Chapter Seven
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CHAPTER SEVEN
ACROSS A WIDE OCEAN
Ho, large the Pacific seemed!
To bridge that wide, wide expanse of salty water, John on one side of it and Isobel on the other, they began to communicate.
Letters crept along. Thoughts flew. Prayers ascended.
Meanwhile Isobel was graduated from the Bible Institute.
That was in December, 1926, around Isobel's twenty-fifth birthday. Next, as a candidate for the China Inland Mission, she went to the Toronto home. Then came a long wait, while the anti-foreign uprisings of 1927 burned like bonfires in China.
The conflagration necessitated a withdrawal of C.I.M. workers from inland China and concentrated them at Shanghai. Besides, it hindered new workers from setting out from America and Great Britain.
What a frustrating situation for a high-spirited girl like Isobel Miller!
And another fiery trial blazed up, threatening to block her eos to China. One of her six references instead of recommending er to the C.IL.M. Council came out with some disqualifying charges against her. Looking around for a sympathetic heari for her troubles, she broke the story to a student she had known at Bible School. But his response came as a shock. "Isobel," he wrote, 'what amazes me most is your attitude. You sound bitter and resentful. Why, if anyone said to me 'Roy, you are proud, disobedient, and a trouble-maker,' I would admit, "Amen! brother! and even then you haven't said the half' "
Roy had used the ugly words "bitterness and resentment."
The words cut for a moment, but Isobel met their challenge.
"After all," she thought, "bitterness and resentment are as serious sins as pride, disobedience, and trouble-making."
At once she dropped down on her knees, convicted and confessing. She was not one to sit around moping when she knew something must be set right with the Lord. It made her too
ACROSS A WIDE OCEAN
unbearably miserable. Then when the Holy Spirit assured her of God's forgiveness, she got to her feet, humbled but happy again.
Months later when she stumbled on the identity of the referee who had written to her detriment, Isobel easily accounted for the reason why that person had criticized her. Should she justify herself by exposing MA bias she felt sure existed?
"No," she thought, '""Why try to make the Mission think I'm lily-white? They'll have personal experience before long as to just how earthly a person I am." Then afterward she explained,
"You see, the Lord foreknew there was a work to be done in Vancouver before I sailed for China; and my self-confidence needed to be thoroughly jarred before He dared put this delicate work into my hands. That experience of His enfolding love has blessed me all my life."
Back home in Vancouver, Isobel spent most of 1927 and 1928 _ keeping house for her father and brother while she also built up a thriving work for God as superintendent of the Vancouver
Girls' Corner Club.
There she more than demonstrated her qualifications for the foreign mission field. When doors to China again opened, she was heartily accepted, "unconditionally and unanimously," as a member of the China Inland Mission.
During most of the years as superintendent of the Corner Club Isobel, like a magnet, winsomely drew to the Lord highschool and business girls. "It was thrilling," wrote one of the girls, "to hear Sishel's hearty laugh; challenging to hear her ospel messages; inspiring to hear her pray, and humbling to eae that a life so yielded to the Lord was being lived in the midst of girls from all walks of life in needy Vancouver. Isobel was a young woman in whose presence you felt right at home.
But you could realize without any question that no unseemly liberties were permitted, no gossip, no petty talk, no harsh judgement of others. It was mainly through Isobel's influence that Bible School training became a reality for me, for she seemed to know her Bible so well, trusted its promises so implicitly and knew its Author so intimately that I, too, craved a deeper acquaintance with God and His Word. It is to her credit to say that she did not encourage girls to place confidence in her, but to put their trust in the Lord."
ONB VISION ONLY
This is illustrated by another girl who recalls going to Club on a certain blue day. "I saw Isobel there and went in. I hadn't been feeling well and my work at the office seemed too much, Isobel saw that something was wrong and asked me what was the matter. After a few words of prayer together, she held out the Promise Box to me, and said, "Take a promise, May.' I did, and found it was 2 Corinthians 12:9 'My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' She'said to me,
'Don't you see, May, is, is present tense—right now! You can go back to the office on that promise.' I did, claiming it as I had never done before, leaning harder on the Lord moment by moment through that day, proving afresh God's unfailing supply."
Isobel's insight into human nature, her sense of humour and dramatic gift soon spotlighted her as an able public speaker. She selected and trained a quartet of girls who teamed up with her when she was asked to speak to local church groups. Of course at the Club she constantly used her natural gifts ae less Godgiven than the spiritual gifts), Sometimes on recreation night she
'brought down the house" playing around in a character part.
_ Believing that young life must have an outlet, Isobel planned picnics, seaside corn-roasts, hikes on Saturday afternoons, and in the winter, a Stunt Night—girls only. "Most of them had never seen me lay aside the dignity of my office just for fun, and it tickled their fancy to find I could enjoy a joke as much as the next one. That Stunt Night broke the ice between me and a certain girl for whom I had been fishing in vain for weeks. It was only a short time afterwards, that she accepted the Lord in my office. All our parties were threaded through with the love of the Lord and a deep earnestness that others might find Him too....
I think that is the secret, for a merely social club helps nobody very much, since it doesn't offer any real solution to the basic problems of life."
One of the "girls"—now a mature woman—well remembers the day she met Isobel for the first time. "I had changed my position, and found myself working in a very difficult place.
I was worn out, unhappy and dissatisfied. In this frame of mind I took myself up to sd Club—just another Tuesday meeting!
In the lounge where we assembled before going into the diningroom a dear friend of mine came over to me and, catching my
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hand said, "Come quickly and meet the new superintendent.'
I shall never forget my surprise. Could this lovely, tall, slim girl with the friendly smile and charming manner actually be our new superintendent! She was young—only in her twenties, and bound for China (What a shame! I thought.) Another day at noon I wandered up to the Corner Club. Isobel was in her office and we had a chat about the Lord. Then we prayed together. I rose from my knees a new creature in Christ Jesus. She had asked me to pray, too, which I did although shyly. I remember how she put her arms around me. An intense, loving nature, warm and affectionate! How I have thanked God for her life!"
Scores of other Corner Club girls would still say Amen to that testimony even though more than thirty years have passed since
Isobel waved them al goodbye at the Vancouver wharf.
"Tsobel based her farewell message to the Club on Hebrews 6:1 'Let us go on," wrote one of the Club members. "After seeing her sail away six of us ran up the ramp, our hearts just full.
We hurried directly to the telegraph office to send her a telegram _on board ship. "We will go on!' and signed our names. Deep down was the earnest desire to accept her challenge to live for Christ."
Very evidently many inspired by Isobel at the Corner Club did just that—they went on with God. They can be found today standing as sincere Christians, true to their purpose; and besides, several of them have kept right on praying for the mission work, and the individuals that she taught them to love.
Now, with three decades of perspective, how our foggy understanding clears! And we see how the Lord used the two short years of trial and delay to enrich Isobel's life as well as to bless innumerable other lives through hers.
It was on October 11, 1928, that she eventually sailed for China. She was not quite i Mice epost years old.
By that time John Kuhn had had two years in the Orient and a big start in the language and in field experience. Meanwhile significant letters had kept floating from China to Canada—and from Canada to China. And, after all, it is a fact that Isobel Miller was a ready writer and that John Kuhn was a good correspondent.
How ready? And how good?
Well, anyone in the large crowd of Isobel's friends waving
ONE VISION ONLY
her away at the ship could see that she was proudly wearing an engagement ring!
After she had reached China Isobel was the subject of an ecstatic letter John wrote to one who had been like a mother to him from his boyhood. (And while he described his fiancée he revealed himself in the writing, quite unconsciously.)
"I constantly in my thoughts and prayers kept her on the altar.
There was none other with whom I could have more perfect Christian fellowship. Yet, unless the Lord Himself was kept supreme in the matter, I should not have felt that I had received
His guidance and had followed out His will. Thank God! We were both led in the same way and God has given wonderful joy and peace in our decision. Her experience in the school of suffering far surpasses any little that I've ever had. I admire this so much in her. Then her natural gifts are so rich. As a public speaker she is intense and holds attention, using a different style from most women. She plays the piano very nicely and sings, and also plays the guitar. Her attainments include an arts degree from the University of British Columbia, Normal School, besides a year or so of teaching, and then two or more years at Moody (Bible Institute). There are indeed no qualities lacking.
Yet, if she had not been exceptional in her life and service for God, all these gifts and graces put together would not have drawn me. You may rejoice with me in that she knows Calvary and its victory, and her desire is only Christ and Him alone,"
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2. i e a 1. be eee .
PART TWO
THE VISION PURSUED
Sgverat of the next years of Isobel Kuhn's life she spanned in an unpublished manuscript. In her own frank and graphic style she revealed an unusually intimate side of her life as a young missionary. Here are incidents a biographer would hardly presume to tell. They reveal the little-apprehended fact that God does not wait to find perfection before He uses a person, or He could never use any one of us, Rather, as a Father, He perfects while He employs His children. How He did this for Isobel Kuhn she relates in the following chapters. Somewhat abridged, we use her
Vistas as PART TWO of this biography.—C.C.
"When I was laid aside with sickness in 1954, friends suggested that I write down some memories. The most valuable ones were jotted down first, but as days were still given me, the whimsical thought came to open up some vistas which I had glimpsed one morning long ago in far-off Lisuland."
ISOBEL KUHN