CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
SPEECH SEASONED WITH SALT
"DELLE, it's come! We are appointed to move west and take over the station of Tali which has been without missionaries for a year now. Whoopee!" John waved the letter from headquarters at me with jubilation. I ran to him, and we hugged each other with joyous exuberance, then stopped to join in a prayer of thanksgiving to God. The Lisu tribes of J. O. Fraser's discovery were in western Yunnan.
"There's another letter,'" went on John. "Mr. Fraser wishes us to come up to Kunming in May. He will be there at that time, and would like to see us before we go west. Also Jack Graham and Ella are being married on May 15, and Mr. Fraser knows they want us as best man and matron of honour. So it is all working out. Then too, Bud F—— is having to come to Kunming for new glasses. Belle, you will get to meet Bud at last!"
Bud had been John's special friend and confidant at Chinese Language School, 1926-28. During the term, one of their fellowstudents, William Potts, had suddenly died. God had used his death to solemnize and challenge that group of new workers.
Bud and John had rededicated themselves to God, and the Lord had used them to challenge others. John was especially blessed by the truth of Christ living in the believer. It had transformed his life, Bud had been sent to a different province so he and I had never met. He was slim, good looking and had dimples. Not what I _ would conjure up for a male saint! But as soon as you started to talk to him you aoe everything but the Lord. He lived for no one else and nothing else. In his presence my Irish effervescence soon quieted down and a great wistfulness for God came to me.
That night John was asked to preach in the street chapel, but as I was weary I went to bed instead. The evening streets brought mostly men to the chapel anyway. But before I was asleep,
John b urst into our room.
See .
Ps ae, woe -
ONE VISION ONLY
e, "Belle! Say, Bud wants me to pray all night with him in the chapel, Do you mind, dear, when it is for this purpose?"
I answered slowly, "No-o, I don't mind. But I'd like to know why! Why wouldn't an hour of prayer be enough?"
"Well," said Hubby resignedly, "'guess I'll have to tell you.
They asked Bud and me to preach in street chapel, and as Bud went first, I couldn't help but compare his Chinese with mine.
We came to China together, you know. He speaks the language O.K., but I couldn't help but know that my language was better.
No one responded to the gospel invitation, and the meeting finally closed. As Bud approached me, I guess I rather expected to have him compliment me on the progress I'd made since lasthe heard me." Here Hubby stopped and hung his head.
I was very proud of his fluent Chinese, and added "Well?"
"Well, Bud said to me, 'John, I was disappointed tonight.
You have made great progress with the language, of course, but when last I heard you speak I used to see the Christ. Tonight
I could not get by John Kuhn and his fine command of the language. No one was won to Christ tonight, was there? Do you suppose you've lost something? Would you like to pray with me all night if need be—just you and I? Besides, I feel Ineed it. In the province where I was sent the churches are so cold.
There has been argument between senior missionaries as to which Chinese term should be used for "God" in preaching and translation. Oh, is Satan to kill our usefulness just by side-tracking us?
I feel I need to pray, but I'd like to have you pray with me, as — we used to do in Shanghai.' I told him that I wanted to ask you first, but I was sure you wouldn't hinder."
"I most surely won't," I replied, deeply stirred. "And tell him I'll be praying here too. It took courage to speak to you straight like that, when he was the poorer speaker of the two."
"Yes," acquiesced Hubby humbly, "but God comes first with Bud, you know. AndI want that He should with us, too.
Ineeded this correction badly."
* "Bless you, dear," I said. "Go and the Lord be with you."
That all-night prayer meeting was the beginning of revival blessing among us all The work in Yunnan was not dead as in Bud's province, but we had had differences between senior missionaries, too, and our superintendent felt we all needed a
Fi " :
SPEECH SEASONED WITH SALT
fresh touch from the Lord. So he called as many together as could come, and proclaimed a cessation of all but most necessary work thatthe rest of the time might be spent in prayer and meeting together.
The ten days that followed we never forgot. Truly the Lord met us. The Holy Spirit convicted first one, then another.
With tears we confessed critical thoughts or wrong actions to one another, and there was a putting away of hindering things, with a real melting together. This was the first time in my life that behind-the-back criticism of another Christian was shown to me to be sin—and a most deadly sin that paralyses the Spirit, and uenches Him when He is longing to pour out blessing. I wish t I could say that I was never again guilty of this, but that would not be true. It did mean, however, that from that day I recognized it as wrong and something that I must treat as sin.
Our superintendent, Mr. J. O. Fraser, was wonderful in this es In his speech seasoned with salt he was an example to all of us. Besides, he was courageous enough to refuse to listen to criticism of another when it was made to him. Now we wonder, if Bud had been afraid to say to John what in his heart, he knew needed to be said, what would have been the end! We do not like to think.
After the conference you can imagine our anticipation as John and I started west for Tali, an old station but at the moment without missionaries. We were to continue Chinese language studies there, but also to help young missionaries whom the Mission was expecting. There had been an appeal for two hundred new workers in two years, and the first of these would soon arrive. Mr. Fraser thought it was extremely important with whom young missionaries spent their first years, and we were made to feel our responsibility. John was also to itinerate
_ and explore the areas around Tali.
Those days there was no Burma Road. We had to travel stage by stage; either walking, or riding on a horse or in a hwa-gan
(mountain chair). At night we stopped at whatever little town we had come to. It was slow, weary travel, but the beauty of Yunnan mountains far repaid the weariness; and the erpens tunity to present the ai at night in the little stopping places was worth the time consumed. I much prefer it to the dangerous
ONE VISION ONLY
ride in Burma Road trucks of later years, where you finished a week's travel in two days and lost ail those little town contacts.
It was during our third stage out from Kunming that I contracted dysentery (the same kind as in Acts 28:8), and was dangerously ill. $0 we had to stop off at. Tsuhsiung. An American missionary lived there in a beautiful big compound and she also had a little Christian Chinese nurse, Miss Ling, staying with her.
For three weeks Miss Ling nursed me. She had nursed many such cases in Shanghai, but said she had never seen one so bad as mine,
Yet the Lord brought me through.
It was on June 28, 1930, that we arrived at Tali. John had wanted me to walk with him from Hsia-kuan. Our coolies had stopped there for the night, although it was still early afternoon.
The Chinese had told us that Tali was just "san-si li" (three or four Chinese miles) farther on; in fact they meant "san-shih li," but pronounced it differently. We thought three or four li
(Chinese miles) was meant, when it actually was thirty li!
The road was level all the way and very beautiful scenery absorbed our attention. To the left, the high range of mountains which contain the Azure Peak, 15,000 feet altitude; to the right, emerald green rice fields sloping away to a large blue lake. Tali is the marble quarry of China, and the villages through which we passed were all built of stone—quaint, picturesque dwellings.
Every now and then we crossed a rushing crystal mountain stream of melted snow.
I was still weak from sickness, and it was the end of the day to boot, so I soon tired. But John urged me on, eager to see our new station. I went as long as I could, but when I said, "John, I can't go any farther," I meant just that.
"Oh, you're doing fine, dear, just a few more steps. See, here is the gate," he reassured me.
But I could not make those steps. He half carried me in and laid me on the floor—the only place available, for the house was empty.
- "Belle, you're awful!" he said, standing over me Bae nc "Nbr Yen a you're through, you just stop. You don't make an er effort."
'But, dear," I argued weakly, "I don't say I'm through until Iam!"
1% r
SPEECH SEASONED WITH SALT
Help was on its way. The Chinese Pastor lived in the front part of the extensive compound which was the C.I.M. Home in Tali.
He soon came in to see us, and inquired if we had made arrangements for supper. After a long rest and some warm food, I was able to sit up, and even walk a little. John had already been all over the place. Such a domain after our two small windowless rooms in Chengchiang!
I still remember the thrill of the first evening when he led me through the rooms of the "Cloisters of Tali', as later they were named, Three wings of rooms, upper and lower, were absolutely ours, a lawn, and a huge garden at the back, not to speak of the small court between the wings, which was planted with flowering trees. It was luxury and paradise to us. Gentle, refined young
Pastor Li was always so concerned for our comfort—we just loved him from the first contact on. It was at Tali that we preached and ministered for two and a half years, and there our first child was born.