Page 203 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 203
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
Famine conditions were all around us at that time and, though we had been sent some famine relief
money, it was not nearly enough to help everybody, and we found it hard to know who to give to and
who not, though we did feel that our first responsibility was to any of the Church people who were in
desperate need. We tried to do what we could for others too. While we were in Liushutian a dreadful
thing happened which made me feel sick for days. A family, who had no food, took their little girl, cut
off her legs for meat, and then carried her dead body into the city to try and get some money from the
local authorities. Whether they actually killed the child or whether she died of starvation and they cut
off her legs afterwards, was never very clear. Having seen this incident myself, I had no difficulty in
believing some of the many stories about cannibalism in the mountains which reached us.
With winter over and the beans and peas ripening, things improved a little as those who couldn’t afford
rice, just ate beans or peas and kept from starving. Gradually things returned to normal, which at the
best of times for most people meant living barely above the subsistence line. For most, if their rice
bowls were filled twice a day with rice, and they had a saucer of chopped chillies or sauerkraut to
flavour it, they were satisfied. For this they toiled in the fields from dawn to dusk, never complaining
and usually cheerful and always ready to share with us whatever they had when we visited.
Percy was getting more and more involved in Bible teaching. The newly formed union of Churches in
South Shaanxi with Dr. Xiao as Chairman and Arthur Moore as advisor and representative of the CIM,
asked him to give all his time to Bible School work in the churches. This involved visiting the groups of
believers regularly for Short Term Bible Schools, not only in the big centres but also in the little villages
scattered over the plain and in the mountains. He planned systematic teaching at these times and
combined with it a Bible Correspondence course so that the interest and study would be kept up. His
Chinese, both written and spoken, was improving all the time and he was beginning to be recognised
as expert in both. His father had never learned to write Chinese as it was not thought necessary at
the time he joined the Mission, though he could read it quite well. More and more, he was coming to
depend on Percy to answer his Chinese letters for him.
The Day School with live-in ‘orphans’ at Xixiang had more or less closed down with the Mission
decision that it must be independent of Mission funds, but we were hoping to open a Bible School for
women with Mrs. Chun and a lady missionary in charge. In this way we hoped to meet the need for
trained women workers in the Church. Joy Betteridge was asked to come and live with us and do this
work. The Church felt that as they had no money to pay for a day school for their children, they would
open a half day school for the children of Church members to teach them the rudiments of reading and
writing as well as Scripture. Since Mrs. Chun was going to teach in the Bible School and would still be
Mission paid, and the school premises would no longer be available for a day school, they would use
one of the Church buildings at the front of the compound - and right next door to Percy’s study! - and
would invite some of the women of the Church who had been brought up when the CIM school was in
existence, to teach them, each giving one morning a week free as a kind of thankoffering of service to
the Lord.
Two of our young men from Xixiang, one of them Mrs. Wu’s only son, had been sent by us to our CIM
Bible College in Hongtong, Shanxi, where Howard Kitchen from Australia was teaching. In April 1936
we heard that the Reds had invaded and taken over Hongtong and Pingyang in Shanxi and we were
very anxious for our two boys as well as for the twenty of so CIM missionaries in Hongtong. Mrs. Wu,
our lovely Bible woman was a widow and had very bad eyesight but she loved the Lord and never
ceased to try and tell others about Him and what He had done for her, and the change in her life since
she came to know Him.
God never let us forget for long that we were wholly dependent on Him, and He often gave us lessons
in faith to remind us that He is faithful and we can trust Him at all times and in all circumstances. Our
203
Amy Moore
Famine conditions were all around us at that time and, though we had been sent some famine relief
money, it was not nearly enough to help everybody, and we found it hard to know who to give to and
who not, though we did feel that our first responsibility was to any of the Church people who were in
desperate need. We tried to do what we could for others too. While we were in Liushutian a dreadful
thing happened which made me feel sick for days. A family, who had no food, took their little girl, cut
off her legs for meat, and then carried her dead body into the city to try and get some money from the
local authorities. Whether they actually killed the child or whether she died of starvation and they cut
off her legs afterwards, was never very clear. Having seen this incident myself, I had no difficulty in
believing some of the many stories about cannibalism in the mountains which reached us.
With winter over and the beans and peas ripening, things improved a little as those who couldn’t afford
rice, just ate beans or peas and kept from starving. Gradually things returned to normal, which at the
best of times for most people meant living barely above the subsistence line. For most, if their rice
bowls were filled twice a day with rice, and they had a saucer of chopped chillies or sauerkraut to
flavour it, they were satisfied. For this they toiled in the fields from dawn to dusk, never complaining
and usually cheerful and always ready to share with us whatever they had when we visited.
Percy was getting more and more involved in Bible teaching. The newly formed union of Churches in
South Shaanxi with Dr. Xiao as Chairman and Arthur Moore as advisor and representative of the CIM,
asked him to give all his time to Bible School work in the churches. This involved visiting the groups of
believers regularly for Short Term Bible Schools, not only in the big centres but also in the little villages
scattered over the plain and in the mountains. He planned systematic teaching at these times and
combined with it a Bible Correspondence course so that the interest and study would be kept up. His
Chinese, both written and spoken, was improving all the time and he was beginning to be recognised
as expert in both. His father had never learned to write Chinese as it was not thought necessary at
the time he joined the Mission, though he could read it quite well. More and more, he was coming to
depend on Percy to answer his Chinese letters for him.
The Day School with live-in ‘orphans’ at Xixiang had more or less closed down with the Mission
decision that it must be independent of Mission funds, but we were hoping to open a Bible School for
women with Mrs. Chun and a lady missionary in charge. In this way we hoped to meet the need for
trained women workers in the Church. Joy Betteridge was asked to come and live with us and do this
work. The Church felt that as they had no money to pay for a day school for their children, they would
open a half day school for the children of Church members to teach them the rudiments of reading and
writing as well as Scripture. Since Mrs. Chun was going to teach in the Bible School and would still be
Mission paid, and the school premises would no longer be available for a day school, they would use
one of the Church buildings at the front of the compound - and right next door to Percy’s study! - and
would invite some of the women of the Church who had been brought up when the CIM school was in
existence, to teach them, each giving one morning a week free as a kind of thankoffering of service to
the Lord.
Two of our young men from Xixiang, one of them Mrs. Wu’s only son, had been sent by us to our CIM
Bible College in Hongtong, Shanxi, where Howard Kitchen from Australia was teaching. In April 1936
we heard that the Reds had invaded and taken over Hongtong and Pingyang in Shanxi and we were
very anxious for our two boys as well as for the twenty of so CIM missionaries in Hongtong. Mrs. Wu,
our lovely Bible woman was a widow and had very bad eyesight but she loved the Lord and never
ceased to try and tell others about Him and what He had done for her, and the change in her life since
she came to know Him.
God never let us forget for long that we were wholly dependent on Him, and He often gave us lessons
in faith to remind us that He is faithful and we can trust Him at all times and in all circumstances. Our
203
