Gladys Aylward

Thank you so much for having me here today.

You don't know how much of a joy it is to bring the things that I love

to the people that God cares and loves for.

This is a real joy for me.

So we are going to look at this theme of steadfast in humility.

And I think humility is a really good word that captures Gladys Alwood.

And I think she's going to help us wrestle with that pull

that I think we can all feel about wanting to leave a legacy in this world.

We want to be remembered.

We want people to know our names both now and after we're gone.

We want to be people worthy of honour and known to be worthy of honour.

So I wonder as we start today what kind of legacy you want to leave.

I have to think about this for my own life.

How do I want to be remembered?

Do I want to be remembered?

What are the things that I want to be known for after I'm gone?

And what's remarkable about Gladys Alwood is she's not a person

that strives for this.

And that's going to come out in her story.

She wasn't someone who wanted to be recognised in the circles that she moved in,

which I find can be tempting for us,

that temptation to be recognised in our communities,

in our jobs, in our social circles.

Her world's no different.

It's not a problem that just belongs to our generation.

It's a perennial universal problem.

But I think for her it's her prayerful reliance on the Lord

that allows her to be free of that need.

It just doesn't have a hold on her.

She's just not interested in it.

And so I'm going to tell you her story, her remarkable story.

I'm going to tell you just some of it,

but it's full of fascinating twists and turns.

But it is the story of a person making decision after decision,

prayerfully making decision after decision,

to pursue God's will.

She's a woman of great spiritual momentum.

She's very unimpressive outwardly.

She's a tiny little thing.

But she has gravitas.

She's got huge spiritual momentum.

She didn't know where God would take her in this world,

but she made prayerful choice after choice

to live for him and not for herself.

So Gladys was born into a Christian family in London

right at the beginning of the 20th century, so 1902.

Her dad was a warden at the local church.

Her mum raised the siblings in her home,

you know, according to Christian values.

But they weren't really sticking for Gladys.

She wasn't interested.

It was in her teenage years

that things really switch on for her spiritually.

Soon after that, what we might call a conversion experience,

for her it was the idea of millions of people in China

dying without access to the gospel.

That's what really gripped her heart.

Now, what she did about that

is she tried to convince everyone else to go instead.

You need to go.

No, you need to go.

No, you need to go.

And one day her brother got so frustrated with her

in their kitchen at home

that he just kind of had an outburst

and said, Gladys, stop bugging us.

Why don't you go?

And then he stormed out.

So they got her thinking.

I don't think she'd even thought that was a possibility.

So she was 27 when she was accepted for missionary training

with China Inland Mission.

I don't know if you've heard of that organisation.

It was an organisation that Hudson Taylor had set up

about 70 years before this.

And he set it up because lots of the missionaries

were staying on the eastern coast of China,

but they weren't heading inland.

So there was a vast interior that did not have access to the gospel.

And so he sets up the aptly termed China Inland Mission.

So that's who she goes and approaches for missionary training.

She is accepted.

But soon the wheels fall off.

She had been educated up to a point of...

at 14 years of age and then had stopped.

She'd gone out and worked in a shop instead.

And she wasn't demonstrating a proficiency in learning language.

And so China Inland Mission deemed her unacceptable

for missionary service

because of her language acquisition skills were lacking.

So she wasn't allowed to continue.

She was heartbroken.

She was devastated.

Devastated.

China Inland Mission said when they brought her in

for kind of the exit interview, as we might call it,

she did say to them that she had really learnt to pray in this time.

She may not have learnt language,

but she had learnt to pray at this time.

I love what Tim Keller says on prayer.

He says,

God will either give us what we ask

or give us what we would have asked for

if we knew everything he knew.

So she keeps praying.

She ends up in the home as a housekeeper

of a retired China Inland Mission couple.

So they've returned from the field

and she goes into their house

to help them in their later years.

And as she watches them,

she sees their prayerful reliance on the Lord.

And she continues hearing stories about China,

about the work of the gospel there.

And she eventually finds out

about a 73-year-old Scottish widow

looking for someone to join her

in ministry in northern China.

So she asks if she could come.

This Scottish widow,

Jeannie Lawson is her name.

She's quite very,

she's very dow,

she's very serious.

And she says,

basically,

if you can find your way to me,

you're welcome.

This woman had been looking for someone young

to come and take over her work.

She's widowed,

she's elderly,

she wants someone to come

and take over the work.

And so that's what Gladys is now trying to do.

So she saves up for a train ticket.

I don't know if you've gone on like webjet.com

and looked up flights.

What are the cheapest flights?

The ones that are like,

you know,

five stops around the world

before you want to get to your destination.

For her,

the cheapest train ticket

that she could get to China

would take her through Europe,

Russia,

Siberia,

and into northern China.

So she put it on lay-by.

She would go and make payments

at the train station

to pay off this ticket.

She eventually got the money,

pay for the ticket.

The train teller said,

you really shouldn't be going, sweetheart.

You really shouldn't be going.

Because there was war on at the time

between China and Japan

and on one of China's allies was Russia.

But she sets off.

1932,

30 years of age,

she sets off.

She considered later the cost

that this would have been

for her family.

Because really,

if you're getting a train to China

through Europe, Russia, Siberia,

it's not easy to get your baby girl back, is it?

Right at the beginning of her journey,

she meets the Dutch couple.

So she's on the train.

She meets a Dutch couple

coming back from attending

the Keswick Convention.

in England.

So the Keswick Convention's like

going to Katoomba

or going to...

It's one of those big things.

And so they're getting the train

back home to Holland,

to the Netherlands,

and they have a conversation.

They talk with Gladys.

They learn that she's off to China

with the gospel.

And the woman in the couple

promises that at 9 o'clock,

every night,

she's going to pray for Gladys.

9 o'clock,

every night,

she's going to pray for Gladys

for the rest of her life.

She said,

can we write one another's names

in each other's Bibles

so we can remember each other?

The man,

I don't know if he felt awkward

at this point.

I don't know his motives,

what he was doing,

if he just wanted to help.

But he gives Gladys

a one-pound British note.

Now, this woman's not going back

to a country

where she can spend this, right?

But she's got this

one-pound British note

from this guy.

It's not a whole lot of money,

but, you know,

it's something,

as they say goodbye.

So Gladys is perplexed.

What am I going to do with this?

That note is going to save her life.

So because war

between China and Japan

had broken out

the year before,

she was rerouted

through different parts

of Russia.

It gets very complex

at one point.

She has to get off the train

because it won't go any further

into, you know,

a region where there's war going on.

She has to walk back

to the last station,

which is like a two-day walk,

so she has to sleep

in the snow overnight

on her suitcase

with the wolves howling.

It's all going on for her.

She makes it back

to the previous station

and soldiers tell her

the convoluted way

that she has to go

to get to the next spot

to avoid the scenes of battle.

as she's making that journey,

Russian soldiers take her passport away.

That's a very vulnerable position,

isn't it,

to be a woman

in the middle of Russia

without a passport.

They changed the profession

on her passport

from missionary

to machinist

because they wanted her

to work on the new machines

that they had in that city.

They wanted her to stay and work.

She was trapped.

She was trapped.

Some locals

at high cost

to their own personal safety

tried to think of a way

to help her escape.

There's a boat

leaving for Japan.

It's a Japanese boat

leaving for Japan.

Can they smuggle her onto it?

She makes it to the boat.

She's on the gangway.

Russian soldiers

literally grab her.

And what does she produce?

The one pound note

and they let go long enough

to grab it

for her to pull her arms back,

jump on the boat

and keep going.

So it saved her life.

She said that moment

was like escaping

a bird catcher's net.

I love how the Lord works

in amazing ways like that.

So she lands in Japan.

She was never supposed

to go through Japan.

She crosses into China.

She still has a further

train, bus, and two-day

meal ride

to reach the small town

in the mountains

of northern China

where she would finally

meet Mrs. Lawson.

So this is the story

of just getting there, right?

She hasn't even started ministry.

This is the story

of her getting there.

Now, Jeannie Lawson,

she lives in a very rough,

large house full of rubbish,

broken masonry everywhere.

All the rooms don't have windows

or doors.

It's very rough.

She plans to turn it

into an inn for travellers.

They're going to call it

the Inn of Eight Happinesses.

And so on Gladys' first night,

she's like,

where can I get changed?

And Jeannie Lawson says,

don't get changed.

Just sleep with your clothes on.

That way they can't get stolen.

And lucky she did

because when she woke up

in the morning,

it was to a sea of faces

in at the window

because the foreign woman

had arrived.

News had got around.

Now, why are they turning

this rough house

into a hotel and inn?

Well, in that part

of northern China,

you might be familiar with it.

It's very rough mountain terrain.

And so to have anything

travel through,

it was via mules.

It was like a mule highway.

So there was a need

for these mule riders

to find cheap,

simple overnight accommodation

and food.

Gladys had stayed

in some of them

on her trip into this place.

And so news soon

spread around the area

that, quote,

the inn of the foreign ladies

was clean,

the food is good,

and at night,

they have long stories

free of charge.

So what were these stories?

They told stories

from the Bible.

And in the end,

that's how Gladys

picked up the language,

which she says

is one of the biggest

miracles of all her time

there was picking up

the language.

She learnt it

through learning off

by heart

these Bible stories

and telling them.

Within about a year,

Jeannie Lawson had died.

And so young Gladys

is alone,

the only foreigner,

not just the only woman

foreigner,

the only foreigner

in that part of China.

one day,

a local magistrate

comes to Gladys

with a request.

Now,

it would have been

a very intimidating scene

because he came in

with armed guards,

they've got big swords

by their side,

he's a very intimidating

person

with a lot of power.

He comes to Gladys

with a request.

He says,

he now has

the personal responsibility

to ensure that foot binding,

which had been recently outlawed,

was eradicated

in his area.

And so,

you may be aware,

foot binding

is where they break

the foot

and bind it

in half

underneath

a young woman's feet.

Sorry,

yeah,

yeah.

So Gladys,

I said before,

she's tiny,

she's four feet,

ten inches tall.

She's got size three feet.

Her feet were considered giant

and the locals

would often like lift

the bottom of her skirt

to look at her,

like just marvel,

this massive feet

that she has.

And so the magistrate said

that as a woman

with big feet,

he needed her

to help inspect

women's feet

in the area

because men

weren't allowed

to do that job

and every other woman

had her feet bound.

So what's Gladys

going to do

in this moment?

She says to him,

I've come to China

to tell people

about the God

I worship.

If I take the job,

I'm going to use it

as an opportunity

to preach the gospel

to these isolated villages.

And he agrees

because I says,

I notice you Christian people

don't bind your feet.

A man's gods

are his own business.

Yes, you can go

and do that.

So she's given

government funding

and essentially security

to go into these

isolated villages

and towns

with the gospel.

And they would call out

her name

in Mandarin

was Aiwede.

That was the closest

to Aylward,

Aiwede,

and it meant virtuous one.

And they would

announce in the town

that she had arrived

and she became known

as the storyteller.

The storytellers arrived.

And so she would tell

these stories

in all these isolated villages.

And so Gladys

strikes me

as a woman

who was as wise

as a serpent

and innocent

as a dove

when it came

to opportunities

to talk about Jesus.

Yes.

but Gladys feels awfully lonely as you can imagine she had expected at this point in her life to be

married to have children she's just lonely because she doesn't have a co-worker let alone a husband

she's praying God could you please send someone to help and preferably a man not necessarily to

marry him but just you know I need a guy around to do some of the hard stuff can you just please

send someone and God doesn't answer the prayer that way instead she's walking home one day

and she this young girl lying in the arms of a woman on the side of the road

this little girl is essentially a slave and she's probably hours away from death and Gladys

offers to buy this little girl the woman in whose care this girl was saw it as an opportunity to you

know make a few coins and so she sells her to Gladys for six pence that's probably like five

Australian dollars today so not much six pence and she takes her home and cares for her and she says

she calls this girl six pence she says six pence helped fill that aching void in her and of course

six pence wasn't alone in the circumstances she found herself in so she would bring other people

to Gladys for help yeah other orphans or other vulnerable children to Gladys and so Gladys keeps

accumulating more and more children over a hundred she ends up saying like I long for a moment to myself

now she cares for them she feeds them she teaches them including bible stories she speaks the gospel to

them now by this stage her town is repeatedly a war zone so soldiers would come in they would retreat

things would be decimated they would return again to more and more rubble it would happen again and again

and again and so really her city is crumbling around her she knows she needs to get these kids out

she needs to get them to safety now there's a very powerful woman who is has a lot of funding at her

disposal and she is helping care for what she calls them warfans war orphans and so she says to Gladys

look I can help you you just need to get the kids to me in this in the safe zone now that safe zone is 350

kilometers north across the mountains in the middle of a war

and so Gladys sets off on that mountainous mule track with over a hundred kids aged between three and

sixteen and so gruelling dangerous journey they have to beg for food along the way which is obviously scarce

in a war zone other villages would be completely abandoned as they made their way across they come

to the wide expanse of the yellow river what are they going to do there's not ferries running anymore

in a in a war zone there's no boats to be seen they can they cannot cross it

i was listening to a talk that Gladys gave in Sydney in the 1960s this week not many of the people that i

get to write about and study i actually get to hear their voices so it's amazing and she talked about this

moment on the banks of that river they slept out in the open for a couple of nights trying to think

about what to do as her breaking point that was her breaking point

how could God deliver them from that

could God be trusted in that situation on the banks of the yellow river she could not see a solution

God was not coming through could he be trusted

she'd been teaching the bible stories to uh those children in her care

and one of them that she must have taught them was the story of when israel leaves egypt

leaving pharaoh behind pharaoh and his armies are chasing the israelites and of course they come to

the river that they can't cross the red sea what are they going to do what's God going to do in this

situation

and this is what a kid said about this moment he said when we got to the river we waited and waited for a boat

they came to her with this story

and so he said we prayed

for the river to be opened so that we could walk across like the children of israel did

across the red sea but

God knew we were tired of walking

and so he sent a boat and that was far better and that's what he did a ferry finally came and i love

this kid's words here because it wasn't that the parting of the sea of the yellow river was harder than

a boat God was just more kind in sending a boat because their feet were really sore from walking they

didn't have to want to walk across the river bed they got across the river they continued the trek

going so high up sometimes up the mountains the clouds obscured them

it was a long month it was an agonizing journey they finally arrived where they could get help

and Gladys's body understandably completely shut down

she went to hospital doctors fully expected her to die she had typhoid pneumonia malnutrition

exhaustion she lay there for a month completely out of it unaware of her surroundings she recovered but

it took years she can't really remember the next two years of her life

when the chinese revolution began in 1949

she was forced to leave china and she returned to england and she never went back there she would

eventually go to taiwan to head an orphanage in 1957 and she died there in 1970

the city aged 68 and on her tombstone are those words that were read at the beginning that unless

a kernel of wheat falls to the ground there won't be new life

so i've told you some of the remarkable parts of her story and in many ways

it's a memorable story a lot more happens on the way it's a wild ride but this is the part that's

more remarkable to me her story nearly was forgotten because she was content for it to be

forgotten she was a woman so bound up with christ her christ-shaped humility meant she didn't care

if she was known or remembered it had no hold on her she didn't want or need to leave a legacy

she didn't desire that her life story be honored that someone write a biography about her

so let me tell you the story of how her story came to light and how it helps us reflect on that

pull to be remembered by the world so gladys returns to england in 1949 and there's a few lines

in the newspaper that report that she's returned home from being a missionary in china for 20 years

and so a bbc journalist and writer he sees those few lines in a newspaper he's working on a project

for bbc radio so think of it like modern podcasts he's doing a series uh called the undefeated so

he's looking for stories that kind of match with that theme the undefeated and he thinks i re i reckon

there's a story here so he goes to her home in london he asked gladys have you seen any adventures

that map with the theme of the undefeated

she says no nothing noteworthy has happened to me

that that journalist

alan

recorded that conversation and he remembered it word for word because it had such an impact on him

but surely he said in 20 years in china you must have had many strange experiences

others oh yes said gladys but i'm sure people would not be interested in them nothing very exciting

happened it was at least 15 minutes more before she confessed that she had

once taken some children across the mountains

and slowly the story emerged

and the rest is history it was turned into a book that he wrote

a film which gladys hated hated she hated the attention she hated becoming a household name

and so i marvel at her story it's an incredible one but more so i marvel at the fact that she didn't

desire to be remembered she's she was not the center of her story she would have been much more

comfortable being forgotten by the world why why is that for gladys well that journalist alan burgess

helps us understand that woman that he met on that fateful day this is what he writes he goes it was

not mock modesty on the part of gladys arwood the stories she had been telling were to her

her the greatest in the world taken straight from the pages of the new testament that her own adventures

might be worth setting down she had simply not considered so for gladys it was the stories that she told

every night to those mule travelers to those children in her care to those townspeople as she was a foot

binding inspector those were the stories that mattered everything else paled in comparison it was the legacy of jesus that she was in awe of not in awe of her own legacy

she had no need to build a monument to her own pride and ego it's not false modesty too which can be a temptation

her adventures seemed entirely remarkable in the shadow of the one in whose name she was doing these things

and so in that way i think gladys arwood models for us christ-shaped humility christ-shaped humility

it's not a white knuckling approach of getting through things it was a reliance on the lord

a humility came from and demonstrated her daily dependence on her lord

jesus captivated her not herself she didn't fill her own imagination

her own life didn't fill her mind the lord jesus did and so i pray that she would be someone who

encourages you on your journey with this same lord who's able to answer the same prayers in remarkable ways

that the one you serve is worthy of all honor and so in serving him we are completely free

to have christ-shaped humility the world and its opinion of us and the desire to be remembered doesn't

have to have a hold of us christ sets us free from that thank you

so