Page 307 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 307
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
I went home feeling sad for our friends and could only pray that God would give them His strength and
spare Joel to them so that they would not have sorrow upon sorrow. I got home to find Alan sitting in
the garden weeping his eyes out as he had been told of Jonah’s death. They had been good friends
and I suppose this was the first death of somebody he knew well which had come so close.
On the Thursday Percy and I and the boys walked with the Xiao family to lay Jonah beside his brother
Joseph in the family cemetery. The younger members of the Xiao family were all there, but Joel had
not yet been told of Jonah’s death. Dr. Xiao had been very hard hit by the loss of his two sons and the
serious illness of the third. He was inclined to shut himself away from everybody and it was hard to
know how to help him. We felt as we prayed for him that it would be better if he could share his grief
with us as his wife was doing, and let us weep with him. The whole thing had brought home to us all
the need to be ready at any moment to face the Lord, and it certainly had made a big impression on
our boys.
Paul spoke of ‘the care of all the churches’ and it became very real to us as we continued to work in
South Shaanxi. When we returned from furlough and had long talks with our Directors in Shanghai,
we were urged to help all the Shaanxi churches to independence - ‘self supporting, self propagating
and self governing’. “We don’t know how long we will be able to stay in China,” they said, “work as if
you only have another ten years.” Now, six years later, most of our churches were independent, some
more than others, and some still needed a lot of help and advice. Percy, as the CIM Superintendent in
the province, was theoretically responsible only for the welfare and care of the missionaries, but as we
all worked now in co-operation with the Church Union and in partnership with our Chinese fellow
workers, he found himself more and more being called upon to visit the churches, not only as
previously for leading Bible studies, but to advise and help where problems had arisen.
So he spent all of April visiting churches in the north of the province. There were so few workers and
so much need. Every church had young believers who needed teaching and building up in their faith.
A strong Pentecostal movement had swept through the whole area with much false teaching. They
needed consistent regular Bible teaching if they were going to stand. With only Fred and Marjory and
Kathleen Heath in the north, Fred was the only one available to do any teaching, though, with the
Bible School holidays in July and August, Kathleen would be free to move round and some of the
Bible School students were going to give time to helping in the churches. In the south we were
concerned about Dr. Xiao who had always been such a wise leader in all church affairs, but was
finding it hard to get above the dark cloud of sorrow that had come upon the family. In Xixiang we
were concerned about Wu Xiangwen who had been invited to go into full time service for the Lord and
with his Bible School training was well prepared to do so, but his business was prospering and his wife
was afraid he would not be able to support his family on a Pastor’s salary.
In Yang Xian their evangelist, Mr. Zhang had been persuaded by one of the church people to store
some opium in his house. It was quite illegal and the man had been imprisoned. Zhang had not been
caught and was very repentant. It was decided to send him to Ningqiang to help the church there and,
as he had a good little wife, we hoped he might be able to start again in a place he was not known.
So all these problems and many others brought all of us who worked together in Shaanxi, both
Chinese and western, with a burden of prayer for the ‘Lord of the Harvest’ to thrust out more labourers
into His harvest field.
At this time the ‘Local Sec’ house was empty, so we used it as a centre where all our co-workers could
meet together to discuss the needs and pray for the work. We all ate Chinese food there together at
meal times and drew tickets at each meal for the number of the place where we would sit. Certain
numbers at each table were specially marked as the servers for that table, so it did not matter who you
307
Amy Moore
I went home feeling sad for our friends and could only pray that God would give them His strength and
spare Joel to them so that they would not have sorrow upon sorrow. I got home to find Alan sitting in
the garden weeping his eyes out as he had been told of Jonah’s death. They had been good friends
and I suppose this was the first death of somebody he knew well which had come so close.
On the Thursday Percy and I and the boys walked with the Xiao family to lay Jonah beside his brother
Joseph in the family cemetery. The younger members of the Xiao family were all there, but Joel had
not yet been told of Jonah’s death. Dr. Xiao had been very hard hit by the loss of his two sons and the
serious illness of the third. He was inclined to shut himself away from everybody and it was hard to
know how to help him. We felt as we prayed for him that it would be better if he could share his grief
with us as his wife was doing, and let us weep with him. The whole thing had brought home to us all
the need to be ready at any moment to face the Lord, and it certainly had made a big impression on
our boys.
Paul spoke of ‘the care of all the churches’ and it became very real to us as we continued to work in
South Shaanxi. When we returned from furlough and had long talks with our Directors in Shanghai,
we were urged to help all the Shaanxi churches to independence - ‘self supporting, self propagating
and self governing’. “We don’t know how long we will be able to stay in China,” they said, “work as if
you only have another ten years.” Now, six years later, most of our churches were independent, some
more than others, and some still needed a lot of help and advice. Percy, as the CIM Superintendent in
the province, was theoretically responsible only for the welfare and care of the missionaries, but as we
all worked now in co-operation with the Church Union and in partnership with our Chinese fellow
workers, he found himself more and more being called upon to visit the churches, not only as
previously for leading Bible studies, but to advise and help where problems had arisen.
So he spent all of April visiting churches in the north of the province. There were so few workers and
so much need. Every church had young believers who needed teaching and building up in their faith.
A strong Pentecostal movement had swept through the whole area with much false teaching. They
needed consistent regular Bible teaching if they were going to stand. With only Fred and Marjory and
Kathleen Heath in the north, Fred was the only one available to do any teaching, though, with the
Bible School holidays in July and August, Kathleen would be free to move round and some of the
Bible School students were going to give time to helping in the churches. In the south we were
concerned about Dr. Xiao who had always been such a wise leader in all church affairs, but was
finding it hard to get above the dark cloud of sorrow that had come upon the family. In Xixiang we
were concerned about Wu Xiangwen who had been invited to go into full time service for the Lord and
with his Bible School training was well prepared to do so, but his business was prospering and his wife
was afraid he would not be able to support his family on a Pastor’s salary.
In Yang Xian their evangelist, Mr. Zhang had been persuaded by one of the church people to store
some opium in his house. It was quite illegal and the man had been imprisoned. Zhang had not been
caught and was very repentant. It was decided to send him to Ningqiang to help the church there and,
as he had a good little wife, we hoped he might be able to start again in a place he was not known.
So all these problems and many others brought all of us who worked together in Shaanxi, both
Chinese and western, with a burden of prayer for the ‘Lord of the Harvest’ to thrust out more labourers
into His harvest field.
At this time the ‘Local Sec’ house was empty, so we used it as a centre where all our co-workers could
meet together to discuss the needs and pray for the work. We all ate Chinese food there together at
meal times and drew tickets at each meal for the number of the place where we would sit. Certain
numbers at each table were specially marked as the servers for that table, so it did not matter who you
307
