Page 215 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 215
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
time to stop and chat and teach people in the little villages all along the way. Now we could rush
through in two days to the railway terminus near Xi’an, but there was no time to talk to anybody and
we were so busy hanging on to keep from being thrown out, that it was a relief when we came to the
end.
With Percy and me and our two little ones leaving very soon by bus for furlough, the tragedy in
Hanzhong hit us very hard. Percy’s father wrote that it was impossible for us to go out through
Shanghai where the Japanese were already entrenched, and we would need to go south over the
same road that the Smails had travelled so recently to Chengdu, Chongqing, down to Guizhou and
Yunnan and get on a train down through French Indochina (now Vietnam) to Haiphong where we
would be able to get a ship to Hong Kong and from there shipping to Australia. Bertha was due
furlough too, so Arthur wanted us to take her with us and he also said that Alma was to return to her
home in America to her own people to recover from the shock of the past weeks. We were asked to
take care of her too as far as Hong Kong where she
Jim Smail died and Bertha would travel together to North America.
just before the The thought of that long trip by bus from Xixiang
Moores left for through Hanzhong and right down to Kunming in the
Australia and far south west corner of China was one we did not
Alma Smail and look forward to at all especially as by this time I knew
Kath and Jimmy I was pregnant again. It would be wonderful to be
travelled with home for the birth of one of my babies, but it was a
them as far as long trip for a pregnant woman, and a heavy
Hongkong responsibility for Percy to have the charge of three
women and four children all under five.
FURLOUGH 30.6.1939 - 31.8.1940
We all said goodbye to the folk in Xixiang, and to our little home which we had enjoyed so much where
our two boys had been so happy. The Wendell Phillips were coming to take our place. They were a
young couple who had been evacuated from another province because of the Japanese advance, but
we did not know them at all and could not satisfy the curiosity of the Church people about them. We
hoped they would fit in.
In Hanzhong we helped Alma pack for home, and one day I walked out with her to see Jim’s grave.
As we came back, we passed a dirty looking beggar covered in sores sitting by the side of the road.
As Alma looked at him she said rather wistfully, “I can’t help wondering why God leaves a poor old
man like that who seems to have no purpose in life at all, and takes Jim with all his potential.” I had no
answer, and for her and for me too, the only answer is that we know our Father, and can trust His
loving purposes even when we don’t understand all the ‘why’s’.
Arthur Moore’s last words to Percy before we left were, “Stick close to the Lord, my boy. There’s
nothing else worth having.”
We left Hanzhong on 22 May. That trip was not an easy one. We had to travel down from Hanzhong
through Ningjiang on the dangerous mountain roads to the south west of us. It was not only
dangerous because of the roads themselves, but because our ‘buses’ were trucks piled high with
goods and luggage before the passengers could climb up and sit on the top, often higher than the cab
itself.
215
Amy Moore
time to stop and chat and teach people in the little villages all along the way. Now we could rush
through in two days to the railway terminus near Xi’an, but there was no time to talk to anybody and
we were so busy hanging on to keep from being thrown out, that it was a relief when we came to the
end.
With Percy and me and our two little ones leaving very soon by bus for furlough, the tragedy in
Hanzhong hit us very hard. Percy’s father wrote that it was impossible for us to go out through
Shanghai where the Japanese were already entrenched, and we would need to go south over the
same road that the Smails had travelled so recently to Chengdu, Chongqing, down to Guizhou and
Yunnan and get on a train down through French Indochina (now Vietnam) to Haiphong where we
would be able to get a ship to Hong Kong and from there shipping to Australia. Bertha was due
furlough too, so Arthur wanted us to take her with us and he also said that Alma was to return to her
home in America to her own people to recover from the shock of the past weeks. We were asked to
take care of her too as far as Hong Kong where she
Jim Smail died and Bertha would travel together to North America.
just before the The thought of that long trip by bus from Xixiang
Moores left for through Hanzhong and right down to Kunming in the
Australia and far south west corner of China was one we did not
Alma Smail and look forward to at all especially as by this time I knew
Kath and Jimmy I was pregnant again. It would be wonderful to be
travelled with home for the birth of one of my babies, but it was a
them as far as long trip for a pregnant woman, and a heavy
Hongkong responsibility for Percy to have the charge of three
women and four children all under five.
FURLOUGH 30.6.1939 - 31.8.1940
We all said goodbye to the folk in Xixiang, and to our little home which we had enjoyed so much where
our two boys had been so happy. The Wendell Phillips were coming to take our place. They were a
young couple who had been evacuated from another province because of the Japanese advance, but
we did not know them at all and could not satisfy the curiosity of the Church people about them. We
hoped they would fit in.
In Hanzhong we helped Alma pack for home, and one day I walked out with her to see Jim’s grave.
As we came back, we passed a dirty looking beggar covered in sores sitting by the side of the road.
As Alma looked at him she said rather wistfully, “I can’t help wondering why God leaves a poor old
man like that who seems to have no purpose in life at all, and takes Jim with all his potential.” I had no
answer, and for her and for me too, the only answer is that we know our Father, and can trust His
loving purposes even when we don’t understand all the ‘why’s’.
Arthur Moore’s last words to Percy before we left were, “Stick close to the Lord, my boy. There’s
nothing else worth having.”
We left Hanzhong on 22 May. That trip was not an easy one. We had to travel down from Hanzhong
through Ningjiang on the dangerous mountain roads to the south west of us. It was not only
dangerous because of the roads themselves, but because our ‘buses’ were trucks piled high with
goods and luggage before the passengers could climb up and sit on the top, often higher than the cab
itself.
215
