By Mary Vee
Year: December, 1866
Hudson Taylor: age 34
From J. Hudson Taylor's Notes
Sixteen new missionaries and my family moved into the former Mandarin home. It may have been a mess from war damage, but it felt like home from the first moment we walked into the building.
Settling into a foreign country by yourself can be a bit scary. God, in His loving kindness, sent a group which became a family. We grew closer to each other in friendship and in our personal walks with Christ.
We scrubbed floors, replaced damaged walls and ceilings, and put paper over holes allowing cold wind into the rooms.
We determined ahead of time to blend in with the Chinese culture in as many aspects as God would permit. After all, Jesus said we were to be in the world, not of the world.
And I tried to place myself in the feet of a Chinese person. Would I be willing to listen to someone who came to England who didn't respect me? If someone came to my door fully dressed in the native clothing of another country and said they had an important message to tell me, I'd probably laugh in their face. Clearly the person didn't care enough about me or my country to communicate in a way I could understand.
Every man, woman, and yes, even my children wore Chinese clothes. We ate rice and cooked other meals like the native people, and ate with chopsticks. We spoke only their language even in the house.
Speaking Chinese in the house showed we had nothing to hide and would not keep secrets from the local people. The local people we employed to help us soon relaxed when in the mission house for church services or the clinic for medical help.
We hired carpenters and other workers, giving jobs to local people who would know best how to repair the mission house. While we worked side by side, we shared God's love with our local helpers.
Several women stopped burning incense to their gods and instead, prayed to the Almighty God. The number of local people attending Sunday services grew. What a blessing!
The missionaries in the house and I met. We decided it was time to branch out. We had our base, now we needed to reach deeper into inland China.
Please pray for us as we set up our base in Hangchow, China and seek God's will where to go next.
J. Hudson Taylor
Missionary to China--Inland China!
Blessed by God
Photo courtesy of visualbiblealive.com
Research resources: J. Hudson Taylor, An Autobiography by J. Hudson Taylor; It is Not Death to Die, a new biography of Hudson Taylor by Jim Cromarty; Hudson Taylor Founder, China Inland Mission by Vance Christie; J. Hudson Taylor, A Man in Christ, by Roger Steer, and Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret by Dr. &and Mrs. Howard Taylor.
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