Florence has resisted pleas, requests and treaties to write a book of her experiences. So what we have today is probably the nearest approach to having the story of her life in China together. I think it's very significant as you do or you wouldn't be here. We read in the newspapers and the Christian magazines and we hear in various ways of the great growth of the church in China, the so many more than when the missionaries left millions of people who, without having any missionaries there, have become Christians.

How did this happen? The reason it happened was because for years missionaries were selling the seed and through difficult times, through very strange UUs Times and God, in his own good time, brought forth the fruit. We're seeing the fruit now. Today you're going to hear a little bit about the seed sowing. So I brought a little pressure to bear to get the program today. And here she is for the.

You're going to be interesting. One of my professors said that students, after cramming all night for an examination, came to the room as if they were balancing a brimming pan of water on their heads and were afraid that they would spill a drop before they could dump it on their examination papers. I have been cramming 40 years of living into 40 minutes of talking and now I am going to dump it on you.

Let us begin with a little prayer that I learned at Biola. Sixty five years ago, shall we pray? Live out their lives within me, Jesus, king of kings, bizarre thyself. The answer to all my questions live outside life within me in all ways have the way I the transparent vessel, the glory to display CNN in.

If we are able to lift up the Lord Jesus, then our time together this morning will not be wasted.

I've been asked to tell how a newspaper woman became a missionary. I'm sure that if any one of you started to think of all of the people and events that shaped your lives and you would have a long story. Our parents were dedicated Christians. My father was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Seattle. Mother was active in the Women's Aid and the Missionary Society as a teenager in high school.

I helped the allurement of worldly amusements, all of the things that the young people did in those days, dances in the garden parties and that sort of thing. But before long, I felt it was very empty. Some way it didn't satisfy. And so on one day I made the decision that I wanted the Lord to make the plans for me, that the joys that I had been looking for didn't seem to have much taste, and I wanted him to give me his joy. So I began to find my social life in the church. One of the important things was a Monday Night Girls Bible club. About 100 college and business girls met together for Bible study every Monday night. As a journalism student at the University of Washington, I was very fortunate. The war has put all the young men into uniform. And so I was elected as editor of the University of Washington Daily and had that experience.

And then I was the campus editor, a campus reporter for the Seattle morning paper, The Post Intelligencer. And after the after graduation, I went on the staff of the Post Intelligencer as a reporter and editor of the women's department sometime before this at a special meeting at the church. I had made a dedication.

I had stood up admitting that I wanted to serve the Lord in whatever way he directed. As I worked on the paper. I became dissatisfied. It seemed that my newspaper work wasn't really coming very significantly for the Lord.

And then before too long, the Post Intelligencer had to retrench. And I suppose they last hired, first fired. I lost my job. It wasn't a catastrophic experience because employment was not that difficult in those days. But the dear friends who led the Bible class on Monday night suggested that perhaps this was the Lord leading, that he was freeing me to go to Bible school to prepare for Christian work. So I went down to Biola for a year and then later to Moody Bible Institute for a year. I was very hazy as to what the Lord might be preparing me for. Undoubtedly it would be some kind of Christian journalism, working on a Christian magazine, something of that sort. And then one day our pastor, Dr. Mark Matthews, called me in and he said, You want to go to China as a missionary. That was a knockout blow because I had always had a very dim view of missionaries except for doctors and nurses. It seemed to me that they were very poorly educated, not very effective people. And he design a graduate of the university degree, go as a missionary. It really seemed like a very poor use of good material.

And I at that period, I felt that I was doing something very magnificent for the Lord to be willing to consider being a missionary. Of course, I found out that he was doing something very magnificent for me and giving me the privilege of going to China. I applied to our Presbyterian for a mission board at that time, the North China mission, and had requested a woman missionary to work in the country and around bodying food. And I was appointed for that place. The journey from Victoria to Shanghai took 18 days. In those days time, mother and father and daughter came up to Victoria to see me off as the boat was moving out into the harbor. And the finality of the step I was taking became clear. I was I just panicked.

It seemed like this is a terrible mistake, that I ought not to be there, that it was just too hard to leave family and home and all that that involved. But of course, the Lord very soon assured me that I wasn't going on my own and that he was sending me. And so it was perfectly safe.

And from that time, I never was again troubled with homesickness and living in Shanghai when I was dumped into a Society with a jabbering, gesticulating people whose words one couldn't understand that it was rather frightening even when there was someone who knew the language. A long time to get to language school in Peking, another young missionary and I had to travel by boat to North China.

We were in the care of an old China hand who made the transfer of us and our very much luggage from the boat to the railroad as he was buying the tickets at the railroad station. It sounded to us like the ticket agent was awfully angry about something and we begin to wonder what could be wrong. There must be something very, very, very wrong and we were quite worried. And then suddenly the ticket agent gave a big laugh and we realized that that sounded angry to us, was not angry at all. It was just the tones of the strange language that sounded so angry to us when we were speaking. We were welcomed by our China North China mission and we're soon settled in one of the missionary homes. And day by day, we went down about two miles to the center of the city, to the language school. Sometimes we walk, sometimes we went by Jan Ricksha. It was in those days they were just two wheelers that were pulled by a man who ran along quite rapidly. Our language school teachers were excellent and they were not allowed to use a single word of English, and they had to make us understand what these words meant without the help of an English translation.

For instance, for me come over and over again all the time.

And eventually we tumbled to the fact that I knew he and that was the way that we had to acquire this new language.

Of course, many interesting things happened as we tried to use our new language, but one day we had the words for quick and slow, quite, quite a bit on Monday and on the way home, one of the missionaries wanted to use this new vocabulary.

And so she said to her, do the rich or poor quality?

And he took off like the wind going around the corners on one wheel. And she used her mind and she couldn't for the life of I remember the words.

So she just had to hang on for dear life until he deposited her over.

Our intensive language study was interspersed with a very delightful trips around that marvelous city of Peking coming to appreciate the. That culture, the life of those wonderful people, after the first year, I went down to my station about Infl, which is about 100 miles south of picking our mission compound, there was between the railroad station and the city wall.

And on the compound, there were buildings for the men's hospital, the women's hospital, a boys school, girls school and six foreign residences where some 16 missionaries resided.

I was at our Notting Hill station, had been assigned 12 counties as their responsibility. These 12 counties had several million people and no other mission was working in that area. The only woman evangelist in that area was Miss Gambrell, and it was to assist her that I had been appointed to voting full in each of these 12 counties and a chapel had been opened. And Miss Gambro would travel from one chapel to another, having classes for women visiting in the homes. And I was so eager to join her on these country trips. Of course, I soon found that my language, school and diction was quite different from the jargon that the country people spoke. But gradually my ear became a tool that I was able to understand and they could understand me.

But within a few months, it was a great shock. My senior colleagues, Miss Dumbrell, suddenly passed away. I was so green and inexperienced and here I was.

This Gambro had scheduled a women's leaders class to take place in a few weeks. Should we cancel it or should I try to teach it?

It was a case of either sink or swim, and I decided to swim with intensive hours of preparation with my language teacher and every word, every tone to get it just exactly right. And it paid off. The women were delighted they could understand their new missionary and they were comforted at the loss of their dear friend, this camera.

So I went on with the work in the country, much as Miss Gambrell had been doing North China, I was very conservative.

The word for wife was an inner person. She was the one that lived in the inner court and was never seen in public. So as we went around to visit in homes, we were very careful never to go on the big street, but to slip through alleys and back lanes and to side doors so that we wouldn't offend people by seeming to be too brazen by showing ourselves on the big street. At that time, bookbinding was still prevalent in North China, and one of the songs that we talked to women was extolling the benefits of natural big feet, large feet, where we're just anathema in those days that any girl that had big feet like she was just couldn't possibly make a good marriage.

Things that there have been great changes. And since those days, we traveled about the country in country carts, great wooden things with big wooden wheels and no springs that went from being over the ready roads.

The one advantage was that as these were pulled by a mule or or an ox, that it was usually possible to walk as fast as the animal went. And it was much more comfortable walking and it was sitting on the curb.

I say we because I always was accompanied by a Chinese Bayville woman and they and they helped her. And sometimes one of the women doctors went with us in health clinics and we were able to talk to the patients as they were waiting to be seen by the doctors.

Sometimes a great calamity such as a flood or the thrust of one of the warlords would send great throngs of women and girls into our compound for refuge. And we always received them and organized classes with them and made the best use we could of the opportunity of having them with us. And gradually, simple little Bible school grew and grew up where many young women were being educated and also had given Christian training. But they became dissatisfied. It seemed that the church was growing so slowly and we heard of a wonderful revival down in Shanghai and of young Chinese evangelists who were being greatly used to the Lord in spreading the gospel. So we invited the best of evangelistic men to come to mind include. We thought that maybe they could stir up our neighbors that seemed to be so indifferent to the gospel. The result was that we were the ones that were stirred up, but it was a marvelous experience.

These young evangelists were three in the team, gave very lively the gospel messages illustrated with cartoons and interspersed with the gospel choruses. It was very lively and very entertaining.

I was pretty critical. I thought, no, young man, this is all very interesting, but you'll never get decisions. I never could have been more wrong. And every every time decisions were asked for great throngs of people thrown to the front and they were really having a new experience with the Lord one day, and his team seemed to be especially inappropriate. He was talking about repentance. He said the most difficult person to bring to repentance and the most difficult are the elders. They think they have arrived. And so they don't they're not interested in repentance.

When people are still there with other pastors, they're always talking to others and they don't bother about attending themselves. This is pretty strong talk. And I thought this young man is very brash and hear their elders and pastors down there.

But he went right on just one group of people that are still more difficult to bring repentance, and they are the foreign missionaries. Can you imagine the missionaries needed to his mind that that really stuck? And I, I just I just couldn't follow that. But then I began to think, well, the head nurse, remember, was a little shy and the head of the boys school, well, maybe he was a little too set on having his own way. And then, of course, I suddenly began to realize that how was it that I could see the faults of my colleagues, that I couldn't see my own? And I realized that there was there was something wrong there. But the next message, I felt very comfortable. He was talking about obedience. And I thought, well, that can't can't touch me. There was no obedience and came out to China as a missionary.

And the Lord wanted me to I'm all right.

I'm perfectly safe. But pretty soon I found that he was talking about obedience that was far beyond anything that I had experienced.

And that day, as I went back to my room, I got on my knees and I was reminded of areas of disobedience. One of our colleagues would go out on the street and the Hendlerlite tracks.

I couldn't do that. Even preaching on the streets.

Why? That was Salvation Army stuff. I could wear Presbyterian we do things decently and in order. I did the talk in the chapel or a home, but on the street.

And then of course, the Holy Spirit conveyed to me that this was just the place of disobedience. And it was pretty it was pretty crushing to think that here I was a missionary and yet was not wholly obedient to the Lord.

There were tears, but I had to hurry over to the railroad station to meet some GIs who were coming down from Peking for the meetings. As I rushed out the door, I grabbed a bunch of tracks from the table there and I said, no, if you want this distributed, you have to do it. You know I can. And so I went over to the station and there was a crowd there.

The train was late, as usual, and as they were waiting around quietly without any volition, these tracks came out and began passing them out. And to my great surprise, people were pleased and some of them even asked for more. And so that in the vision of many years, standing was broken down and I was free and had the joy of a new step in obedience.

The metal band organized the people into little teams and with banners, they would go out and distribute tracks and witnesses on the street and this fire spread out into the country as people returned home. And there was a great deal of interest in preaching the gospel. One woman that was blessed at the meetings was the only Christian in a rather remote village, and she begged me to come to their village so that their neighbors might hear the gospel.

And they sent a horse for me for the trip to this village. The horse had no saddle.

You just sat up on top of that he rolled and no bridle and no control. The animal and all the man that was supposed to be looking after him lingered long way back there somewhere. And this and all was going on and he was on. And where was he taking me? And I was quite startled.

And when I finally got the attention of someone, they said, Oh, don't worry, he knows the way home. And of course he did. And he took me to the destination.

We settled and this is Lee's home and waited for her neighbors and friends to come in, it didn't come no matter how she invited them, nobody came here.

It was a very remote village. They'd never seen a foreigner. They were just too timid.

We prayed about this here. We were. And nothing happening. And the Lord made a very startling suggestion. They don't come in. You go out. Go out on the street.

Oh, why, Mrs. Lee? I argued with the law and I said, Now, you know, Mrs. Lee is a very conservative woman and she'd be offended if we did such a thing as, you know, losing Fazlur women to go out on the street.

But this impulsion continued. And so, one, I spoke to Mrs. Me and I said, Mr. Lee, the lawn is seems to be telling us that we ought to go out on the street and preach since people won't come in.

And to my amazement, this is the deal, if not just in asking the Lord to send you on the street.

And so with prayer and fear and trembling, we went out to the center of the village, found a wall, a mud wall that we could fasten up the song sheet, and we began to sing lustily and heaven.

Finally, around the corner here and there, we could see a face sticking out, but no one came near.

And then we pushed it up, one of these gospel posters and began explaining the way the two roads and the burden of sin and how the Lord took off the burden and all that. And gradually some of the older ones came a little nearer to get a clearer look at the picture. And slowly this fear melted away and they were willing to listen and even to come to Mrs. Lee's home for further Bible study and prayer.

Well, that opened up that village, but it also opened up that we no longer had to go around by the back alleys, but that we could boldly go on to the street to preach the gospel.

And that was the method that we used so effectively for the land, for many, many and for many, many years, many of the young people became eager to join in the country work and they would go out in teams and gradually and we developed the Lingam Buddha outlines the spiritual warfare evangelistic band.

And this was a group of very gifted and dedicated young women, about a dozen or so who were dedicated to preaching the gospel out in the country. And we would go out in teams of three or four or five living in the homes and the where we were invited.

And the only requirement was that we would be given a room in which to live. And we took our own cooking equipment, our own supplies, and lived in one of these homes for a couple of weeks. The reason that we insisted on doing our own cooking was that if we allowed the hostess to feed us, she would be so busy with her duties as hostess and preparing the meals, she wouldn't have any time to study. She wouldn't have any time to listen. And we were there for her to get the most benefit out of our visit. So we insisted on doing our making our own simple meals and we would go to one of these villages.

And in the daytime we would have to teach the women who came and the children the Nuna arrest.

Our was universal that everyone took two hours off at noon. And so that was a good opportunity when we could go out on the street and and people would be at leisure to come and listen. And then, of course, every evening we would have an evangelistic meeting and the life of a single engine. And then after the meeting, those who are interested would come to our homes, to our home for Bible study and prayer. After two weeks of this kind of work in a village, we would leave a group of new believers who were meeting for worship. Usually there was a some Christian from a village nearby who would come to help them with their worship service.

And so these little centers were started.

You see, like the students going to the examination, I have brought some notes. In one village, one of the many girls was preaching on the subject of confessing of sin. If we can trace our sin, he has social injustice, forgive us our sin and cleanses for a while and righteousness. After the meeting, a young man waited for us. He was a church member in a congregational church some distance away, but he'd never heard preaching like this.

And so he had written down all of his sins that he could remember. He'd written everything, everything down, and he wanted us to pray with him as he confessed his sins. And after he had prayed, he felt a great sense of release and of new joy. Sometime later, he visited his home and when he came back, he said, You know, all my friends think I've changed and they can understand what's happened to me.

And I tell them that I confessed my sins and receive the Lord Jesus is my savior. And I have this joy in my heart. And they said, well, we wanted to set can you get those people to come here and preach to us? And so he was begging us to go to that village.

We finally managed to send a team there, and the older Christians in that village were not too enthusiastic about our programs. Our program was always to give evangelistic meetings to the outsiders and then have Bible study for the believers. But they said, oh, you don't need to have a Bible class for us. We have our Bibles, we can read them.

And so they would have wouldn't have any Bible they preach to the outsiders, but they soon found that there was a great difficulty in many of these these church members were stumbling blocks and so on. As they preach to the outsiders, they point your finger. Well, so-and-so he's a he's a church member, never paid his debts.

This other person is a church member.

He's he hasn't spoken to his brother for years.

And they pointed out one after another of these church members whose conduct was a stumbling block and they wanted nothing to do with this gospel. It sounded good, but they didn't like what it did. Well, of course, the of the then girls were just desperate to do. But the Lord had a hand and sent a rainy day when these people were not able to go out in the field to work. And so having nothing to do, they wandered over to the chapel and the girl suggested, well, since you're here and don't have anything to do, let's have a little Bible study. And so without any particular interest, why they consented and the girls gave them some very strong food from the Book of Romans. And pretty soon they were starving. They said, well, we're not Christians at all. And they begin to want to know the way of salvation. And the Lord did the great work and so many apologies, given so many debts paid, so many things made right. And then, of course, the outsiders got interested and there was a big ingathering of new believers. It is wonderful to be working with the Lord.

Summers were at times I interrupt you just a minute so I could turn this tape over. Oh, I'm afraid if I lose any of this, I may have to go to a different church or some.