Hey there, I'm Shari. One of my favorite things to do is read about or study the lives of those who have gone before us or who are walking beside us in this endeavor of being a missionary lady.*
Their stories challenge me, encourage me, and teach me. My hope is that these "silhouettes" or glimpses of their lives will do the same for you.
Their stories challenge me, encourage me, and teach me. My hope is that these "silhouettes" or glimpses of their lives will do the same for you.
Each silhouette contains a small synopsis of a lady’s missionary service, a particular story from her everyday life that resonated with my own, and a short Bible study about a truth that I learned from it. I hope that as you read these posts you might be challenged to find out more about these great ladies, that you might find something that speaks to your heart or helps you in your own ministry, and that ultimately you will be encouraged to remain faithful to your calling.
So grab a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy, and let me tell you about her story.
Silhouette:
Evangeline French, born in 1869, was no coward and courted
death many a time while she was growing up. She was definitely not of a genteel nature and did nothing
half-way. At one point she exclaimed,
“If I could take upon myself the world’s misery, I would - and jump into the
sea with it.” Her sister quietly
responded, “Eva, there is no need to do that. It was done long ago, on the cross.” Subdued by this thought a few weeks later she trusted Christ as her
Saviour. There was an immediate change
in her life, and she turned her passion and energy to the mission field. She applied to the China Inland Mission and
Hudson Taylor accepted personal responsibility for her suggesting she go to
North China. In 1893, at the age of 24,
she arrived in Shansi 7 years before the Boxer Rebellion.
Francesca, born in 1871, was Eva’s younger sister by two
years, and they were as different as night and day. Francesca was amiable and loved music and the
arts. She was well read and adept at the
art of persuasion. After an older sister
married and their father passed away, she took upon herself the care of their
mother. When her mother passed away, as
well, Eva and Mildred asked her to join them. “A threefold cord which could not easily be broken,” was their motto and
they eventually became known as the Laughing Trio.
They returned to the field in 1908 to the school that Eva and
Mildred had set up in Hwochow which had around 200 students. For the next decade or so they went about
setting up schools, churches, a rehabilitation center for opium addicts, and a mission
that helped Moslem women. They trained “pioneer
bands” which were groups of Chinese Christians who would take the Gospel into
unreached territories and taught many people the Chinese phonetic script so
that they could read the Bible for themselves.
By June of 1923, they felt it was time to hand the work over to the Chinese
Christians. They knew God was calling
them to live a nomadic life and travel the Silk Road. The slow 3-mile per hour speed of those that
traversed the Gobi Desert was perfect for “Gossiping the Gospel” along the way. In their first 8 months they travelled 1,500
miles until they reached the last city inside the Great Wall named the City of
the Prodigals for the many criminals that passed through it. They spent the winter
at a small mission station there where they helped a Chinese evangelist
establish a Bible School.
When summer
came they were ready for their great adventure. They had a little two-wheel ox cart filled with Bibles in a vast array of
languages provided by the Bible Societies in Shaghai and London. They also took along some bedding, a little
bit of food, and a few cooking pots. Their goal was to go where no other missionary had been before and visit every oasis and village outside the Great Wall
of China and “find the lost.” Everywhere
they went they proclaimed the name of Christ. They were undeterred as they followed trade routes, traced faint caravan
tracks, and searched out countless by-paths exploring the most hidden oases. They crisscrossed the Gobi Desert five times
and endured the hardships of windstorms, thefts, warlords, violent soldiers,
threats of death, thirst, pain, sleeplessness, hunger, stoning, and even seeing
the execution of friends. They continued
in this work until, during a time of political unrest, all foreigners were kicked
out.
In 1936 after 36 years of service together, the Trio
returned to England and worked with the British and Foreign Bible society for
the rest of their lives. The Trio was well known and admired, and between them they authored 20 books for adults and
children. Huge crowds would gather to hear them
speak of all the Lord had done during their time in the Gobi Desert.
Mildred died in 1952 at the age of 74. Eva
died in 1960 at the age of 90, and three weeks later, Francesca died at the age
of 89. They truly followed the Lord’s
will to the ends of the earth and back, and in the process reached thousands of
souls for the cause of Christ. Mildred’s statement, “God
provides the men and women needed for each generation” is challenging and a
call to search our hearts to see if we are one of the ones God wants to use to
go to the ends of the earth. They
are all true examples of ladies of whom it can be said, “She hath done what she
could”!
Her Story/My Story: Gwa-Gwa, which means “Little Lonely,” was taken from her home in the
Tibetan foothills when she was less than a month old. She was sold to a Chinese couple that lived a
great distance away and were not able to have children of their own. At first they were excited with their
purchase until they realized she was deaf and dumb, and then they no longer
wanted her. She suffered beatings from her adoptive mother, who was an opium
addict, and when a few years later a son was born, Gwa-Gwa was sent to the
streets to be a beggar. She was about
seven years old on that fateful day that she came knocking on the Trio’s door
for the first time. Dressed in filthy rags and covered in bites from the
vicious street dogs, she was a poor sight indeed, but the Trio invited her in
and gave her some soup. Each time they
left for a trip, Gwa-Gwa would follow their ox cart for as long as she could
and then wait longingly for their return. The missionaries left instructions with
their caretaker that, while they were away, she was to be given soup each time
she came to the courtyard.
Eventually the Trio asked Gwa-Gwa’s mother if they could
purchase her for ten shillings. They
knew it would be challenging, to say the least, and definitely take more that
soup each day to provide for this little one, but when they looked at her they
saw her through Christ’s eyes. They knew
that, whether or not anyone else thought so, she was precious. They renamed her
Ai-Lien which means “Love Bond.” They loved her and she loved her three
“mamas.” Years later she commented that she experienced kindness for the first time in her life on that day when the
Trio invited her into their home for some soup.
In her own words, “It was the first time someone said ‘Come’ and not
‘Go!’”
Daily the Lord provides us with opportunities to learn
important life truths. I learned a truth
one wintry day years ago at the hand of a child. Let me preface this story with two things: Missionaries with children seem to receive
packages several times a year. As a single lady, not so much. The gifts tend to be monetary. To be perfectly honest, I know it makes way
more sense to send a monetary gift rather than a package where the
shipping will cost more than the contents itself, but the kid in me still loves
it when one is delivered to the house. The second thing is that I love opening my home to the children of the
missionaries I work with and the children that I minister to. I have toy boxes,
a rocking horse, coloring/painting supplies, etc. that they love to play with. I want
it to be a fun, safe place where they enjoy spending time. I also love
displaying special treasures and decorations in my home. Since I do not want to have to put them up each time the children come over, I decided long ago to teach them
what they were allowed to play with and what was “precious” and, therefore,
valuable and not to be touched. It only took a couple of times of saying,
“Don’t play with that. That’s Miss Shari’s precious thing. Play with this
instead” for them to know what they could and could not play with.
One day, a fellow
missionary, her children, and I arrived back at my home after an outing. To my great surprise and delight I had a
package on my porch for the first time in ages! I was so excited, as were the children. We all jumped out of the van, grabbed the package, and I proceeded to
open it as soon as we were in the door. With eager eyes the children waited to see what contents the box from a church in the States held. There were a few bars of soap, some plain tea bags, a couple packs of
pencils, and an angel doll. The doll’s
halo was tangled in its black hair that looked worn from being played with, and the dress
made from white yarn was now a dingy gray and stained in several places with
spaghetti sauce. I took one look at the
doll and then at my friend in hopes that my disappointment didn’t show. I thought, “Well, at least the children can
play with it.” I handed it to the girls
and said, “Here you go, girls.” Penny,
who was five or six at the time, took it from my hands and with big questioning
eyes looked at me and said, “How come you don’t think it’s precious?” Out of the mouth of babes. I felt smitten in my heart for discarding a gift in such
a manner. Someone had taken the time and
paid the postage to send me this doll, and I took one look at, decided it
wasn’t precious or even wanted, and promptly discarded it.
Study: God’s Precious "Packages"
How many times do we quickly discard something, some
situation, some trial, or someone because we don’t feel they are "precious"? How many times do I look at the “gifts” or
the “packages” God sends my way and with an ungrateful heart discard them as
useless or of no value? The Bible says
in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning.”
That day Penny taught me that all gifts are precious. She also taught me that kids see facts not
flaws.
What Penny saw – Fact: A beautiful angel doll that is so
“precious” I’ll never be able to touch it.
What I saw – Flaw: A used toy that was of little worth or value.
Which view was true? They were both true for each of us, but that isn’t the point. Which view is better? Penny’s, of course. Sure the doll was slightly “loved” already,
but that didn’t hinder Penny from having fun playing with it.
I went on to ask myself these questions:
Which view shows a more gracious spirit?
Which view leads to a happier more content life?
Which view shows the Lord you trust Him and what He has for
you today?
Sometimes the Lord brings “packages” into our lives that
don’t meet our high expectations, and sometimes it can be downright
disappointing if we are not careful to view them correctly. I have known many
people who have weathered the storm of a difficult situation to come out the
other side and actually thank the Lord for the trial. Beforehand they never could have imagined
that anything good could come out of it, but now as they see more clearly, they
can see the value in it. Like Joseph,
they can say, “…but God meant it unto good…”
The lady who sees facts not flaws and loves the “package”
for all the potential it holds is the lady whom God can entrust with His most
“precious packages.” Life is made up and
defined by what view we allow our eyes to see through. Every day I have a choice to look at life’s
packages through eyes that see only flaws or through eyes like Penny’s that see
only potential. Proverbs 17:8 “A
gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: whithersoever it
turneth, it prospereth.”
My challenge to myself that day and to you as you read this is
that when you go to open the next “package” that God sends your way, look at it
through Penny’s eyes and know that no matter what it is, it is a precious gift
and that God means it for your good.
______________________________________________
*Disclaimer:
I have chosen to highlight the life of these ladies because of what they have accomplished for the Lord not because I agree with their doctrinal beliefs. As with all study of man, our focus should be on the character traits they bestowed in their lives that allowed the Lord to use them, how the Lord used them, the methods of ministry they incorporated that allowed them to be effective, etc. We do not study man to get our doctrine. Our doctrinal beliefs should only come from the Bible. To that end you may find you don’t agree with the doctrine of a particular person that I write about, but I believe there is still much wisdom we can gain from studying their lives.
_______________________________________
* The names in the "My Story" section have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. :)
____________________________________
Resources & Book List:
4 comments:
Loved this! Thanks for posting!
Another wonderful post! And, new missionaries to me! I loved the title "The Laughing Trio." What a blessing! I remember years ago that the neighbors knew a couple in our church (Spain) as the "Happy Couple." What a blessing and testimony! I also really enjoyed your application about receiving gifts. A blessing!
So so great! Thank you for sharing and for bringing out such a beautiful truth too!
Thanks ladies! I'm glad you enjoyed it!! It is always a blessing to get feedback so you can know if what you're labouring on is worth it.
Post a Comment