Beautiful Feet Reach The Canyon 21
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
descendingly, "it's our clothes. We wear this navy blue, but those Flowery Lisu! You should see what they wear"—in a tone of contemptuous disgust—''all red and green and white checks, with cowrie shells to trim the borders of their aprons, and red, blue, and white leggings, and.
A "How do you know, Grannie?"? demands Miss Inquisitive.
"Where did you see them?"
"When'l eloped with A-fu-me-pa—that time we ran off to Burma until the old folks' wrath was appeased. The Lisu across the mountains from here still dress like that. But to go back to this white man—haven't you girls heard the old tradition that a White Lisu is going to arise some day and be our king? If he has Lisu with him, maybe this is——"
At this point a twelve-year-old boy who has stalked up to the group broke into the gossip and exclaimed proudly, "I've seen him!"
"Oh, have you? What's he like?"' eagerly from the now swelling crowds of timid yet enthralled females.
"He has a nose this high,"' says young Show-off, exaggerating, boy fashion, and carving a-nose for himself out of the air, that made the girls scream.
"Oh, how awful. That's a demon, sure! They have noses like beaks; they're part bird, some of them,"' and thus the conversation swayed back and forth, palpitating with excitement and fear.
The women and children were terrified and would not go near him. The men and some boys of about twelve were bolder and even gathered to converse. They were afraid of his white skin, blue eyes and the high nose we foreigners all have. He stayed only one night and never came again, but the old people still talk of it.
The "Munition of Rocks" was first entered for Christ by James Outram Fraser, whose life is told in the book Behind the Ranges.1 But the strangeness of his white-man appearance so monopolized interest that no one remembers his message. J. O.
Fraser was not slow to learn a lesson. This is one of the reasons 1 Behind the Ranges: Fraser of Lisuland, by Mrs. Howard Taylor,
China Inland Mission.
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why he laid down the rule that Lisu heathen should be evangelized by Lisu Christians, the white man staying in the background to inspire forward movement, to pray, and to teach the churches when established.
Five years passed, and Fraser with his colleagues were still busy establishing the Flowery Lisu church and caring for a new movement southward. The Munition of Rocks is to the north of their original work, and continued in its darkness, but a yearning God once more brought them to the pioneer missionary's attention. In 1919 Fraser wrote, "Last market day I met some Lisu from the Upper Salween. They were carrying tremendously heavy loads of betel-nut to sell. "Come up to our village and teach us,' one of them said—his village is about sixteen days' journey away. "We will give you food—rice and pork—as much as ever you want.' Though he meant it sincerely, he was too busy to do more than just invite me. That district must be evangelized, but I want to find suitable natives to go first."
Such were not easy to find. There were many dear Christians capable of being sent, but it was a tremendous thing to ask of any. The Upper Salween was at that time almost unknown; it was fourteen or more days' journey away from the mother church. It was peopled by Black Lisu, which meant difference in dialect, food, and customs. The postal system in the canyon is so negligible (only one post office in a six-day stretch, and that post office received mail only one in ten days) as to reckon none at all in Lisu eyes. There was no medical aid to be had anywhere, and those who had accompanied Mr. Fraser on his exploration trip, in addition to calling it "ta wild, inhospitable region," must have added stories of its famous fevers. A scholar's recent book declares it ""The most malarial spot in the world", and quotes this U.S. Army account of it: "'Apparently well men, trudging along the mountain passes, would suddenly flush, complain of the fire in their heads, then die." The author's own trip to the Salween he calls "flirting with death," and he would have entered with pack mules of medicine, comforts, and protectives. Lisu evangelists take only what they can carry on their own backs. And with the easier southern field just opened up to the gospel and calling for volunteer preachers, it is not surprising
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
that by 1922 (when Mr. Fraser had to go home on furlough, never again, as unexpected events proved, to be free to give all his time just to Lisu work) the Munition of Rocks was still
Satan's unchallenged stronghold.
Yes, God had written their faces on a loving faithful heart which never forgot "'the people waiting, accessible, and in desperate need," which his trip of 1914 had revealed to Mr.
Fraser. Inf leaving for the homelands, he must have referred this burden to Carl Gowman, who, with Mr. and Mrs. Allyn Cooke, were his successors in the work. The Cookes were vitally linked up with the evangelistic spread southward, and so we find Carl
Gowman taking up the burden of the Upper Salween thousands, with a valiance of faith and passion of vision that would not be defeated.
How long he tried to get an opening, I do not know; but about 1927 Mr. Gowman was writing to the Lisu church,
"We need preachers for the Upper Salween!'' One young heart felt that call. He who had been the missionary's goatherd, small in stature, badly disfigured with pockmarks; he who had been the most stupid student in the class learning Chinese—this one wrote to Mr. Gowman and offered. "I know that originally Iam a Black Lisu, and that my forefathers came down the canyon from up there, and God has given me a sign that He wants me to go for Him."
I wonder how Carl Gowman felt, when, in mind's eye, he saw his first candidate for the Munition of Rocks! Had I been there, I know I would have been disappointed. I would have been hoping for a big fellow, "'a man of presence," a walking photograph of Great Heart! It is a land of giants—giant peaks, giant winds, giant disease, giant spiritual forces. But, "God looketh not on the outward appearance,' and Mr. Gowman accepted the goatherd. He accepted that first one but he wisely waited for the Christmas festival to present the challenge.
A day or so before the birthday of Christ, every Christian Lisu village is making its preparations to send a contingent, young and old, everyone who can go, to the Christmas celebration. The poorer women are washing their clothes in the approved Lisu manner, treading them with bare feet under the
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flow of some nearby stream. But if at all possible, new garments are prepared, so the needles too are flying busily. Then each person must bring a certain amount of grain, salt and pork for the feast, so the foot mills are busy pounding out the corn, and the early morning hears many a pig give its final squeal, as abundance of pork is what makes a Lisu meal into a feast!
Then, early on the appointed day, all over the mountains, a delegation from each village set out. Merry holiday laughter and teasing ring out as they file out along the trails, all converging gradually toward the missionary's home of Stockade Hill.
Before they have come in sight of the village, Bang! Bang! goes a gun over their heads, and the long file all turn to nod and smile at one another, knowing that the lookout party has spied them, and that the gun's reverberations are to wake up the welcoming. committee! So up the hill they toil (or down the mountains, for at Stockade Hill many guests would be descending from the top of the mountain range) and as soon as the village slope is sighted, they come upon a floral arch with smiling faces peeking at them from underneath. Here they must halt while the other side tunes up.
"One-three-five (doh-me-soh)," sings out the leader of the reception committee, "Let it come!'' And voices in four parts rise up from behind the flowers.
Christmas guests are at the door!
Let them in.
It is duty to receive them, Let them in.
That of Jesus we may think, His Great Day that we may keep; Praise to God, we come to greet.
Let them in!
Then through the arch they come, shaking hands with each of the long line of singers, after which they are free to check their food supplies and seek out a place to sleep. Singing groups and sports fill in the time until the big evening service.
It was at one of these evening meetings that Carl Gowman gave out his challenge. Jesus' birthday! A chance to give to Him
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
who gave us so much. On winter days, Lisu farmers are free, and the Lord's harvest is waiting to be reaped. "Over thirty men are needed to volunteer for evangelistic work.'' Mr. Gowman said, "'and of these, four men are wanted to go for Christ to the Upper Salween! One of those four has already offered; three more are needed to go with him!"
After that service, around the different home-fires, there was much discussion of that challenge.
"Td like to go to the Upper Salween,"' says one fine-looking young fellow of about twenty-one years of age, hands clasped around his legs, chin on knees, eyes brooding into the flames.
"Go on with you!" anxiously thrusts in his mother. "That's no job for a married man! And you've a child, besides a wife.
Volunteer, if you must, for the south country! Mr. and Mrs.
Cooke are there; they'd look after you, give you medicine if you get sick, send your letters on to us. Pastor needs more men for the south than he does for the north—he said he wanted some thirty!''
"That's because he had no hope of getting so many for the north," comes the quiet answer. "He'll get thirty for the south— that's not very hard. But he may not get four for the north, that's why I'd like to go there. Thousands of Lisu are there," he said. And again the dark eyes brooded into the fire with a gleam in them that set his mother crying.
"'A-eh! A-eh! He's going to volunteer for the Upper Salween and I'll never see him again. He'll die there of those awful fevers! A-eh. We'll never hear what's happened to him, for there's no mail up there. A-eh."'
"Be quiet!' orders her husband. "Son, be careful what you do. Don't throw your life away. Remember you don't know the customs of the Black Lisu. They might not receive the gospel like we did. And if what your mother says is true——"
"It's not all true. Pastor Payne at the city of Paoshan has promised to keep an eye on us, and forward mail and supplies to us; and besides, there can be no harvest for Christ in those parts until someone takes a risk. Job, the goatherd, is going; he needs a partner. I'm going to volunteer." Then started the wails of the women and expostulations of relatives. Job told me,
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
years afterwards, that not one of the four found it easy to say yes. The above arguments and more were anxiously poured upon them. But on the last night when Carl Gowman gave the final call, three more men stood up one by one: Andrew, Wa-si, and twenty-one year old La~ma-wu. I am sure the eyes of the Christian men shone with pride as they looked up into those four determined young faces, and I am sure their mothers swayed back and forth on the benches, weeping. Never had four Lisu evangelists faced such an unknown, distant and bleak parish. "You may get sick and die!' cried more than one anxious-faced relative, and not without ground for their fears, for of the four that went, only three returned. But more of that anon.
Our next picture of the little band with beautiful feet is after seven days' travel over strange country into Chinaland. One day they appeared, dusty and bewildered, in the courtyard of Mr. and Mrs. Talmadge Payne, who were living at that time in the Chinese city of Paoshan. The thrill of their adventure would once more be brought back to them in the joyous welcome the missionaries accorded them. Seven days of tramping through unfamiliar and indifferent country can take the glow off any enthusiasm. You don't realize how long is the road from home to your destination until you go over it foot by foot, money diminishing each day. I wonder if their faces, as they came in the courtyard that day, were not a little woebegone and anxious.
One thing I am sure of—they did not look like "heroes of the faith" about to push into one of Satan's most impregnable strongholds. Maybe they looked more like children who have wandered away from home, dazed and wistful, yet determined not to cry. Having seen other such Lisu missionary parties arriving in Chinaland, I know they appeared poverty-stricken and ill-at-ease, suddenly conscious of bare feet and mountain manners. I heard one such boy say something like this, "When
I saw the fine houses of the Chinese and how they live, I felt myself to be like a monkey just dropped down from the treetops."
But those dear, devoted missionaries saw them as they were in the spirit—-God's beautiful feet, sent to carry the news of salva-
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
tion to His lost ones, and they welcomed them as such. And I would like to say here (for these days some are emphasizing the use of national workers to a degree that outrules the white missionary) these four would never have accomplished their mission, if it had not been for the earnest, loving backing of Mr. and Mrs.
Talmadge Payne. As you will hear soon, again and yet again, the little band fell back fainting in spirit, to be caught up in the strong arms of Mr. and Mrs. Payne's faith and almost thrust into the canyon afresh.
Their second encouragement (the first would be a season of sweet fellowship at Jesus' feet) was to hear Mr. Payne say,
"I have supplies for you. From now on, I am your base of supplies. When you need money just come to me." A few dollars to buy some rice for present need clinking merrily in their pockets, the four start out for the town, and the excitement of a Chinese market. In their lonely hillside hamlets was nothing comparable to this rendezvous from the point of wares, numbers of people, or noise. It is like a mountaineer walking down Fifth
Avenue or Piccadilly with the roar of a big city around him.
Everything glitters and looks wonderful; the things you cannot afford to buy are as much fun to look at as the choosing of a bit of pork for dinner.
And then the people! To some Lisu the throngs of human beings were more fascinating than the tables of merchandise.
Mostly Chinese farmers attended Paoshan Market, but frequently Lisu from the Munition of Rocks and even Tibetans brightened the spectacle with their varied costumes. On one such occasion, the four, hearing a Lisu sentence behind them, turned around to see a band of Black Lisu closely grouped together and talking to one another. Excitedly La-ma-wu and his friends accosted them and the Chinese farmers turned to stare at this large circle, blocking the traffic and babbling in a strange tongue—but only for a moment. "Earth people!' they say contemptuously, lose interest and press on.
"Where are you staying? Can you understand us? We're Flowery Lisu from the Burma border. We want to come to your parts. We'd like to talk to you—where are you staying?"
"Oh," with a wild boisterous laugh, "where do Lisu stay
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
when they come to town? You'll find us out on the city wall to-night after the stars appear."
The writer remembers meeting just such a group at the very same market; and then that night, searching for them on the wall. Too poor to pay inn-fare, and children of the open always, there they were, cosily encircling a wood-fire; the flames leaping up brought their turbaned heads, beaded necklaces, and strong handsome faces into the light. Above their heads the stars shone brilliantly, and behind them in dark shadow, stretched out the almost unlit streets of the Chinese city. A Lisu campfire? La~mawu would be entirely at home, and pulling a loose stone over for a seat, the band of four would soon be lost in thrilling conversation.
"Yes, I can understand you, though your talk is funny," says one big fellow with a loud laugh, shifting his long knife to a more comfortable position at his side. ""We're Black Lisu, but we don't come from the Salween canyon, we come from the Mekong. Eh?-—"
. "Oh, the Mekong river runs parallel to the Salween—you can cross over to the Salween from our parts, one good long day's journey. But there are lots of Black
Lisu in the Mekong. Why not come back with us? We'd like to hear your story. We're going back to-morrow, I think. We brought coffin boards down to trade for blankets—see?" pulling a new scarlet one around his shoulders with evident satisfaction.
"Can't get such things up in the mountains."
They talked well on into the night. Lisu love to chat around the fire, and knowing no such thing as "hours," it is often very late before they retire. Going to bed is a simple thing to the Lisu traveller. He simply buries his fire for breakfast's use, curls up in his blanket and—he's asleep.
The four consulted Mr. Payne, for it was the Salween Lisu they had: been asked to evangelize (and for whom there had been years of prayer) but might not God want them to go to the Mekong first? Here were guides all ready to take them! So it was decided to go back with these Mekong Lisu.
Money for food along the way was supplied by Mr. Payne, but Lisuland is different from Chinaland. The magnificently beautiful mountain giants are cold and indifferent to the human
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
speck who tried to live along their sides, so the human specks, recognizing a common struggle for existence, are banded together in necessary loyalty. No Lisu of the Munition of Rocks, heathen or otherwise, charges a traveller for lodging or food.
Free hospitality is a point of honour among them, so money v3 food after they reached Lisuland had not been given to the our.
This' produced a difficult situation, for the Mekong Lisu turned out to have a different custom. Their guides were good to them in a way, but too full of thoughts of displaying their market spoils to the home folk to care about the message of the cross. When the party arrived, La-ma-wu and his companions were shown into the home of one of their guides. Almost immediately they sensed a different atmosphere. Their welcome was not very cordial. Their southern dialect was openly laughed at.
When at length the market chatter finally wore out and they were given a hearing, it was not a friendly one.
"It's a strange story; we've never heard it before. It wouldn't be convenient,' with a yawn, "for us to change our customs.
Why don't you try going over to the Salween canyon? Maybe they'd like to be Christians over there."
Clearly there was no response of faith and no interest was shown. Remember that there had been no special prayer preparation for this field. La-ma-wu would easily discern, moreover, that extended hospitality was not going to be given cheerfully; so one morning, with courteous "Thank you's" (which the Black Lisu just gaped and laughed at—it not being the custom to say thank you up there), the little band started off into the unknown—down, down the mountainside until, a little knoll affording a resting place, they stopped for a word of prayer and to encourage each other.
"Should we try going to the Salween?"' questioned Andrew.
"T hear there are no villages anywhere the whole journey across—it would be easy to get lost,"' said Wa-si.
"And we know the way back now, from here, but we would have no notion of the way out of the Salween canyon," offered
La-ma-wu.
"T think so too," put in Job. "Look, you can see Lisu villages
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
all over these mountains. We've tried only one village in this canyon so far. Let's go on, I say. Folks are praying for us, don't forget."
"Don't know about you fellows," piped up La~ma-wu, "But I'm still hungry. Eh-eh, I wish we could buy some rice. I just can't eat enough of this corn to get filled. But can't the Black
Lisu stow it away, though! I counted nine bowls. one of those chaps ate this morning. By the time I'd got four down I felt stuffed to the eyebrows—yet I didn't feel satisfied."'
"Me too," said Andrew. "I've felt hungry ever since I've been here. They didn't serve us rice once, not once. I do hope some of those other places have rice!"'
But no. In those northern reaches, corn is the staple diet.
All the four were accustomed to eating rice, just like the Chinese, and it takes a considerable period to get adjusted, so they were hungry all the time, Job told me. Heartache was added to hunger pangs. Village after village did they climb to, only to be laughed at, argued with, and sometimes shown the door.
"We'd drop in at the first house of the village," they related later, "'and not only the gospel was refused, but lodging and food also. "Try the house above,' they'd say. We'd climb up there, only to be pointed to the house above that. Sometimes we'd go through the whole village, and arriving at the highest house, have them point us back to the bottom house which had already shown us the door. It was heart-sickening.
"Once we missed the road, and for a dayand ahalf had nothing at all to eat. I'll tell you, that was tough," and there was a silent pause, as memory brought back the horrors and spiritual testings of that experience. "You'll never come back alive——" that wail of heart-anxious loved ones must have recurred often during those thirty-six hours without food, lost on the strange, wild, inhospitable mountains. When at length a village and a road were sighted, it is no wonder that the courage of one of the four faltered.
"I've had enough," said Andrew. "I'm going home. It's no use. These folk up here don't want the gospel. We don't know the country nor the trails and—I think we'd better wait until someone who knows more about the place can come with us.
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
A white man could hire guides. Mr. Fraser didn't get lost. I think we're wasting our days to stay on."
"Go back with not a single soul won for Christ? That's not satisfying to me. And we've never even been to the place we started out for—the Salween Canyon!"
The four argued back and forth. Lonely, heart-sick, discouraged and hungry, they finally decided to go back to the missionary at least' He stood to them for fellowship, comfort, counsel and—not one would dare to mention it, but each would think of it !—a square meal of rice! But all the way back to Paoshan the hearts of three of them were unhappy. Volunteers for the Upper
Salween! They could hear Mr. Gowman's stirring call, could see the faces of their fellows glow with joy and pride as they four stood up to volunteer; and now—sneaking back empty. Thank
God, there was a white missionary near to cast strong loving arms of courage and faith around them at that time! And like the true "Big Brother," as they called him, he went a second mile.
"Tl take you into the Upper Salween myself," he said earnestly. "Not even Andrew is going back home now, not until you ve been where you were called!'
That is how, after a few days of rest and refreshment, the beautiful feet started out again, this time on a new road in every sense. The Lisu tribes people are simple and childlike in disposition. Through God-given wisdom, Mr. Fraser established an indigenous church—self-supporting, self-governing and selfpropagating; but all the Lisu I have ever known, never work so happily as when there is a white "Big Brother" somewhere near for fellowship and counsel. I'm sure Mr. Payne's escorting them into the canyon played no small part in the harvest which ensued. Like a mother's hand smoothing the brow of a child in feverish sleep, it just did something to the four.
Through twisting ravine and over mountain-top the beautiful feet of God's messengers came nearer and nearer the Munition of Rocks. Late afternoon of the fourth day as they came on to a little mountain promontory, the panorama of the Salween canyon lay before them. Giant twisted convulsions of rock lie, contortion upon contortion, in every shape and form as far as
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eye can see; with a green ribbon of "the river-without-abottom"' crawling in and out at their feet. Right before them the mountainside sloped in grassy sward to the river's brink, and across the river on another velvet slope lay the little fortified hamlet called Six Treasuries, glistening white against the green grass and trees.
Feudalism still reigned in the Munition of Rocks. The owner of one of those white castles told me he had purchased a whole mountain for six hundred Chinese dollars, and automatically all the Lisu on that mountain became his serfs. His personal servants (that is, those who "ate his rice" every day) numbered one hundred, and he showed us the huge pillars of his courtyard, each a whole tree trunk, felled from his own land by Lisu servitors. He also took us upstairs and showed us the fortifications of his castle. Brigands had attacked and destroyed the hamlet some years previously, and when he rebuilt he had gun-turrets made, and could now hold it against several hundred attackers, so he believed. He also showed us a roll-top desk, an organ and many other beautiful pieces of civilized, hand-carved furniture, made by the carpenters which he had brought all the way from Shanghai for that purpose.
Doubtless all this was shown to Mr. Payne also, for this feudal laird liked to entertain strangers, and was the only enterprising laird I ever met. And thus the gate to the Canyon was entered.
"Are there many Lisu in these parts?" received the answer, "Many? Thousands. Everywhere, both sides of the river!" So, using the laird's home as a base, the four were sent out. HorseGrass-Level was the place first visited. As Mr. Payne was with them, we may be sure there was much prayer made unitedly before they set forth, but even so the Lisu encountered were slow to accept the message. Hospitality, however, was generously offered, and some said they would believe "when the wine was all drunk up."" When the time came for Mr. Payne to return to his wife at Paoshan, he could sense the four were losing courage.
"Andrew, you go up the canyon a way. Try a few more places and I'll wait until you come back." Then, at what seemed the eleventh hour, God gave the increase. On a steep mountainside, in the little hamlet of Falling Timbers, fifteen families
BEAUTIFUL FEBT REACH THE CANYON
accepted Christ, and promised to throw out their demon altars.
One other family, where there was a young girl named Homay, nearer to the Chinese laird, had also promised to turn, so Andrew hastened back with his glad news and sent for the other three.
With what a thankful heart the white missionary and the four yellow-skinned ones gathered in that first little home (Homay's) to tear down the demon altar and proclaimed Christ as Saviour and Lord+.He had not failed their faith. He had not wasted their sacrifice. A great harvest was awaiting them, urged Mr. Payne, and they must be bold in faith and push on. But homesickness must have been written on the faces of the four, for Mr. Payne did a very wise and strategic thing.
"It's not time for all to go home now with victory just beginning. You stay here and cover as many villages as you can, and in one month I'll be back. I'll return myself, after a month, and we can then see what God has done, and again consult together."
Andrew, though, had reached the end of his endurance.
"If you're going back, Pastor, I'm going with you," he said; and no pleadings could shake him. But the other three were willing to stay. Stop, when the first fruit had just been gleaned? They would never be satisfied all their lives if they did that. No, it must be a month's more hardship, a month's more eating corn
(for corn is the staple food of the Salween too) and toiling up these mountainsides much more precipitous than in their home mountain country. Andrew would take word back of how difficult the task was, the mother church would pray, and they could send letters by Andrew, and—send for help! Maybe some other of the young fellows would come in and relieve them, now that a way in was cleared. Yes, hope shone a little brighter, and when Mr. Payne and Andrew said goodbye, the three watched them go with happier hearts.
Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire.
Let me not sink to be a clod, Make me thy fuel, Flame of God.
Amy Carmichael.
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Now up the canyon go the beautiful feet—not flying with winged sandals, but plodding painfully in the hot and weary dust. The new believers were not stable—that is, not all of them; but here and there an earnest young face gladdened their hearts— that girl Homay, for instance. And up past Homay's house, on a high promontory commanding a magnificent view of the canyon, was a village called Deer Pool, where the most promising group of all had already built a chapel. In fact, Mr. Payne said that he and his wife were going to move in and live for a while right at Deer Pool, which news created much joy and excitement.
Almost unnoticed among the worshippers on Sunday was a young girl of about fifteen, the Leah of the following pages.
And up the canyon by the main road (a trail too narrow for an automobile) the village of Pine Mountain impressed them as large and important. The harvest reaped there seemed large at first, though in reality it proved shallow. Nevertheless, Old Big, whose story is told in our last chapter, was one of the firstfruits of that village.
Higher up the same mountain to an altitude of some eight thousand feet is the village of Plum Tree Flat: you will hear of little Amos after a while; that is his village. So the work spread.
North of Pine Mountain the message was not received so easily at first, but across the river on the west bank of the Salween
Squirrel's Grave, Sandalwood Flat, and Village-of-the-Olives yielded fruit that was to remain. Gad, of whom you will read, was from Squirrel's Grave.
But as the three travelled up and down mountainsides they kept hearing of Luda Village and Shangpa, said to be six or seven days' journey up the head of the canyon. The Lisu up there were quite different in dialect. Another tribe, called N osu, was to be found there also. Eagerly Job laid before Mr. Payne the need to push farther on, to carry the Good News as far as human foot could take it.
By this time the Paynes were in residence at Deer Pool (a epee effort whose hardships and suffering were to tell on is dear wife, and was one reason they could not continue on in Lisu work), and Andrew's return to the mother church had produced the hoped-for results. Reinforcements arrived. As
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
soon as possible (for the work in Oak Flat district badly required teachers) Mr. Payne gave the longed-for approval, and suggested aus one of the new volunteers, Luke, should go northward with Job.
That trail up the canyon has been described by an experienced pioneer as "the hardest travel in China.'' Certainly that was true of it in the old heathen days. A considerable section of it we call "fhe Robber District," for obvious reasons, and those hold-up men kill to rob. But it was not only fear of evil men; those inner parts of the canyon afford a bare living and food was scarce. Often the boys were hungry and had to tighten their belts as they pushed on, but the passion of conquest was on them.
Then with a rush the intolerable craving Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call,
Oh, to save some! ...
You can imagine, then, their feelings as one day, five days north of Deer Pool, they came upon an old man on the road.
"Boys, are you travellers in these parts?'' he addressed them, eyeing their Flowery Lisu costumes and book bags.
"Yes, we are teachers, come to tell you of a life after death," replied Job. He said he always preached the resurrection everywhere he went.
"4-bo! Isn't that wonderful!'' exclaimed the old man, sitting down on the earth bank of the trail. "We'd heard rumours that teachers who could tell you of those things had come into the canyon, lower down! And I've been longing to hear; I have been on the point of sending my two sons to find you! A-egh! A-egh!
This is a wonderful day for me. You'll stay at my house to-night, of course! Come, let's go there now. You will be thirsty and hungry." So, talking excitedly, he led the way up a near trail to his village.
"T just knew my urge to come to these parts was not an idle one!" cried out Job ecstatically as they followed the old man.
And that night saw the beginning of a new harvest, that of the Luda District Church, numbering to-day some two thousand
Christians.
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
By 1932 missionaries of other missions had entered the canyon north of Luda; still farther beyond them, in later years, the Tibetan-Border Mission opened a station; so that the Munition of Rocks was at last invaded.
That stronghold of Satan, for so many centuries even unchallenged, has not "fallen" —oh, don't think that! Nor is the fight for it ended. A keen price of suffering and lives, has been paid.
Three white missionaries and one Lisu home missionary lie buried in the Luda district alone; and two Lisu home missionary graves keep solemn watch in the Oak Flat (Deer Pool) district.
Job and Luke were a month teaching the new converts when a call from Mr. Payne brought them back. On hearing the grand results they had witnessed, Mr. Payne suggested that Luke return, with La-ma-wu as companion, Job being needed elsewhere.
It was many long months now since Job and La-ma-wu had left home, but both were still pressing the battle to the gates.
Several months in the Luda district brought in more families won to Christ; then the two young evangelists started back for Deer Pool, La~-ma-wu hoping to go all the way home to his little family in Stockade Hill.
As they approached Oak Flat, La-ma-wu said he was not feeling well. But Deer Pool was only a day away, and then they would see their beloved white missionaries and get some medicine. So the two lads pressed on. It is a long and stiff climb, up from the Oak Flat ravine; over two thousand feet they had to ascend. Unknown to them, the virulent fever of the Salween had laid its death fingers on dear young La-ma-wu, for, as they reached the high level where the trail crosses that mountain, with the village of Deer Pool almost in view, La-ma-wu fell, like a shock of corn under the sickle.
He was only twenty-three years old: and what bitter grief to the comrade who had to bury him there by the roadside, away from wife, child, and even human habitation, the wild mountain trees and grasses waving over him while the Salween River moaned nearly eight thousand feet below.
It was Easter, 1938, before I learned the above story. My first Easter in Lisuland, it was, and we wanted to teach the growing church the importance and wonder of that celebration.
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
"Has the church no dead around here?" I asked Job, who happened to be back in the canyon, ministering again. It was then Job told me about La-ma-wu. My heart was stirred within me.
"Has there never been any monument put up there, Job?"
I asked earnestly.
"Lisu don't use monuments, Ma-Ma," he replied, "But there isn't even"a proper grave. It is sunken into the mountainside and in a few more years even I won't be able to find it. Guess
I'm the only one around who knows where it is. I've thought more than once, as I passed, that we ought to do something, but we're all so busy ——"
"No, not too busy to reclaim the resting place of God's corn of wheat, who gave his young life that the gospel might enter the canyon! The Lisu church ought never to forget La-ma-wu!
And it will be grand and fitting that their first Easter service should be held at his grave."'
And so it was planned. Easter morning found us in the village of Border Mountain, which is the nearest Christian village to La-ma-wu's grave. Four o'clock in the morning found Job, his wife Rhoda, Dorcas (a Nosu girl) and I, slipping out through the shadows of the sleeping village to stand on a rock there, and awaken them all with singing Christ the Lord is Risen To-day!
At first all was cold and dark, the surrounding mountain peaks dim and black against the breaking dawn of the sky. But as we sang on, the light came over an eastern ridge and lit up deep ravine, towering rock, shaggy pine trees and flimsy Lisu shanties.
Just so had our dear Corn of Wheat preached the resurrection message among the cold darkness of heathenism; just so had he seen light begin to break through, thrusting back the shadow of heathendom and bringing into clear view souls here and there who were destined to yield fully to its warm life-giving glow, and who were to carry on his work after he fell.
As we went on to sing I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, dim forms, hastily buttoning on jackets, stole out from the various sleeping huts and joined us. It was a great thrill, a great parabolic picture of how just that same thing, spiritually, had happened to La~ma-wu. By the time he died, Homay, Me-do-me-pa, Leah,
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
and many others had turned to Christ—had joined him, so to speak, on the Rock, and were singing with him the song of the redeemed, bathed in that light which was breaking over the mountainsides in every part of the canyon. Hallelujah!
At the close of our song we were fourteen, and all went into the little rustic chapel, knelt together and had a worship-prayer service, then dispersed for breakfast.
After the morning meal, another Easter service was held, to which a greater number came, when we announced our purpose of honouring him who had given his life that the gospel might be brought to them; and we invited as many as were able to Join with us in building him a good grave.
So noon found us trailing over the mountainside single file, as is habitual in the canyon, while the younger ones darted up or down the mountain to pluck scarlet and white rhododendrons, which were still in bloom.
By the side of a very high trail, skirting the banks of the Salween, Job stopped and began to look around. "It's somewhere near this pine tree,"' he said. Then he found it, quietly sunken into the wild grass so as to be almost obscured. Immediately our party dispersed to look for rocks and started to build it up in the common Chinese fashion. After the little mound was pronounced finished, we women took our lovely scarlet rhododendron blossoms and placed them upright in the centre, in the form of a cross, symbolic of the cross he died to proclaim; then all around it by the sides of the grave, we stuck in the lily-shaped and delicately fragrant white rhododendrons. It looked lovely. As Job had been La-ma-wu's comrade, I asked him to give the message as we reverently gathered in a circle.
A copy of the Lisu New Testament in manuscript had just reached us, and so Job chose his text from 1 Cor. xv. 53: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption."
When he finished we sang the Lisu hymn for those who have gone on before us, Sleep on, Beloved— Although we Christians die, There will be an awaking from sleep:
Because the Saviour died for our sins, When Jesus returns we shall meet again.
BEAUTIFUL FEET REACH THE CANYON
And as we left to go home, the strains of the chorus drifted back over the mountain trail to that lonely grave,
When Jesus returns we shall meet again.
In September 1944, as my husband, baby son and I left for our furlough, we had to come out over that high trail; and as we came to the one little mound under the pine tree, I stopped to look back, and say goodbye to Lisuland. It was a sunny day, the blue heavens flecked with white clouds which curled lovingly around the necks of the tall peaks, and cast little shadows on the mountain sward beneath.
A more wonderfully beautiful spectacle could not be seen, and everywhere I looked—at the opposite bank of the canyon, or where both banks became indistinguishable in the winding, tortuous gorge of mountain knees, ridges, shoulders, peaks—everywhere I looked, I could see little villages clinging to ridge or shoulder, little "nests'' above the abysmal ravines, nests that I knew were now Christian.
We were leaving a church roll of some twelve hundred, not including catechists, and I turned to the lonely grave beside the road and whispered "Goodbye, laddie! Already it is, not a hundredfold, but a thousandfold."'
A Tree Beside the Waters Ce little shanty that looks like a junk shop, dusty cupboards, two big iron pots unwashed pushed up against them, a low bed by the central fire which pours forth smoke and soot over everything, and a group of anxious-faced Lisu squatting around the fire and poking it occasionally. From the low bed a moan pierces through the smoke, and a restless, feverish turning of the figure stretched on it, tell its own tale.
"It's no use, Dad," says one of the young men. "It's because we turned Christian. The demons are angry with us. Why, even the white man was in the party of teachers who cast out the demons! If this Jesus they talked about is so powerful, why did
He let the demons bite mother? She was in good health until that happened. I say—throw it all over and go back quickly to our old ways. Sacrifice to the demons, call in the village wizard, before it is too late and mother dies!"
A young girl of seventeen years, sitting among them, looks anxiously from face to face, then dares to put in a word: "The teachers said that Jesus healed sick people when He was on earth. They say sickness is not from the bite of a demon, and that if we got sick we were to pray to God in Jesus' name!"
"Well," says the older brother, turning angrily upon her, "you did pray, didn't you? I saw you kneel by mother's bed a while ago. A lot we know how to pray! And where's the teacher to tell us? The white man has gone back to Paoshan, and the three Lisu have gone up the canyon—who knows where they are!'" Another series of moans piercing the dark makes all turn to the restless figure on the bed. "Dad, make up your mind!
She's very sick."'
The old father shifts his position uneasily. "It wouldn't look