Page 223 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 223
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
home that he was all over me, climbing on my knee, wanting my attention and hugging and kissing
me. By mid afternoon I astonished everybody by sitting down and bursting into tears. I began to
wonder if I could possibly cope with three children! I soon got over that as I began to feel stronger and
it wasn’t long before I was thoroughly enjoying my three little boys, all so different.
Raymond at nearly five, was quiet and dependable, the kind of child who could be reasoned with and
who usually obeyed without too much argument if I explained the reason why. Alan, at two and a
half, was an unpredictable little mischief who always wanted to do the opposite of what I wanted.
Sometimes I thought it would be easier to tell him to do what I didn’t want and then he would do what I
did want! But I felt he had to learn obedience while he was still young, or how was he ever going to
learn to obey God if he hadn’t learned to obey his parents? He was certainly a very obstinate small
boy with a very strong will of his own, but with it all so loving and loveable that I felt my heart softening
even when I knew I must be firm. Then there was our lovely happy baby boy who won everybody’s
heart and gave us all a lot of joy as he grew and developed.
Soon after Frank’s birth we went up to Cunderdin to my Auntie Ruby and Uncle Arthur Carter’s farm
for a holiday. My cousin Win was already married to Howard Blyth and they had built themselves a
home right in Cunderdin, so I was able to see them too, but mostly I revelled in being back in what,
during most of my growing years, had been a second home for me with Win as my closest friend.
Auntie and Uncle were older and the boys were doing the heavier work on the farm. Percy loved it
and went off every morning with my cousins to help with the day’s work. They had just invested in
what was called a baler which gathered the hay after harvesting and packed it into tight bundles for
storing. The machine gathered the hay in at one end and threw out the bales at the other. These, the
boys later collected and stored on one of the sheds for fodder. It was all new and they were enjoying
finding out how it worked while Percy took his turn at driving the tractor. He was out of practice after
eight years in China and caused many a laugh from the other boys as he made mistakes. As one bale
came out, they were all amazed to see a goanna lizard squashed flat with the straw and quite dead.
DEPUTATION WORK
Back in Bayswater my holiday was over and I had to take my turn at deputation meetings. Percy had
complained when he first came home to Western Australia, that he would only be ‘Amy Weir’s
husband’ as he knew nobody and I knew everybody. When I came out of ‘retirement’ after Frank’s
birth, the situation had been reversed. I told him I was now only ‘Percy Moore’s wife’, because the
meetings he had been taking had made him quite well known by this time in Christian circles, and he
was being greeted on the street and other places by people I didn’t know at all!
Raymond and Alan settled into life in Australia very happily. They were fascinated by the marvellous
toys they saw in shops or that other children had, and I found it hard to have to refuse to buy them
some of the very expensive things they so much wanted. Father didn’t find it funny when they turned
on the taps in the garden and left them running. I didn’t find it so funny either when they came in filthy
dirty after playing in a patch of black sand at the bottom of the garden, but these were all minor
incidents in our joy at being home again. It was the days before washing machines, so I spent a lot of
time at the wash tubs scrubbing away on the wash board and then boiling things in the copper, rinsing
and blueing them and hanging them on the line outside to dry. The lovely dry air of WA dried
everything very quickly and that was a bonus.
Something else I became very aware of was the different spiritual atmosphere from that in China.
There I was always conscious of the darkness surrounding us and powers of evil which were so
223
Amy Moore
home that he was all over me, climbing on my knee, wanting my attention and hugging and kissing
me. By mid afternoon I astonished everybody by sitting down and bursting into tears. I began to
wonder if I could possibly cope with three children! I soon got over that as I began to feel stronger and
it wasn’t long before I was thoroughly enjoying my three little boys, all so different.
Raymond at nearly five, was quiet and dependable, the kind of child who could be reasoned with and
who usually obeyed without too much argument if I explained the reason why. Alan, at two and a
half, was an unpredictable little mischief who always wanted to do the opposite of what I wanted.
Sometimes I thought it would be easier to tell him to do what I didn’t want and then he would do what I
did want! But I felt he had to learn obedience while he was still young, or how was he ever going to
learn to obey God if he hadn’t learned to obey his parents? He was certainly a very obstinate small
boy with a very strong will of his own, but with it all so loving and loveable that I felt my heart softening
even when I knew I must be firm. Then there was our lovely happy baby boy who won everybody’s
heart and gave us all a lot of joy as he grew and developed.
Soon after Frank’s birth we went up to Cunderdin to my Auntie Ruby and Uncle Arthur Carter’s farm
for a holiday. My cousin Win was already married to Howard Blyth and they had built themselves a
home right in Cunderdin, so I was able to see them too, but mostly I revelled in being back in what,
during most of my growing years, had been a second home for me with Win as my closest friend.
Auntie and Uncle were older and the boys were doing the heavier work on the farm. Percy loved it
and went off every morning with my cousins to help with the day’s work. They had just invested in
what was called a baler which gathered the hay after harvesting and packed it into tight bundles for
storing. The machine gathered the hay in at one end and threw out the bales at the other. These, the
boys later collected and stored on one of the sheds for fodder. It was all new and they were enjoying
finding out how it worked while Percy took his turn at driving the tractor. He was out of practice after
eight years in China and caused many a laugh from the other boys as he made mistakes. As one bale
came out, they were all amazed to see a goanna lizard squashed flat with the straw and quite dead.
DEPUTATION WORK
Back in Bayswater my holiday was over and I had to take my turn at deputation meetings. Percy had
complained when he first came home to Western Australia, that he would only be ‘Amy Weir’s
husband’ as he knew nobody and I knew everybody. When I came out of ‘retirement’ after Frank’s
birth, the situation had been reversed. I told him I was now only ‘Percy Moore’s wife’, because the
meetings he had been taking had made him quite well known by this time in Christian circles, and he
was being greeted on the street and other places by people I didn’t know at all!
Raymond and Alan settled into life in Australia very happily. They were fascinated by the marvellous
toys they saw in shops or that other children had, and I found it hard to have to refuse to buy them
some of the very expensive things they so much wanted. Father didn’t find it funny when they turned
on the taps in the garden and left them running. I didn’t find it so funny either when they came in filthy
dirty after playing in a patch of black sand at the bottom of the garden, but these were all minor
incidents in our joy at being home again. It was the days before washing machines, so I spent a lot of
time at the wash tubs scrubbing away on the wash board and then boiling things in the copper, rinsing
and blueing them and hanging them on the line outside to dry. The lovely dry air of WA dried
everything very quickly and that was a bonus.
Something else I became very aware of was the different spiritual atmosphere from that in China.
There I was always conscious of the darkness surrounding us and powers of evil which were so
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