Jack Voelkel
Gladys Aylward (part 1)
1902-1970
The Small Woman with a Big Heart, and Great Faith
The half-starved Chinese prisoners in Yangcheng were rioting. In the center was a man with a large bloody kitchen meat cleaver. All were shouting. Several men had already collapsed on the ground, mortally wounded. The warden called to A-Weh-Deh, “Go in and stop them!”
The woman known to foreigners by her English name, Gladys Aylward, stood trembling at the entrance. “Why me?” she gasped. The warden challenged, “You tell us your God is all powerful. Is He or is He not?”
“He is,” she declared, seeking to bolster her courage, as she stepped into the sandy courtyard. “But only through the help of Jesus will I prevail, for the Gospel of God in our Bible states, ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.’”
One pair of eyes after another eyed the “Foreign Devil.” Hardly imposing, a whisper thin woman about thirty years of age, standing 4’10” tall, Gladys spoke to the man with the cleaver with unexpected authority, “Give me the cleaver,” she commanded. Astonishingly, he did. Then to the prisoners, “Now form yourselves into ranks and tell me what this is all about.”
The Call
Gladys May Aylward was born on a cold February day in 1902 in London. Her family were hardworking, honest people, and faithful in their attendance at the Anglican church. Gladys never forgot the day when in Sunday School the clergyman spoke of missionaries who worked far off in China. She left the church in a daze, her mind whirling. From then on she dreamed one day of serving the Lord there, even though she had to quit school to go to work at 14 and had no money.
Twelve years passed but the call remained steady in her heart. She applied to the China Inland Mission, but was turned down. “You really don’t have the capacity to learn a difficult language like Chinese,” the principal told her as kindly he could, “and we prefer candidates who are younger and more able to adapt.”
While working as a parlor maid for Sir Francis Younghusband, a famous military officer who had served in the Far East, she discovered that he had an impressive library, from which she borrowed liberally. Then one day she learned of Mrs. Jennie Lawson, an elderly widow working as a missionary in China, who had written, asking for someone to go and help her. Gladys saw this invitation as her opportunity. She wrote Mrs. Lawson, and started putting a down payment on a railway ticket to the coast of China which, though more dangerous, was half the price of the sea route. After working extra hours and week-ends, virtually spending nothing on herself, and then selling her hope chest, she had enough for the passage by year’s end.
“Bundled up in an orange frock worn over a coat, Gladys was a curious looking traveler, resembling a gypsy more than a missionary” (Tucker p. 250).
On October the 15th, 1932, Gladys set off on the long train journey to the land of her calling. She knew that she had no money to buy food on the way, so packed her suitcase with corned beef, baked beans, fish, crackers, hard-boiled eggs and other items. She experienced mixed emotions on the journey. She felt very much alone, but had an abiding peace that she was doing the will of God. She arrived in China on the 8th of November, 1932 (Preacher’s Blog).
An overland trip of a month took her to Yancheng, where she met the widowed Scottish independent missionary then in her seventies.
The Inn
Mrs. Lawson’s missionary strategy was to establish The Inn of the Eight Happinesses. Yangchen was an overnight stop for mule caravans that carried coal, raw cotton, pots and iron goods on six-week or three-month journeys. Lawson and Gladys provided forage for the mules, a nourishing supper, and then would entertain the men with Bible stories as a Christian witness.
As time when on, Gladys became fluent in Chinese and learned to work with Lawson who was in increasing stages of dementia. She died, a short time after Gladys’ arrival, thus leaving her to manage the inn only with the help of an older Chinese helper. One day she was visited by the local Mandarin (magistrate), a man held in the highest honor and even fear by the local citizens. He asked that she assist him by becoming his “foot inspector,” making sure that the new laws against the ancient custom of female foot binding were being complied with. As a result, A-Weh-Deh (“the virtuous one”) became increasingly known and respect by the citizenry not only of Yancheng, but also of the villages in the whole territory.
Wherever she went, she not only examined feet, but also spoke of the Lord Jesus and the salvation He offered to all who believed. “After 2,000 years, the Gospel had finally come to these mountain villages, and it was she, a tiny woman from a modest house on 67 Cheddington Road, delivering it in a sing-songy mountain dialect of Chinese” (Wellman p. 103). Only two years before she had been a parlor maid in an English manor. Over the years, little groups of believers in each of these villages began meeting together to worship the Lord—fruit of her ministry.
In was during this time that the Prison Riot occurred. Noting the miserable condition of the prisoners, the basic cause of the riot, she insisted that the warden allow the men to work to provide better clothing for themselves. She was able to secure two looms for them to make cloth for clothes and to sell, plus a mill for grinding grain. She encouraged hygiene and visited often to speak of Jesus and to encourage them. One man who responded was a leader named Feng.
One day she saw a poor woman sitting by a wall with a small, very dirty child. “Is that your child?” Gladys asked her. “It looks very sick.” “What is that to you?” the woman replied with hostility. “Do you want to buy her or not?” Shocked at the idea of selling a human being, Gladys asked the price. All she had was nine pence. The woman agreed, probably sure that the infant would die anyhow. Though Gladys gave her the official name of Mei-en (“Beautiful Grace”) she always called her Ninepence. This was the first child she adopted. Soon she had more, many more, especially as the country erupted into war.
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