CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
OVER THE BACK WALL
| Beaten the day came when Isobel felt she must say goodbye to her beloved Lisu people.
Wild alarms were filling the air.
During her whole life in China she had experienced repeated political upheavals. She knew the war-pattern all too well. Fresh in her mind was her husband's 1949 experience (mentioned in the Prologue of this book). So as rough Red hands began snatchin: cities and villages just at the base of her mountains, Isobel's imagination ran riot. Would this mean imprisonment of foreign missionaries? Internment? Or worse?
Widespread confusion stirred up local desperadoes. Robbers, brigands and foot-loose soldiers were clambering up the crags and canyons around her.
Beside all this Isobel was concerned for Danny. At six years of age, he was beginning to understand the filthy speech he heard in the village where two-thirds of the people were still heathen.
It was the boy's danger that was a deciding factor.
Isobel's mind was made up. But some years before she had run away trigger-quick when she saw war rushing towards her.
From that unhappy experience she had learned her lesson. Now she waited and prayed for God's unmistakable guidance.
Isobel's courage of those days was clearly recalled by her co-" worker, Charles Peterson: "John was absent again. It was just before the Communists came. We were holding a Bible school.
One of the Lisu Christians from the northern field had been deceived by the Communists: he felt they were the saviours of the country and he expounded their principles. Then bee to send us messages as to when the Reds were coming.
Finally, one morning he came into our dining-room.
"This is the day! Today this ile will be liberated. But you have nothing to fear.'
"Even when he was speaking bullets began to hum and the
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battle was on. Lucius dashed in. "You can't stay in this bamboo house. Get into the mud house and shut the door!' We obeyed.
By afternoon the Nationalists had chased the Communists out of the village, and one of the Nationalist officers pounded on the door and demanded that we come out. They questioned me.
Then pointing the gun at Isobel they said, "You've got rebels (Reds) in this house. Bring them out.'
"With entirely level tones Isobel replied, "You are at perfect liberty to search the house, sir.'
"Of course the search revealed no rebels. And just to end the story—the room we had occupied during the day was taken over by the Nationalists that night. I slept above that room. At midnight a runner came in with the news. 'Governor Lung has capitulated. We are not to fight any longer.' And the gun-toting sergeant of the afternoon said, "That's settled. We're all Communists now.' "'
Of course the situation was anything but settled. The erupting volcano was too near for that!
Christmas Day, 1949, the Nationalist general Dwan and his soldiers withdrew, but with Reds approaching and violent men all around her, Isobel felt herself in a whirlpool of what she referred to as "real danger, horrible danger."
Remarkably protected, however, under the shadow of the Almighty, the work of the church went on. And Isobel postSone her departure. She was still awaiting indications that it was God's will for her to leave. Then to her great relief, her husband came home to the village. And he called the Lisu in for another Rainy Season Bible School. A hundred students gathered.
"The best school ever!"' declared Ma-ma.
Her next step was not simple to determine. "'God expects us | to exercise spiritual discernment," Isobel observed, "and He guides by a certain pressure on the spirit, by a still small voice, by a something so delicately intangible that unless carefully tuned in to His Spirit, you can miss it widely. When it is only a still small voice ich is our guide, it is easy for Satan to throw us into confusion by causing us to question if we have heard aright.
It is a good plan not to go back on past guidance."
Then, beheving the Lord was leading her, on March 10, 1950,
ONE VISION ONLY
Isobel and Danny started away, over the western wall of China's border mountains into Burma.
The parting with John was one of the hardest they had ever had. "'T felt," said Isobel, "that I wouldn't get back; that Communists would never allow evangelical Christianity to work under their régime. John is an optimist by nature, but when it came to saying goodbye, for once he could not force a smile. Danny and I left him on a high rock jutting out from the road, biting his lips to restrain his emotion. And we set our faces towards a bree that must take us half-way around the world."
First, a Lisu escort hazarded life and limb with their beloved Ma-ma and her boy, through snowy mountain passes, wild jungles, bombed bridges, to Burma. Then came gruff immigration officials with their endless red tape, and soldiers and tension everywhere. Using Chinese money, Burmese money, Siamese
(Thai) money, Hongkong money, annoyed Isobel into exclaiming, "Oh! let's never mention the word again!'' But, she added significantly, speaking of the whole journey, "The Lord had supplied as am need arose, but each time in a different way.
Stranded at world's end? Maybe. Yet if we but lean back we will find ourselves on the bosom of Christ—sweet familiar place," and she quoted, "Sometimes on the Rock I tremble Faint of heart and weak of knee, But the steadfast Rock of Ages Never trembles under me!"
At last when on 2nd May her ship steamed into Vancouver harbour, friends she had known since girlhood opened their arms to her. There were the Elden Whipples, the Stanley Norths, the Girls' Corner Club friends as well as her own brother Murray.
But she hastened on across the States to Wheaton, Illinois, for Kathryn was there, about to finish a term at the College. There
Isobel poignantly felt the security of what she described as "a Levanta little college town in the heart of America! Long streets
+ tree-shaded, with squirrels scampering happily from branch to branch. No air-raid alarms. No windows iron-barred against — thieves. Just peace and plenty, the beauty of spring and gay
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oung voices. Family life, friendships, freedom. It was like en on earth!"
; Meanwhile John stayed firmly on in Yunnan, choosing rather to suffer awhile with the other C.I.M. missionaries for whose safety he felt responsible, than to take the less perilous escape directly from Lisuland to Burma. That hard choice detained him nearly a year, as the general evacuation of these missionaries was not authorized by the C.I.M. until December 1950.
; Awaiting her husband's return, Isobel found a house in Wheaton.
In a letter she gives the whole story under the title, "Behind America's Plush Curtain."' She writes:
"Thank you for praying about a place for us; we move today!
And the story must begin far back, many years ago indeed, at Moody Bible Institute in 1925. Among the hundreds of students there that year, there were three girls who wanted to go to China for the gospel's sake. They were Jenny Kingston, Ella Dieken and Isobel Miller. And there were three boys who also felt called to China in that student group. They were Francis Fitzwilliam,
Jack Graham and John Kuhn. And the three boys liked the three girls. In fact Fitz and John had bought an ancient Ford model-T to help them get to country places to preach, and they named it ho y, The Jenny-Belle!
All six went to China with the China Inland Mission. And all of them were designated to tribes work in Yunnan province.
And all of them were married in China; John and Isobel were even best man and bridesmaid at Jack and Ella's wedding!
"A quarter of a century has rolled by, and by the strange workings of God the three girls find themselves together once more in Wheaton—the home town of none of them. The three girls are without the three boys. For Fitz lies buried in the Stock~
_ade Hill district, where he died of typhus while attempting to the Kachin tribe to the gospel. And Jack died on their last furlough home. And John is still behind the Iron Curtain.
"The three girls need a home, and there is a three-apartment house at 123 Scott Street."
So the three of them decided to team up in purchasing the three-storey house. There was a separate apartment on each floor. In Isobel's four rooms on the second floor she made a
", '
Ss e "= « we
ONE VISION ONLY
comfortable home for Kathy and Danny. There she wrote another short book, Stones of Fire. Besides, she took frequent speaking engagements, taught a Bible class of college girls, and entertained her own and her children's friends.
"Everything was so artistically chosen and arranged," recalls a neighbour, as she lets us see things as she saw them in Isobel's apartment. "It was quite humble, but so shining with decency and order! Every detail; the careful hanging up of the hardworked broom, the tidiness of her clothes-closet, the immaculate condition of the bathroom, the friendly arrangement of her few books (the Kuhns had lost their books in West China), the bits of boy nonsense for Danny, and the white scrim Priscilla curtains with their dainty blue ribbon lacing. Well, it was apparent that the Lord was there and in charge of that home ways. tr Yoniegileeted that Isobel had said long ago, 'One of my favourite quotations is "The Spirit-filled life is a daily grind!'"''
"One day she phoned me in distress. The washing machine in the basement had stopped suddenly and would not start.
Could I tell her what was wrong? I ran across immediately, but realized that the difficulty wasnot due to her missionary ignorance of modern electrical appliances. It would not work for me, either. We just asked God to set it going, for neither of us had time to waste. One of us touched something—we never did find out what. And it went. After that we often pooled our family washings and worked together in the basement and hung things out together in her pleasant back garden. What times of rich fellowship !"'
And to quote Isobel herself on her home in Wheaton: "As I go about my pretty little apartment, enjoying its light and harmony of colour, I whisper, "Thank Thee, Lord; but don't let m heart get tied to it. Help me to remember it is just a tent, wi the friendship of God and of my friends upon it.' If we send our roots down deep into a thing of earth, that very thing may set up ee decay in our being."
~~ The mother and children chose early evening, about Danny's bedtime, for their family prayer time. Prayers over, there were
1 Stones of Fire, C.1.M., 1951.
_-——s
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kisses im a triangular embrace accompanied by strong young hugs. One evening Dan remarked that only one thing was lacking. When questioned as to what he meant, he simply said,
"Whiskers !""
One day in July, the mailman tossed in the long-desired letter, news of John's safe arrival in Hongkong—news as welcome to his wife and family as a burst of sunshine after a long foggy day.
But he was to be further delayed. First, he had been appointed to make a tribal survey in North Thailand (Siam). Then in November of 1951 he was to attend an important conference held at Bournemouth in England, (C.I.M. officers and leaders there made the momentous decisions that resulted in transplanting the field personnel from China to Southeast Asia and Japan under the new name of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship of the China Inland Mission. This was probably the most crucial point in the whole eighty-six years of C.I.M. history.)
Ed. oui her heart at rest about her husband's safety, awaited his reports eagerly. He described to her North Thailand as he saw it, filled with tribes people similar to those in China, Burma and Indo-China. Utterly unreached were some 5,000 of the Lisu tribe.
"Moreover, Belle," wrote John, "we can use the Chinese language in reaching almost all of the Thailand tribes. I always found someone who understood me. And Orville Carlson and I were even able to point some souls to the Lord in the short time I was there. The government is friendly. The tribes are approachable. The field is before us. The time may be short.
Missionaries have been in Thailand over a peti years and yet have not been able to reach beyond the Thai people to the aborigines of the mountains. If we don't pioneer, they may never be reached." John's strong words challenged his wife.
Deane they were reunited and could discuss things face to "But John," she protested, "we are old. It's a young man's job!
And we would have to leave the children again."
At fifty years of age, must she go pioneering again, climb up tough trails, learn another tongue? Already she had worked on the Chinese and the Lisu languages. Now must she study Thai, too?
ONE VISION ONLY
As she allowed her mind to tangle up in the foreseeable difficulties, she confessed, "Of course my heart fainted. But once I stopped contemplating the disagreeable things that might happen make turned single-eyed to the Lord, He counselled me:
"Of course there will be hard places. What of it? To choose ease rather than effort is to choose slow decay. Do you think your children would benefit by being with parents who made such a choice? You and John are needed out there. You two can hold the fort while younger people are studying languages. They may have faith, courage and strong bodies, but they do not have experience.' "
Isobel had arrived at the right conclusion. She and John were needed. Hundreds of mature workers of the C.I.M. had been roughly thrust from China by the Communists. After that ordeal, many were like disabled war veterans: they could never again face foreign service. But others, in an unbelievably short time, rallied again. And besides, pouring in were numbers of new volunteers, full of fresh vigour and spiritual vision, All were purposing to reach the unevangelized peoples in countries adjacent to China; including millions of Chinese. As Isobel foresaw, obviously the direction and counsel of seasoned missionaries were indispensable.
For instance, in Lisuland, John and Isobel Kuhn had proved the success of St. Paul's method of establishing a wholly indigenous work. Their superintendent, J. O. Fraser himself, had steadily held to this method from the time he began to evangelize the © Lisu. Living sacrificially, giving the gospel persistently, he set the example for all the missionaries under his supervision, insisting that they refrain from using any money from abroad to hire © evangelists, build chapels or subsidize students. It was the hard way of doing things as the missionaries well knew. But they could testify that when trouble struck China, the Lisu churches were standing on the firm foundation of the Rock rather than on the shifting sand of money stipends from foreign sources. Inf — some other parts of China, only too easily were doles demonstrated to be a curse, not a blessing to the national churches.
So after evacuation from Communist China and with a new start to be made, the entire Overseas Missionary Fellowship of the C.I.M. was committed to pursue a wholly indigenous oat
ell sis
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__ Frankly Isobel summarized the way the Lord had changed her thinking until she too was ready to launch out again.
"In March 1950, when our little son and I made our way over the high Pien Ma Pass into Burma, and then home, I felt as if I had no more courage to face the foreign field another time. The dangers, the high tension of threatened 'liberation' for more than a year, the ambush and gunfire when it actually occurred, the physical privations of the journcy to safety, and the ordeal of travelling through countries where we did not speak the languages, had seemed the limit a human being could take.
*""T will soon be middle-aged now,' I told myself. 'I'm too old for such arduous living any more. I'd like to get work and stay home."
"But in the long voyage over the Pacific, Danny asked me to read to him again the book, Sir Knight of the Splendid Way. After many terrible battles and experiences, there met him at the crossroads a fine handsome knight named Sir Plaudio. 'What a gallant life you 'have led,' cried out Sir Plaudio. "You must take it easier now. You deserve it. You have earned it.'
"Sir Plaudio's words sounded like the voice in my own heart, but as we turned the pages we discovered that he was really self in its final disguise!
The Lord laid His finger on this.
"Another day I came upon Matthew 10:23, and I noticed that the Lord did not say, 'When they persecute you in one place, go hom and stay home.' He said, "Go into another.'
"Finally, to cap it all, I was given Amy Carmichacl's book Figures of the True. In it is a picture of a great snow-peaked mountain. (It brought back quick memories of Pien Ma Pass, where we were caught in a sleet storm, and it was necessary to press on or perish.) "Climb or die,' said Amy Carmichael briefly. And I knew she was right. One could stay home and seck ease, but it is possible to keep the form of piety, but to dry up inside until one is hard and brittle—uscless to God or man...
. When does the life of God pour through you richly? When you accept the challenge of a new thing for Him! "Climb or dic
' It was His final word to me."