Page 204 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 204
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
monthly allowance, whatever it was, was usually paid into the bank on the last of the month in
Shanghai, but it was often weeks before we received notice of that or of how much it was, so we never
counted on being able to use it till we received the notice, and then we ‘cut our coat to suit our cloth’!
This depended on whether it was a normal remittance or a small one. In April 1936 we did not receive
our notice from Shanghai till the 21st and one Saturday before that, we realised that we had not a
bean to our name, and when the cook came in during the morning and said there was not enough rice
to see us over the weekend, I hadn’t any idea what we could do. I asked him if we had enough for the
midday meal, and when he said, “Yes”, I told him to wait to buy till the afternoon. After dinner, while I
was putting Raymond to bed, I was praying about what to do, when Percy came with the mail.
Among it was a parcel slip for a parcel containing cod liver oil which had come. This oil was some we
had ordered months before and paid for as a favour to an official in the city who asked us to get it for
him. Arriving as it did that day meant Percy could collect it from the Post Office, take it to the official
and collect the $14 he owed us. He gave us the money on the spot and we were able to buy rice that
afternoon, enough to see us through till our monthly remittance arrived. Since the parcel had been
months on its way from Shanghai, we had no doubt but that God had directed for it to come on that
particular day to meet our need. Many, many times we felt like the widow with her cruse of oil and her
barrel of meal which never failed as God continued to feed her and those dependent on her.
Banditry was rife in the mountains around us, and one day we heard that Longtingpu, the village to
which the Mission had appointed Bertha and me to work as pioneer missionaries but which had been
too close to bandit territory for us to ever get there, had now been burnt to the ground. It had been the
bandit headquarters, but when the Government sent soldiers to fight them, they retreated but left the
village in flames. Crowds of refugees were pouring into Xixiang every day.
At the request of the Church I had been using a girl called ‘Rosemary’ as a house help ever since we
first came to Xixiang. I didn’t like her and I didn’t trust her, so I was relieved when she decided to
leave us and go back to her home in the mountains. I took on instead, a couple called Long, he to do
the water carrying and the garden, and she to help me in the house with washing and ironing etc. She
used to be a schoolgirl in the school and could read and write as well as do beautiful embroidery.
Best of all, I felt I could trust her.
Bandits, communists, disease . . . they were all around us, and we marvelled often at the way in which
the Lord kept us from all evil. In mid June 1936, the child of one of our Church members died in a
measles epidemic. She had been born about the same time as Raymond, and her mother and I would
often compare notes. This was her only child and she was terribly upset and cried and cried while I
tried to comfort her. During that epidemic, out of the five children born about the same time as
Raymond, he was the only one to survive. Their houses were so drafty and cold that it was hard to
keep children from catching cold and very few of the mothers had much idea of hygiene or of how to
nurse a sick child. At this time it was not only measles but smallpox was all around us too, probably
much of the diseases being the result of the famine conditions of the earlier part of the year.
One night a messenger came through to us from Miss Begbie in Shiquan asking if we could possibly
spare her some money. The previous night, about ten o’clock, all the soldiers in Shiquan had revolted
and gone over to the Reds. They looted the city, killing many people and taking what they wanted.
They broke into the Mission premises and threatened the lives of all there if they didn’t produce
money. Fortunately Miss Begbie had quite a bit of Mission money in the house to pay for repairs she
was getting done, so she gave them $300 and thereby spared them all from bodily harm.
We went to Hanzhong for a week or so at the end of June so that Raymond and I could stay with
Arthur and Esther while Percy and Jack Beck went on to Chenggu to run a Bible School. While we
were all there, Jack and Myrie Wood became engaged, so there was great excitement. They both
204
Amy Moore
monthly allowance, whatever it was, was usually paid into the bank on the last of the month in
Shanghai, but it was often weeks before we received notice of that or of how much it was, so we never
counted on being able to use it till we received the notice, and then we ‘cut our coat to suit our cloth’!
This depended on whether it was a normal remittance or a small one. In April 1936 we did not receive
our notice from Shanghai till the 21st and one Saturday before that, we realised that we had not a
bean to our name, and when the cook came in during the morning and said there was not enough rice
to see us over the weekend, I hadn’t any idea what we could do. I asked him if we had enough for the
midday meal, and when he said, “Yes”, I told him to wait to buy till the afternoon. After dinner, while I
was putting Raymond to bed, I was praying about what to do, when Percy came with the mail.
Among it was a parcel slip for a parcel containing cod liver oil which had come. This oil was some we
had ordered months before and paid for as a favour to an official in the city who asked us to get it for
him. Arriving as it did that day meant Percy could collect it from the Post Office, take it to the official
and collect the $14 he owed us. He gave us the money on the spot and we were able to buy rice that
afternoon, enough to see us through till our monthly remittance arrived. Since the parcel had been
months on its way from Shanghai, we had no doubt but that God had directed for it to come on that
particular day to meet our need. Many, many times we felt like the widow with her cruse of oil and her
barrel of meal which never failed as God continued to feed her and those dependent on her.
Banditry was rife in the mountains around us, and one day we heard that Longtingpu, the village to
which the Mission had appointed Bertha and me to work as pioneer missionaries but which had been
too close to bandit territory for us to ever get there, had now been burnt to the ground. It had been the
bandit headquarters, but when the Government sent soldiers to fight them, they retreated but left the
village in flames. Crowds of refugees were pouring into Xixiang every day.
At the request of the Church I had been using a girl called ‘Rosemary’ as a house help ever since we
first came to Xixiang. I didn’t like her and I didn’t trust her, so I was relieved when she decided to
leave us and go back to her home in the mountains. I took on instead, a couple called Long, he to do
the water carrying and the garden, and she to help me in the house with washing and ironing etc. She
used to be a schoolgirl in the school and could read and write as well as do beautiful embroidery.
Best of all, I felt I could trust her.
Bandits, communists, disease . . . they were all around us, and we marvelled often at the way in which
the Lord kept us from all evil. In mid June 1936, the child of one of our Church members died in a
measles epidemic. She had been born about the same time as Raymond, and her mother and I would
often compare notes. This was her only child and she was terribly upset and cried and cried while I
tried to comfort her. During that epidemic, out of the five children born about the same time as
Raymond, he was the only one to survive. Their houses were so drafty and cold that it was hard to
keep children from catching cold and very few of the mothers had much idea of hygiene or of how to
nurse a sick child. At this time it was not only measles but smallpox was all around us too, probably
much of the diseases being the result of the famine conditions of the earlier part of the year.
One night a messenger came through to us from Miss Begbie in Shiquan asking if we could possibly
spare her some money. The previous night, about ten o’clock, all the soldiers in Shiquan had revolted
and gone over to the Reds. They looted the city, killing many people and taking what they wanted.
They broke into the Mission premises and threatened the lives of all there if they didn’t produce
money. Fortunately Miss Begbie had quite a bit of Mission money in the house to pay for repairs she
was getting done, so she gave them $300 and thereby spared them all from bodily harm.
We went to Hanzhong for a week or so at the end of June so that Raymond and I could stay with
Arthur and Esther while Percy and Jack Beck went on to Chenggu to run a Bible School. While we
were all there, Jack and Myrie Wood became engaged, so there was great excitement. They both
204
