Page 96 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 96
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
With handsome financial backing and many willing helpers, both Chinese and foreign, he ambarked
upon a long summer of relief work in the hope of a bumper autumn harvest, which actually
eventuated. Operating in fourteen districts of Gansu, he employed 20,000 labourers in reclaiming
farmlands, building bridges and dykes, excavating springs in the mountains, and constructing
hundreds of miles of roads. Large stocks of grain were brought down the Yellow River from Xining,
while convoys of mules carried great quantities of silver between the camps without losing a single
load.
At three main relief depots, 10,000 people, mostly women and children, received daily rations.
Findlay estimated that by these means 100,000 people who would otherwise have died were kept
alive until the next harvest. “We planted a crop of buckwheat over a wide area and reaped it within
fifty days.”
Following his principle of making personal contact with leaders, he could actually say,
“We received sympathetic assistance from all classes of society;
Government, business, private, rebel and brigand!”
When the great city of Tianshui fell to a bandit army in May and was given over to looting and
massacre, the relief lost $5,300, a very large sum in those days.
“I sent a personal letter to the Muslim leader of that horde, reminding
him of the friendship I had with his father and his brother, and
representing our loss of trust funds. He was not content till he
received notification from me that all the money had been refunded.”
When Anting was overrun in August, he lost $100,000 but got it all back within a week. As usual he
said very little about himself while paying tribute to missionaries and Chinese colleagues, two of whom
insisted on accompanying him one day when he said, “It was necessary for me to enter a city which
was under fire and being attacked by 13,000 brigands.”
With a good harvest in sight, he decided against establishing a permanent relief institution and closed
the centres on 31 August. He left Lanzhou on 8 September once again by raft, as he had sold the
lorry. Three other rafts crammed with women and children took the chance of travelling with him for
safety. Ahead of them several rafts were robbed and in some cases all the passengers were shot.
On one occasion they were trying to slip past a dangerous spot held by a large group of bandits, but at
midnight a strong wind blew them to the shore, and for three hours they had to stay there in dead
silence until at last they could move on.
On the 14th day they reached the railhead at Baotou, and after several months away he at last
rejoined Fanny at Chefoo, but his days at the Chefoo School were really ended.
RESCUE OF MRS HAYWARD AND MISS GOMERSAL
The Commission retained his services until the end of the year, so it was while he was sitting at his
desk in their Beijing offices at 10:30 am on 29 November that he received a telegram from Baotou to
say that a man had come in with the news that Mrs. Hayward and Miss Gomersal of the CIM had been
robbed on the river west of the city, and were in the hands of the bandits at some location unknown.
Mrs. Hayward had been sent from Lanzhou with suspected cancer and Miss Gomersal had offered to
accompany her on the raft. One was American and the other British, so GFA at once called the two
96
Amy Moore
With handsome financial backing and many willing helpers, both Chinese and foreign, he ambarked
upon a long summer of relief work in the hope of a bumper autumn harvest, which actually
eventuated. Operating in fourteen districts of Gansu, he employed 20,000 labourers in reclaiming
farmlands, building bridges and dykes, excavating springs in the mountains, and constructing
hundreds of miles of roads. Large stocks of grain were brought down the Yellow River from Xining,
while convoys of mules carried great quantities of silver between the camps without losing a single
load.
At three main relief depots, 10,000 people, mostly women and children, received daily rations.
Findlay estimated that by these means 100,000 people who would otherwise have died were kept
alive until the next harvest. “We planted a crop of buckwheat over a wide area and reaped it within
fifty days.”
Following his principle of making personal contact with leaders, he could actually say,
“We received sympathetic assistance from all classes of society;
Government, business, private, rebel and brigand!”
When the great city of Tianshui fell to a bandit army in May and was given over to looting and
massacre, the relief lost $5,300, a very large sum in those days.
“I sent a personal letter to the Muslim leader of that horde, reminding
him of the friendship I had with his father and his brother, and
representing our loss of trust funds. He was not content till he
received notification from me that all the money had been refunded.”
When Anting was overrun in August, he lost $100,000 but got it all back within a week. As usual he
said very little about himself while paying tribute to missionaries and Chinese colleagues, two of whom
insisted on accompanying him one day when he said, “It was necessary for me to enter a city which
was under fire and being attacked by 13,000 brigands.”
With a good harvest in sight, he decided against establishing a permanent relief institution and closed
the centres on 31 August. He left Lanzhou on 8 September once again by raft, as he had sold the
lorry. Three other rafts crammed with women and children took the chance of travelling with him for
safety. Ahead of them several rafts were robbed and in some cases all the passengers were shot.
On one occasion they were trying to slip past a dangerous spot held by a large group of bandits, but at
midnight a strong wind blew them to the shore, and for three hours they had to stay there in dead
silence until at last they could move on.
On the 14th day they reached the railhead at Baotou, and after several months away he at last
rejoined Fanny at Chefoo, but his days at the Chefoo School were really ended.
RESCUE OF MRS HAYWARD AND MISS GOMERSAL
The Commission retained his services until the end of the year, so it was while he was sitting at his
desk in their Beijing offices at 10:30 am on 29 November that he received a telegram from Baotou to
say that a man had come in with the news that Mrs. Hayward and Miss Gomersal of the CIM had been
robbed on the river west of the city, and were in the hands of the bandits at some location unknown.
Mrs. Hayward had been sent from Lanzhou with suspected cancer and Miss Gomersal had offered to
accompany her on the raft. One was American and the other British, so GFA at once called the two
96
