18. “There Is No Gloom in Our Hearts”
Chapter 18
“There Is No Gloom
in Our Hearts”
At the time of Father Wood’s death, Belle did not know it, but she herself was ill with breast cancer. She first noticed signs of the cancer in 1953, but a doctor did not confirm the diagnosis until October 1954. Belle took a deep breath when she heard the news. At fifty-three years of age, she had one last journey to take with God, and this one was going to be her toughest yet.
An excellent surgeon was located in Chiang-mai. He performed surgery on Belle, after which she returned to the United States for radiation treatment. Belle urged John to stay on in Thailand and continue his work while they waited to learn whether the radiation treatment would help Belle, or whether he needed to fly home to be by her side.
The radiation treatment was carried out at a hospital in Philadelphia. It was successful to a point, but the doctors told Belle that her cancer would eventually spread throughout her body and kill her. No one, though, could predict how long this might take.
As soon as Belle was feeling strong enough, she moved back into her second-floor apartment in Wheaton, Illinois. Danny, who was now eleven years old, joined her there and started attending a nearby school. Kathryn, who had completed her degree at Multnomah School of the Bible, also came to stay with her.
As always, Belle looked for ways to serve the Lisu people, and she decided that more books should be written about them. She got out her collection of prayer letters, her journal, and her typewriter and set to work. The words flowed, and soon Belle had composed Ascent to the Tribes, about OMF’s work in northern Thailand; Green Leaf in Drought, the story of the last two missionaries out of China; and By Searching and In the Arena, collections of stories from her own life.
Belle also continued to write prayer letters that were widely distributed. It was hard for her to tell those who read the prayer letters that she had cancer, but she knew that she had to. In one of the letters she wrote, “John and I are anxious that this news should not cast a gloom over you. There is no gloom in our hearts; there is no gloom in His heart as He watches over me—why should there be in yours? Look up for His direction in praying for me; that is all.”
In February 1955, Kathryn Kuhn was accepted to be a missionary with OMF. Belle braced herself when she heard the news that Kathryn had been posted to northern Thailand. She knew that if she asked her daughter to postpone setting out for Thailand, she would. But then Belle thought back to her own mother and how she had tried to stop her from following God’s call to the mission field. No, Belle told herself. Even if I am dying, I will not stand in God’s way. My daughter has been called to serve, and I must let her go.
Yet there were tears as the time for Kathryn’s departure approached, tears of sadness because Belle knew that she would never see her daughter on earth again, and tears of joy because her daughter was continuing the call to preach to the Lisu and other needy tribal people.
Once Kathryn got to Thailand, letters passed between mother and daughter. Belle was delighted when she learned that her daughter had become engaged to fellow missionary Don Rulison. Belle knew the young man well and was confident that he would make a wonderful husband for Kathryn and a good father one day.
In July 1955, OMF sent John home from Thailand to be with Belle. Soon after John arrived in Wheaton, a letter came from Oak Flat. It was from Lucius, who reported, “All the evangelists are safe and the RSBS began with nearly eighty students.” He went on to say that he visited over thirty villages a year, where he counted a total of 270 Christian families. He also said that since the Communists had taken over China, there had been over seven hundred Lisu baptisms.
Belle’s heart soared at the news, and for a moment she felt like she was back in Lisuland. She could see herself scurrying along steep, narrow mountain trails, going from village to village to share the gospel with those Lisu who had never heard it before, and teaching and discipling those who were Christians. She had endured many hardships in the course of doing this, but to read Lucius’s letter made it all worthwhile. The work she and John had done was paying off. Despite now being under the control of the Communists, who despised Christianity and persecuted Christians, the Lisu church was flourishing.
Over the next year Belle spent more and more time in bed. She had many visitors and received letters from people who had read her books and been inspired by them, all of which encouraged Belle. Inscribed on a card on her nightstand was a verse, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9–10).”
On March 20, 1957, the end came for Isobel Kuhn. At the age of fifty-five, Belle died quietly with John at her side.
Two days later, Belle’s funeral service was held at College Church of Christ in Wheaton, Illinois, and she was buried in the city.
Among Belle’s letters and notes that were donated to the archives at Wheaton College was the poem Belle’s grandmother had written in her autograph book so many years before:
A noble life is not a blaze
Of sudden glory won.
But just an adding up of days
In which good work is done.
When she had read those words as a teenager, Belle could think of nothing duller than adding up days of good work. But as it turned out, her life had not been dull. It had added up to a life overflowing with adventure and challenges.