Page 300 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 300
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
God was doing wonderful things among the students in South Shaanxi. The influx of refugee
students from the occupied eastern provinces had, I thought, created hungry hearts in many of them,
and they were open to the Gospel. In Chongqing Calvin Jao had been holding revival meetings and
one of the students who had been much blessed had come back with an entirely new spiritual
experience. The blessing spread to others and special meetings were planned for February with Paul
Contento and Jack Beck invited to be the speakers.
But the Holy Spirit was at work and when Jack got up to speak at one meeting, he had not opened his
mouth before people were on their faces before God, crying for forgiveness. This was not the work of
man, but a movement of the Holy Spirit being poured out on the young people of China, and we could
only stand aside and rejoice. The Medical College was preparing to move back to Beijing and Joy
Chen, who had been studying there was preparing to go too. She went down to Xixiang to say
goodbye to her mother and brothers. We all had great hopes for Joy’s future as she had developed
into a lovely mature Christian and the Xiaos often wished their John would show some interest in her.
But John was not interested, and I doubt if Joy would have had an interest in him as he did not seem
to have the strength of character that Joseph had.
Mrs. Xiao talked to me about his death one day. During his illness Joseph tried to put right things he
felt were wrong in his life, and were coming between himself and the Lord. He had had some kind of
understanding with Li Hua, the daughter of the Pastor of the Independent Church. He felt he had
been disobedient to the Lord in this as he had allowed his interest in her stop him going to Bible
College to train for His service. He seemed to have no peace until he had broken all connection with
Li Hua and had made a decision to give himself wholly to the Lord’s service should he recover. His
bright cheerful face after that, and what seemed like new strength of body, made us all hope the Lord
would leave him with us, but he passed away late one Saturday night. After asking those with him to
sing with him, ‘Take my life, Precious Saviour, May I only live for Thee’, and ‘I will never, never leave
you’, he suddenly sat up and coughed, lay back on the pillow and stopped breathing.
This lovely family were going through a hard time of testing. Critics had said, “No wonder the Xiaos
are Christians. They have everything, a nice home, plenty of money and six sons!! They never have
any troubles like other people do.” Now Joseph was gone and Job, who had been mentally affected by
the air raids was a constant anxiety as he seemed to be drawn by all the things that were wrong.
Cigarette smoking attracted him and he argued with his mother that because all the American GIs
smoked it must be alright. Mrs. Xiao begged me to ask people to pray for them as she felt God could
help them through this time of trial.
We missionaries were not without our trials either. Fred and Marjorie Smith were now living in
Fengxiang in the north, and their little Clifford had been in the Baptist Hospital in Xi’an for almost a
month with what was diagnosed as Kala-azar. (A chronic and potentially fatal parasitic disease of the
viscera (the internal organs, particularly the liver, spleen, bone marrow and lymph nodes) due to
infection by the parasite called Leishmania donovani. Leishmania donovani, the agent of kala-azar, is
transmitted by sandfly bites ed..) Fred told us that Dr. Tait had hoped for better results from the
treatment, and he would need to take Clifford back in a month or two.
Mrs. Li the Bible woman at Fengxiang, who had been with us for a time earlier to recover from an
illness, was back in Fengxiang, but not very well again. God was blessing these northern stations.
One of Calvin Jao’s colleagues had been holding meetings in Fengxiang, Qishan and Fufeng, and
there were over one hundred conversions in Fengxiang alone.
The Church Union Meetings were to be held in February 1946. At previous meetings, a decision had
been made to open a church school at Chenggu for the children of Christian parents in South Shaanxi.
Return to Table of 300
Contents
Amy Moore
God was doing wonderful things among the students in South Shaanxi. The influx of refugee
students from the occupied eastern provinces had, I thought, created hungry hearts in many of them,
and they were open to the Gospel. In Chongqing Calvin Jao had been holding revival meetings and
one of the students who had been much blessed had come back with an entirely new spiritual
experience. The blessing spread to others and special meetings were planned for February with Paul
Contento and Jack Beck invited to be the speakers.
But the Holy Spirit was at work and when Jack got up to speak at one meeting, he had not opened his
mouth before people were on their faces before God, crying for forgiveness. This was not the work of
man, but a movement of the Holy Spirit being poured out on the young people of China, and we could
only stand aside and rejoice. The Medical College was preparing to move back to Beijing and Joy
Chen, who had been studying there was preparing to go too. She went down to Xixiang to say
goodbye to her mother and brothers. We all had great hopes for Joy’s future as she had developed
into a lovely mature Christian and the Xiaos often wished their John would show some interest in her.
But John was not interested, and I doubt if Joy would have had an interest in him as he did not seem
to have the strength of character that Joseph had.
Mrs. Xiao talked to me about his death one day. During his illness Joseph tried to put right things he
felt were wrong in his life, and were coming between himself and the Lord. He had had some kind of
understanding with Li Hua, the daughter of the Pastor of the Independent Church. He felt he had
been disobedient to the Lord in this as he had allowed his interest in her stop him going to Bible
College to train for His service. He seemed to have no peace until he had broken all connection with
Li Hua and had made a decision to give himself wholly to the Lord’s service should he recover. His
bright cheerful face after that, and what seemed like new strength of body, made us all hope the Lord
would leave him with us, but he passed away late one Saturday night. After asking those with him to
sing with him, ‘Take my life, Precious Saviour, May I only live for Thee’, and ‘I will never, never leave
you’, he suddenly sat up and coughed, lay back on the pillow and stopped breathing.
This lovely family were going through a hard time of testing. Critics had said, “No wonder the Xiaos
are Christians. They have everything, a nice home, plenty of money and six sons!! They never have
any troubles like other people do.” Now Joseph was gone and Job, who had been mentally affected by
the air raids was a constant anxiety as he seemed to be drawn by all the things that were wrong.
Cigarette smoking attracted him and he argued with his mother that because all the American GIs
smoked it must be alright. Mrs. Xiao begged me to ask people to pray for them as she felt God could
help them through this time of trial.
We missionaries were not without our trials either. Fred and Marjorie Smith were now living in
Fengxiang in the north, and their little Clifford had been in the Baptist Hospital in Xi’an for almost a
month with what was diagnosed as Kala-azar. (A chronic and potentially fatal parasitic disease of the
viscera (the internal organs, particularly the liver, spleen, bone marrow and lymph nodes) due to
infection by the parasite called Leishmania donovani. Leishmania donovani, the agent of kala-azar, is
transmitted by sandfly bites ed..) Fred told us that Dr. Tait had hoped for better results from the
treatment, and he would need to take Clifford back in a month or two.
Mrs. Li the Bible woman at Fengxiang, who had been with us for a time earlier to recover from an
illness, was back in Fengxiang, but not very well again. God was blessing these northern stations.
One of Calvin Jao’s colleagues had been holding meetings in Fengxiang, Qishan and Fufeng, and
there were over one hundred conversions in Fengxiang alone.
The Church Union Meetings were to be held in February 1946. At previous meetings, a decision had
been made to open a church school at Chenggu for the children of Christian parents in South Shaanxi.
Return to Table of 300
Contents
