Page 199 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 199
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
effective preacher of the Gospel, and the Church had invited him for ten days of meetings. For me it
was wonderful to be able to really understand what he said and to have a share in helping the women.
Crowds came in from the country and Wang Mingdao spoke to them with great acceptance both
morning and evening. I wrote home about two women who had made an impression on me. One was
a girl of about seventeen, very small for her age and crippled with TB. She came every Sunday, but
one Sunday, although she limped along as usual, she was obviously very unwell. I went out to find
her lying on some flat rocks in the shade with her poor little face drawn up in pain. When I asked how
she was, she said her side and leg were hurting, so I asked if she were not cold lying in the shade.
She said yes, but she couldn’t bear to move, and tears came into her eyes. I put two forms together in
the sunshine, and half carried her across to them and she lay there. Poor little thing. She said she
often asks the Lord to take her because she suffers so. The misery and the suffering in this land are
indescribable.
The same day a woman came to me and asked me to pray for her baby. When I turned the little
thing’s face round so that I could see her, it was just a mass of big, ugly sores. The mother said, ‘I
don’t know what else to do for her, nothing seems to help her. Please pray that God will heal her.’ So
I prayed with her then and there, and all through the next week, whenever I thought about her, I lifted
my heart to God for her healing. On the next Sunday, the mother came to me and gave me 300 cash
(about 5 cents). She said, ‘I want to give you this as a thankoffering to God because He has healed
my baby.’ She showed me her baby’s face all healed up without a sign of all those nasty sores
except two tiny scabs at the corner of her mouth. I wouldn’t have known her for the same child.
RETURN TO SHAANXI
At last in early November, the long looked for letter came, saying we could go back. Mr. and Mrs.
Ford were going to Shanghai, so I was able to travel with them to Zhengzhou where the line divided.
They would go on to Shanghai and I would still have another day and a half to Xi’an, travelling alone
with my small boy. I was not looking forward to it, but I was looking forward to having Percy meet us
somewhere after Xi’an to be with us on that long trip through the mountains.
At Zhengzhou a Mr. Silva of the Free Methodist Mission who knew the Fords, took me to his home to
wait for my train which did not go till midnight. He had a lovely big fire going and Raymond and I
curled up together on the sofa and slept till he woke us about ten thirty. He took us to the station and
helped us get on to the train, and I was so grateful for his help as there were crowds there and the
usual scramble to get on. Mr. Svenson of the Scandinavian Alliance Mission met us in Xi’an and took
charge of everything for me, then took me to the warm, comfortable Mission Home. There Winnie
Strange and her two little girls, Bertha and Myrie, Miss Begbie and Joy Betteridge all joined us and
Marj Smith came a day later, all from different parts of Henan.
We were held up in Xi’an several days waiting for permits to travel and also for the roads to dry up a
bit. It was so tantalising to feel that Percy and Fred were probably already in Fengxiang waiting for us,
only a day’s journey away, and we could not move. We were all going together to Fengxiang and then
would divide into two parties for the mountain trip. The weather was bitterly cold and we knew it would
be even worse in the mountains, but we were dressed in our Chinese wadded clothes and expected to
survive! The rain went on and on day after day, and at last, despairing of buses ever being able to
go, we decided to go to Fengxiang by cart. It took us four days instead of one, and by the time we had
bump bump bumped our way over those rough roads, we were very glad indeed to reach Fengxiang
at the end. Winnie Strange and her little girls, Kath and Beryl, had one cart, and Marj and I with
Raymond had the other, and of course we had to stay in Chinese inns each night.
199
Amy Moore
effective preacher of the Gospel, and the Church had invited him for ten days of meetings. For me it
was wonderful to be able to really understand what he said and to have a share in helping the women.
Crowds came in from the country and Wang Mingdao spoke to them with great acceptance both
morning and evening. I wrote home about two women who had made an impression on me. One was
a girl of about seventeen, very small for her age and crippled with TB. She came every Sunday, but
one Sunday, although she limped along as usual, she was obviously very unwell. I went out to find
her lying on some flat rocks in the shade with her poor little face drawn up in pain. When I asked how
she was, she said her side and leg were hurting, so I asked if she were not cold lying in the shade.
She said yes, but she couldn’t bear to move, and tears came into her eyes. I put two forms together in
the sunshine, and half carried her across to them and she lay there. Poor little thing. She said she
often asks the Lord to take her because she suffers so. The misery and the suffering in this land are
indescribable.
The same day a woman came to me and asked me to pray for her baby. When I turned the little
thing’s face round so that I could see her, it was just a mass of big, ugly sores. The mother said, ‘I
don’t know what else to do for her, nothing seems to help her. Please pray that God will heal her.’ So
I prayed with her then and there, and all through the next week, whenever I thought about her, I lifted
my heart to God for her healing. On the next Sunday, the mother came to me and gave me 300 cash
(about 5 cents). She said, ‘I want to give you this as a thankoffering to God because He has healed
my baby.’ She showed me her baby’s face all healed up without a sign of all those nasty sores
except two tiny scabs at the corner of her mouth. I wouldn’t have known her for the same child.
RETURN TO SHAANXI
At last in early November, the long looked for letter came, saying we could go back. Mr. and Mrs.
Ford were going to Shanghai, so I was able to travel with them to Zhengzhou where the line divided.
They would go on to Shanghai and I would still have another day and a half to Xi’an, travelling alone
with my small boy. I was not looking forward to it, but I was looking forward to having Percy meet us
somewhere after Xi’an to be with us on that long trip through the mountains.
At Zhengzhou a Mr. Silva of the Free Methodist Mission who knew the Fords, took me to his home to
wait for my train which did not go till midnight. He had a lovely big fire going and Raymond and I
curled up together on the sofa and slept till he woke us about ten thirty. He took us to the station and
helped us get on to the train, and I was so grateful for his help as there were crowds there and the
usual scramble to get on. Mr. Svenson of the Scandinavian Alliance Mission met us in Xi’an and took
charge of everything for me, then took me to the warm, comfortable Mission Home. There Winnie
Strange and her two little girls, Bertha and Myrie, Miss Begbie and Joy Betteridge all joined us and
Marj Smith came a day later, all from different parts of Henan.
We were held up in Xi’an several days waiting for permits to travel and also for the roads to dry up a
bit. It was so tantalising to feel that Percy and Fred were probably already in Fengxiang waiting for us,
only a day’s journey away, and we could not move. We were all going together to Fengxiang and then
would divide into two parties for the mountain trip. The weather was bitterly cold and we knew it would
be even worse in the mountains, but we were dressed in our Chinese wadded clothes and expected to
survive! The rain went on and on day after day, and at last, despairing of buses ever being able to
go, we decided to go to Fengxiang by cart. It took us four days instead of one, and by the time we had
bump bump bumped our way over those rough roads, we were very glad indeed to reach Fengxiang
at the end. Winnie Strange and her little girls, Kath and Beryl, had one cart, and Marj and I with
Raymond had the other, and of course we had to stay in Chinese inns each night.
199
