Page 183 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 183
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
XIXIANG
Miss Haslam had moved out to a quiet country village with her Primary School, and Fred and Marj
were to occupy her house in Hanzhong to work with the Church there, and for Fred to take the
Secretarial work off Arthur Moore’s shoulders. Charlie and Ruth had already moved on to Ningqiang
on the Sichuan road, and were settling in there. My first letters from Xixiang were full of happiness.
Ninety or one hundred miles east of Hanzhong, a three day stage out of the Plain into the southern
mountains, we followed the convolutions of a branch of the Han River, just a stream in some places
and broadening out to a great river in others. Everywhere there was the natural beauty of the
vegetation along the edge of the water and up the sides of the hills surrounding us. Spring flowers
were beginning to appear and the birds were continually reminding us of their presence.
We found Xixiang to be a small walled city
right on the banks of the river where it began
to turn south east to join the Han and later
the Chang Jiang (Yangtse) at Wuhan
(Hankow) hundreds of miles away. The
Mission Home was outside the city wall on
the river side of the town. It was a Chinese
style house, but unlike Yangxian, had an
upper storey where our bedrooms were. The
approach to the compound was through little,
narrow, cobble-stoned streets where we
could almost touch the walls of other homes
as we moved along towards ours, and the
(Above) Our first home in Xixiang – 1935
coolies shouted loudly to anybody coming in
and (below) in 1999 when Ray visited the other direction, “Jie guang! Jie guang!”
there with Bev 49 years later “Will you lend us light! Lend us light!” ie
“Excuse us! Excuse us!” And people
stepped aside, stopping in a doorway or
against a wall to gaze at the ‘foreigners’ and
their goods, and no doubt making a quick, if
not always accurate, assessment of our
wealth.
Inside the big main gate was the Church
building as well as a guest room furnished
with the normal square table and two chairs,
but also with a few forms along each wall and
Christian posters on the walls. The Church
elder had his room next door, and the
gatekeeper, old ‘fatty Jiang’ as Percy came to
affectionately call him after he became his
teacher, had a room right inside the gate so
that nobody could slip in without his seeing them. He was from Beijing and his dialect was not the
usual Shaanxi one but the ‘Oxford accent’ of China. That, with his excellent education and the
wisdom born of long years of experience, made him a wonderful teacher and, as time went by, we
often thanked God for him and all the help he gave us.
Beyond the Church buildings was our house, 2 rooms downstairs with a wide hall between where the
steps went up to the storey above, and a big door at the far end which opened out on to a narrow
183
Amy Moore
XIXIANG
Miss Haslam had moved out to a quiet country village with her Primary School, and Fred and Marj
were to occupy her house in Hanzhong to work with the Church there, and for Fred to take the
Secretarial work off Arthur Moore’s shoulders. Charlie and Ruth had already moved on to Ningqiang
on the Sichuan road, and were settling in there. My first letters from Xixiang were full of happiness.
Ninety or one hundred miles east of Hanzhong, a three day stage out of the Plain into the southern
mountains, we followed the convolutions of a branch of the Han River, just a stream in some places
and broadening out to a great river in others. Everywhere there was the natural beauty of the
vegetation along the edge of the water and up the sides of the hills surrounding us. Spring flowers
were beginning to appear and the birds were continually reminding us of their presence.
We found Xixiang to be a small walled city
right on the banks of the river where it began
to turn south east to join the Han and later
the Chang Jiang (Yangtse) at Wuhan
(Hankow) hundreds of miles away. The
Mission Home was outside the city wall on
the river side of the town. It was a Chinese
style house, but unlike Yangxian, had an
upper storey where our bedrooms were. The
approach to the compound was through little,
narrow, cobble-stoned streets where we
could almost touch the walls of other homes
as we moved along towards ours, and the
(Above) Our first home in Xixiang – 1935
coolies shouted loudly to anybody coming in
and (below) in 1999 when Ray visited the other direction, “Jie guang! Jie guang!”
there with Bev 49 years later “Will you lend us light! Lend us light!” ie
“Excuse us! Excuse us!” And people
stepped aside, stopping in a doorway or
against a wall to gaze at the ‘foreigners’ and
their goods, and no doubt making a quick, if
not always accurate, assessment of our
wealth.
Inside the big main gate was the Church
building as well as a guest room furnished
with the normal square table and two chairs,
but also with a few forms along each wall and
Christian posters on the walls. The Church
elder had his room next door, and the
gatekeeper, old ‘fatty Jiang’ as Percy came to
affectionately call him after he became his
teacher, had a room right inside the gate so
that nobody could slip in without his seeing them. He was from Beijing and his dialect was not the
usual Shaanxi one but the ‘Oxford accent’ of China. That, with his excellent education and the
wisdom born of long years of experience, made him a wonderful teacher and, as time went by, we
often thanked God for him and all the help he gave us.
Beyond the Church buildings was our house, 2 rooms downstairs with a wide hall between where the
steps went up to the storey above, and a big door at the far end which opened out on to a narrow
183
