Jonathan Goforth-Manchurian Railway

By Mary Vee
Year: summer 1924

Jonathan Goforth-65 years old

Jonathan Goforth's Journal

My name is Jonathan Goforth. My wife, Rosalind, and I are missionaries in China. In all the years I have been here, I have never desired to do anything else with my life than to tell the people in China about the living God who loves them. 

I recently had my 65th birthday. At my age, friends, family, and those who know of me asked if I planned to retire.

I just couldn't see myself sitting in a rocking chair doing nothing with my day. Or golfing, or anything like that because my life had a meaning. I was alive for a reason and I believed God asked me to tell people about Him.

When I asked the mission board to go back to China, I learned they had too many bills to pay and had planned to call several missionaries back home to save money. They wanted to combine stations in China. One station they planned to close was mine.

The news made me very sad. I couldn't give up. I searched for places that didn't have missionaries. Some place I could start a church. Maybe a place that had been overlooked, or where missionaries didn't want to go.

I heard about a new railway stretching across Manchuria. Chinese who wanted to escape their country's political problems were moving there and starting villages along the railroad. 

I told the mission board about this need and asked if I could go. This time I received permission. And to my great surprise three students from the college I'd attended said they wanted to go too. What a team we would make? They wouldn't be able to speak the language well, Rosalind and I could. We wouldn't be able to do some of the physical activity, they could. I was really excited.

Living in Canada gave us a lot of experience with winter storms. We arrived in Manchuria in January. A terrible blizzard arrived the same day. This storm was much worse than we had experienced in Canada. We stopped at an inn and let Alan from our group scout ahead.

Jonathan has many stories to share. Come back each Monday to find out what happened next.



Resources Used for This Series
Being, Janet, and Geoff Benge. Jonathan Goforth: An Open Door in China. Seattle. WA: YWAM Pub., 2001.Print
Doyle, G. Wright. Builders of the Chinese Church: Pioneer Protestant Missionaries and Chinese Church Leaders. Eugene Oregon: Pickwick Pub, 2015. Print.
Goforth, Jonathan, and Rosaline Goforth, Miracle Lives of China, London" Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1931, Print.
Goforth, Jonathan. "By My Spirit" Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1942. Print
Goforth, Rosalind. Climbing; Memories of a Missionary's Wife. Chicago: Moody Pub, n.d. Print
Goforth, Rosalind, How I Know God Answers Prayers; The Personal Testimony of One Life-time, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1921. Print
Goforth, Rosalind. Jonathan Goforth. Minneapolis, MN: Bethan House, 1986. Print
Goforth, Rosalind, How God Answers Prayer: The Mighty Miracles of God from the Mission Field of Jonathan Goforth. USA: Revival, 2016. Print Original copyright not stated.
Jackson, Dave, and Neta Jackson. Mask of the Wolf Boy: Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1999. Print.
McCleary, Walter. An Hour with Jonathan Goforth: A Biography. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1938. Print.
Meloche, Renee Taft., and Bryan Pollard. Jonathan Goforth: Never Give up. Seattle, WA: YWAM, 2004. Print.

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