On this day in 1902, Gladys Aylward was born in London, England into the family of a mailman.
Being one of four children in a working class family, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for Gladys to receive a quality education. At the age of fourteen, she had to become a parlor maid to help bring in money for her family. At the age of 18, she attended a revival in which the preacher expounded on giving ones life over to the service of the Lord. The message struck a cord in her heart and an awakening desire to serve on the missionary field began to blossom. Having spent the last four years serving others surely gave her a unique insight to a servant’s heart.
When reading a magazine article about China, Gladys realized that she could play a part in reaching the millions there who have never heard of Jesus Christ. Still working as a parlor made, Gladys went before the China Inland Mission to apply as a missionary. But when the board looked at Gladys, they saw a poor, uneducated parlor mid who could never learn the language or how to do the mission work. So they rejected her.
But Gladys wouldn’t be dissuaded. She continued to work and save up the meager wages she made. In 1932, at the age of thirty, Gladys used her own money to get to the mainland Europe and took a train across Europe and Asia to get to China. She arrived in Yangchen, China, and took up work assisting a retired missionary lady. This was just the beginning of the amazing work of the “determined little lady.”
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On this day in 1812, a second ship set sail from the shore of America to Calcutta India. The name of ship was the Harmony. Aboard the ship was Luther Rice, Samuel and Roxana Nott, and Gordon Hall.
Five days earlier, the Caravan had set forth with the Judsons and Newells from Salem, Mass. The remaining missionaries gathered in Philadelphia, PA, where they soon boarded their ship and also sailed to Calcutta, India. Upon arrival in India, they faced opposition from the British government, due to the fact that England and America were now at war. The government thought that the Harmony was carrying supplies and secrets to other Americans. So they demanded that the missionaries be sent to England for questioning. But under the cover of darkness, the missionaries were able to avoid the authorities.
The Judsons set out to Burma. Luther Rice, now a Baptist, returned to the states to raise support among the Baptist for a new mission board. Samuel Newell and Gordon Hall went to Bombay, where they began preaching and translating, where they would both die. The Notts, stayed in India four years, after which they returned to the states to work in a church there.
The sailings of the Harmony and the Caravan symbolized the fulfilling of many of dreams by many men. “At length the hopes and prayers of many years were fulfilled. The project, which had been successively a vision, an idea, a desire, a resolve, and a plan became an accomplished fact.” 1
Source:
Commissioning of the First American Missionaries
The story of the American board 1
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February 24th in World Evangelism History
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