had with his mother. They were obviously friends who
understood each other and shared many little private jokes. I thought how nice it must be for her, after
all the years of separation from their children, to have her eldest son actually working with them in the
same district.
Percy was given the job of teaching us a new chorus which was just becoming popular, and when
Conference was coming to a close, I asked him if he would give me the music for it. He replied by
172
