Page 279 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 279
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
carried heavy baskets of grain, persimmons or peanuts to market. As a stranger one
met with unfailing good cheer and friendliness. There may have been 150,000 people
in Hanzhong. The CIM property was on the edge of town, down a quiet lane and
close to a charming area of fields where the airfield had once been. High walls
surrounded the Mission and Church Compound.
Percy was the Mission’s Business Manager in Shaanxi and closely involved in all the
affairs of the Chinese Church in Hanzhong and on the Hanzhong Plain He was
running a small Bible School on the premises and involved me in the teaching and in
his visits to village churches. All travel was by bicycle or on foot.. My knowledge of
the language increased greatly in Hanzhong. I took two more exams and on several
occasions preached at the main service. I also took a Bible class for the elders and
lectured some thirty times to the little Bible School. Yet my greatest opportunities
were probably out of town. I greatly enjoyed the Christian Union at the Medical
College out in the villages, and I sometimes went with Percy on some of his country
trips.
One trip was to a weekend Conference for fifty country Christians on the far side of
the Han River which we crossed by ferry. We shared a hot little room half filled with
sacks of grain and a big heap of lime. I slept on a blackboard with nothing on it, and
we shared the meetings, Percy speaking from Romans and I from the book of Daniel,
Psalm 119 and the Parable of the Sower. They were a remarkable, rugged group of
raw countrymen, one of the bearded leaders having been a professional wrestler.
They were all in trouble because of their refusal to contribute to heathen festivities and
were suspected of being pro-Japanese because of their connection with foreigners.
Poor food and broken nights deprived us of much energy, but we greatly enjoyed their
spontaneous and ardent Christian faith. They sang and read and talked the Gospel
and the Christian life from 4am to 8:30pm each day.
Another five day trip with Percy followed, still on the Hanzhong Plain. We had a
terrific struggle pushing our heavily laden cycles over narrow bumpy tracks and
across boulder strewn rivers to Xinji. We each spoke to the Christians there several
times and on the Sunday afternoon the whole company, a hundred strong, walked
through the rice fields to where the Xinji River flowed right under a range of hills.
There Percy baptized five men and two women. Some 200 people joined us for the
ceremony. Thus I saw for myself the size and character of the Christian Church in
this far away part of China, and appreciated also the sheer physical ordeal of trying to
be of some help to it. Percy and I got home at last with splitting headaches and upset
tummies and were in bed for several days after it.”
In August of 1943 the whole question of military service for Percy came up again when the British
Military Mission wrote to him asking if he were still willing to serve under them. He wrote back
agreeing and also wrote to CIM Headquarters telling them of this new proposal and also asking what
the Mission attitude would be about me and the children if he was called up. In the First World War
any missionary going to join up, automatically resigned from the Mission with his wife and children.
Bishop Houghton wrote back saying that Percy would have to resign, but they were willing for me to
remain on as a member of the Mission, though I might be moved to some other place of work. Percy
resigned from the Mission, handed over his secretarial work to David, and George Bolster came in to
help in the Bible School when it reopened in October. Then came another telegram from the British
Military Mission saying that their previous telegram had only been ‘exploratory’, and they were waiting
279
Amy Moore
carried heavy baskets of grain, persimmons or peanuts to market. As a stranger one
met with unfailing good cheer and friendliness. There may have been 150,000 people
in Hanzhong. The CIM property was on the edge of town, down a quiet lane and
close to a charming area of fields where the airfield had once been. High walls
surrounded the Mission and Church Compound.
Percy was the Mission’s Business Manager in Shaanxi and closely involved in all the
affairs of the Chinese Church in Hanzhong and on the Hanzhong Plain He was
running a small Bible School on the premises and involved me in the teaching and in
his visits to village churches. All travel was by bicycle or on foot.. My knowledge of
the language increased greatly in Hanzhong. I took two more exams and on several
occasions preached at the main service. I also took a Bible class for the elders and
lectured some thirty times to the little Bible School. Yet my greatest opportunities
were probably out of town. I greatly enjoyed the Christian Union at the Medical
College out in the villages, and I sometimes went with Percy on some of his country
trips.
One trip was to a weekend Conference for fifty country Christians on the far side of
the Han River which we crossed by ferry. We shared a hot little room half filled with
sacks of grain and a big heap of lime. I slept on a blackboard with nothing on it, and
we shared the meetings, Percy speaking from Romans and I from the book of Daniel,
Psalm 119 and the Parable of the Sower. They were a remarkable, rugged group of
raw countrymen, one of the bearded leaders having been a professional wrestler.
They were all in trouble because of their refusal to contribute to heathen festivities and
were suspected of being pro-Japanese because of their connection with foreigners.
Poor food and broken nights deprived us of much energy, but we greatly enjoyed their
spontaneous and ardent Christian faith. They sang and read and talked the Gospel
and the Christian life from 4am to 8:30pm each day.
Another five day trip with Percy followed, still on the Hanzhong Plain. We had a
terrific struggle pushing our heavily laden cycles over narrow bumpy tracks and
across boulder strewn rivers to Xinji. We each spoke to the Christians there several
times and on the Sunday afternoon the whole company, a hundred strong, walked
through the rice fields to where the Xinji River flowed right under a range of hills.
There Percy baptized five men and two women. Some 200 people joined us for the
ceremony. Thus I saw for myself the size and character of the Christian Church in
this far away part of China, and appreciated also the sheer physical ordeal of trying to
be of some help to it. Percy and I got home at last with splitting headaches and upset
tummies and were in bed for several days after it.”
In August of 1943 the whole question of military service for Percy came up again when the British
Military Mission wrote to him asking if he were still willing to serve under them. He wrote back
agreeing and also wrote to CIM Headquarters telling them of this new proposal and also asking what
the Mission attitude would be about me and the children if he was called up. In the First World War
any missionary going to join up, automatically resigned from the Mission with his wife and children.
Bishop Houghton wrote back saying that Percy would have to resign, but they were willing for me to
remain on as a member of the Mission, though I might be moved to some other place of work. Percy
resigned from the Mission, handed over his secretarial work to David, and George Bolster came in to
help in the Bible School when it reopened in October. Then came another telegram from the British
Military Mission saying that their previous telegram had only been ‘exploratory’, and they were waiting
279
