Page 285 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 285
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
With Alan in India and Raymond in the Japanese concentration camp in Wei Xian in Shandong, our
family seemed scattered indeed, and we were so thankful we had had Alan home for the long holidays
in 1944 in spite of advice to the contrary. Now we only had Frank and Dorothy home and Frank would
be school age by the end of the year, but our school was now in India and that seemed such a long
way to send him without one of us going with him. I wrote home,
“We will probably keep him home till after next Christmas and see
how the Lord leads us then. I am so thankful we are Christians these
days and can trust where we cannot see.”
With Percy’s parents having returned to Canada and Percy now appointed as the Superintendent of
our CIM work in South Shaanxi we moved over into the Super’s house and once again I had a cook to
help me with all the catering, and that was marvellous.
We had been without servants for quite
some time because inflation was sky high,
the exchange rate from our money from the
West was at a pegged rate and by the end
of each month was practically worthless, so
as soon as we received a cheque we
cashed it and put it into goods we could
either use ourselves or barter such as rice,
charcoal, salt, etc., and things we could not
afford we simply did not buy! Tea by this
time had risen to $800 per lb and we either
1944 Shaanxi Conference (above) led by CIM used the same leaves over again as often
Director R.E.Thompson. It was at this as there was any colour in them, or did what
Conference that the workers were asked to the Generalissimo and his wife Madame
vote for a new Superintendent as Arthur and Jiang were doing themselves and advised
Esther were retiring. others to do, drank ‘bei kaishui’ (cup of
boiled water). So when we went visiting to
better class families, that is what we were offered with pride rather than any sense of shame. In
poorer country people’s homes, a few bamboo leaves were put into a cup and infused with boiling
water and offered to us.
I still had some cocoa in my stores, and the GIs sometimes replenished it. This I mostly kept for the
children now that I had plenty of milk, and tried to build up their health before the heat of the next
summer.
So, how did I manage to pay for a cook? Yang Wanchuen was a Xixiang boy and Percy and I knew
him well when we worked there before furlough. It was after we returned I think, that he was caught
by the press gang and taken off with others to serve in the army. Nothing was heard of him for quite
some time, but one day he turned up at Mother’s door in Hanzhong. He was ragged and dirty with
straw sandals nearly falling off his feet, and looking far from well. Mother gave one look at him, sent
him to the kitchen to have a meal, and then gave him a cake of carbolic soap and some clean clothes
and told him to go and have a bath and burn the old, obviously lice-ridden clothes in the garden
incinerator. She told him she was not going to let him go home to his mother until he looked better, so
he could do odd jobs in her garden until he was better. He was grateful and worked well and at times
helped Mother’s cook in the kitchen when there was an influx of visitors. Mother had a wonderful cook
called Wang who could cook anything and made marvellous Chinese meals. All the housekeepers in
285
Amy Moore
With Alan in India and Raymond in the Japanese concentration camp in Wei Xian in Shandong, our
family seemed scattered indeed, and we were so thankful we had had Alan home for the long holidays
in 1944 in spite of advice to the contrary. Now we only had Frank and Dorothy home and Frank would
be school age by the end of the year, but our school was now in India and that seemed such a long
way to send him without one of us going with him. I wrote home,
“We will probably keep him home till after next Christmas and see
how the Lord leads us then. I am so thankful we are Christians these
days and can trust where we cannot see.”
With Percy’s parents having returned to Canada and Percy now appointed as the Superintendent of
our CIM work in South Shaanxi we moved over into the Super’s house and once again I had a cook to
help me with all the catering, and that was marvellous.
We had been without servants for quite
some time because inflation was sky high,
the exchange rate from our money from the
West was at a pegged rate and by the end
of each month was practically worthless, so
as soon as we received a cheque we
cashed it and put it into goods we could
either use ourselves or barter such as rice,
charcoal, salt, etc., and things we could not
afford we simply did not buy! Tea by this
time had risen to $800 per lb and we either
1944 Shaanxi Conference (above) led by CIM used the same leaves over again as often
Director R.E.Thompson. It was at this as there was any colour in them, or did what
Conference that the workers were asked to the Generalissimo and his wife Madame
vote for a new Superintendent as Arthur and Jiang were doing themselves and advised
Esther were retiring. others to do, drank ‘bei kaishui’ (cup of
boiled water). So when we went visiting to
better class families, that is what we were offered with pride rather than any sense of shame. In
poorer country people’s homes, a few bamboo leaves were put into a cup and infused with boiling
water and offered to us.
I still had some cocoa in my stores, and the GIs sometimes replenished it. This I mostly kept for the
children now that I had plenty of milk, and tried to build up their health before the heat of the next
summer.
So, how did I manage to pay for a cook? Yang Wanchuen was a Xixiang boy and Percy and I knew
him well when we worked there before furlough. It was after we returned I think, that he was caught
by the press gang and taken off with others to serve in the army. Nothing was heard of him for quite
some time, but one day he turned up at Mother’s door in Hanzhong. He was ragged and dirty with
straw sandals nearly falling off his feet, and looking far from well. Mother gave one look at him, sent
him to the kitchen to have a meal, and then gave him a cake of carbolic soap and some clean clothes
and told him to go and have a bath and burn the old, obviously lice-ridden clothes in the garden
incinerator. She told him she was not going to let him go home to his mother until he looked better, so
he could do odd jobs in her garden until he was better. He was grateful and worked well and at times
helped Mother’s cook in the kitchen when there was an influx of visitors. Mother had a wonderful cook
called Wang who could cook anything and made marvellous Chinese meals. All the housekeepers in
285
