Page 272 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 272
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
the Mission with the option of reapplying when the war was over. He would therefore need sufficient
pay to be able to support us as well as himself. The response to this was that if he were accepted, he
would almost certainly be given commissioned rank, the pay and allowances of which were normally
sufficient to support a wife and family. So he settled down to await the outcome, but in the meantime
wrote to Mission Headquarters to inform them of what he had done.
The next move was a letter from the Embassy asking him to meet a certain Colonel Lovatt Fraser at
Chengdu to discuss Percy filling a vacancy for work in China with the British Military Mission. He was
away holding meetings in Xixiang when the telegram and a following letter came and I knew he could
never make it by the date they suggested, so I sent a wire back and said he was absent on Mission
business and I feared could not arrive in time. He got home too late to go to Chengdu and, with all
the Mission accounts waiting for him to attend to, he wrote apologising to the Colonel. The letter was
returned unopened some weeks later. He sent it back with an apology and they replied saying the
position had been filled from India. They offered to send him to India to an Officer Training Unit during
which he would have the rank of Sergeant, but the pay would not be sufficient to support a wife and
children. Later when he was commissioned there would be no guarantee that he would get the kind of
work he was looking for. This was all very unsatisfactory and he had no hesitation in writing back to
refuse the offer. A letter from Uncle George confirmed him in the wisdom of that decision. We
thankfully put the whole thing aside and felt the Lord had over ruled to keep us in Hanzhong. Percy
had made an offer and he was not required.
WAR TIME MISSIONARY WORK
Bible School work was much in our thoughts as we felt that the Churches all over South Shaanxi
needed trained workers both men and women. Somehow every effort we had made so far seemed to
meet with difficulties. The Women’s Bible School in Xixiang had been successful enough while it
lasted but with our move to Hanzhong there was nobody free to take my place. The Team had raised
our hopes, but with Pastor Guo’s illness and subsequent departure back to Shanxi it was impossible
for Percy to carry on alone. Now we hoped we could carry on even in a small way with a few
dedicated students, and Percy not being required for military service meant he could get started. The
Church had already asked us to start a Christian Endeavour Society for the young people and that
was going well. Two of Dr. Xiao’s boys were proving to be very good leaders and were most
enthusiastic. The Secretary was an ex-prisoner who had been put into prison a few years before for
communistic activities. Some of the Church people visited the prison and while they were preaching
one day, he was converted. As soon as he was released he started attending Church. He was young
and keen and sometimes so enthusiastic that we had to hold him back.
In February we were planning 10 days of meetings for women in the Hanzhong Church. Bertha was
coming in to help. There would be six of us altogether, the other four being Chinese. Mrs. Xiao was
one and I always marvelled at how she managed that big family, helped her husband in his medical
work and still found time to help in the Church. Mrs. Ma was another, not a local person but a refugee
from Anhui where she had been a Bible woman for thirty years with one of the Presbyterian Churches.
She had thrown herself heart and soul into the work in Hanzhong and was a tower of strength. She
remembered Percy as a child in Chefoo and treated me like a daughter.
As 1943 dawned the news about Jessie from Lanzhou was not good. Her parents were getting more
and more worried about her until they finally decided that Esther should go up to Lanzhou to see what
she could do to help her get her strength back and to take some of the responsibility for the twins off
David’s shoulders. By this time it had become impossible for him to do much outside the home at all.
Esther had never met her son-in-law, but she made a great impression on him and he always referred
272
Amy Moore
the Mission with the option of reapplying when the war was over. He would therefore need sufficient
pay to be able to support us as well as himself. The response to this was that if he were accepted, he
would almost certainly be given commissioned rank, the pay and allowances of which were normally
sufficient to support a wife and family. So he settled down to await the outcome, but in the meantime
wrote to Mission Headquarters to inform them of what he had done.
The next move was a letter from the Embassy asking him to meet a certain Colonel Lovatt Fraser at
Chengdu to discuss Percy filling a vacancy for work in China with the British Military Mission. He was
away holding meetings in Xixiang when the telegram and a following letter came and I knew he could
never make it by the date they suggested, so I sent a wire back and said he was absent on Mission
business and I feared could not arrive in time. He got home too late to go to Chengdu and, with all
the Mission accounts waiting for him to attend to, he wrote apologising to the Colonel. The letter was
returned unopened some weeks later. He sent it back with an apology and they replied saying the
position had been filled from India. They offered to send him to India to an Officer Training Unit during
which he would have the rank of Sergeant, but the pay would not be sufficient to support a wife and
children. Later when he was commissioned there would be no guarantee that he would get the kind of
work he was looking for. This was all very unsatisfactory and he had no hesitation in writing back to
refuse the offer. A letter from Uncle George confirmed him in the wisdom of that decision. We
thankfully put the whole thing aside and felt the Lord had over ruled to keep us in Hanzhong. Percy
had made an offer and he was not required.
WAR TIME MISSIONARY WORK
Bible School work was much in our thoughts as we felt that the Churches all over South Shaanxi
needed trained workers both men and women. Somehow every effort we had made so far seemed to
meet with difficulties. The Women’s Bible School in Xixiang had been successful enough while it
lasted but with our move to Hanzhong there was nobody free to take my place. The Team had raised
our hopes, but with Pastor Guo’s illness and subsequent departure back to Shanxi it was impossible
for Percy to carry on alone. Now we hoped we could carry on even in a small way with a few
dedicated students, and Percy not being required for military service meant he could get started. The
Church had already asked us to start a Christian Endeavour Society for the young people and that
was going well. Two of Dr. Xiao’s boys were proving to be very good leaders and were most
enthusiastic. The Secretary was an ex-prisoner who had been put into prison a few years before for
communistic activities. Some of the Church people visited the prison and while they were preaching
one day, he was converted. As soon as he was released he started attending Church. He was young
and keen and sometimes so enthusiastic that we had to hold him back.
In February we were planning 10 days of meetings for women in the Hanzhong Church. Bertha was
coming in to help. There would be six of us altogether, the other four being Chinese. Mrs. Xiao was
one and I always marvelled at how she managed that big family, helped her husband in his medical
work and still found time to help in the Church. Mrs. Ma was another, not a local person but a refugee
from Anhui where she had been a Bible woman for thirty years with one of the Presbyterian Churches.
She had thrown herself heart and soul into the work in Hanzhong and was a tower of strength. She
remembered Percy as a child in Chefoo and treated me like a daughter.
As 1943 dawned the news about Jessie from Lanzhou was not good. Her parents were getting more
and more worried about her until they finally decided that Esther should go up to Lanzhou to see what
she could do to help her get her strength back and to take some of the responsibility for the twins off
David’s shoulders. By this time it had become impossible for him to do much outside the home at all.
Esther had never met her son-in-law, but she made a great impression on him and he always referred
272
