Lottie Moon: Giving Her All for China by Janet Benge & Geoff Benge

Author:Janet Benge & Geoff Benge [Benge, Janet & Benge, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Religious
ISBN: 9781576581889
Google: 6SXzngEACAAJ
Amazon: 1576581888
Barnesnoble: 1576581888
Goodreads: 1004637
Publisher: Y W A M Pub
Published: 2000-10-15T11:42:17+00:00

Chapter 10

Mission Stations

Is it any wonder that we feel like kings’ daughters tonight?” Lottie wrote in her journal. “There are beautiful spiderwebs on the rafters and clean matting on the k’ang.… With a heart full of joy, it is no effort to speak to the people.”

Lottie put down her pen and smiled. Finally she had come to terms with her surroundings. The joy of telling others about her faith had conquered her worries about hygiene, illness, and bugs. She now felt at home among some of the poorest people on earth.

Just as Lottie was finding her niche as a missionary, however, Tarleton Crawford was losing his grip on reality. His wife confided in Lottie that he was experiencing “brain trouble.” It was obvious to Lottie that he was suffering a nervous breakdown similar to the kind that Edmonia had suffered. Soon afterward, Tarleton Crawford packed a bag and left Tengchow in the middle of the night, alone and without any money. Martha Crawford was distraught and waited anxiously for some word of his whereabouts. Finally word came that he had made his way back to the United States.

Lottie knew that Tarleton Crawford’s life had been difficult in Tengchow, but she partly blamed the Foreign Mission Board for his breakdown. In their nearly twenty-five years of missionary service in China, the Crawfords had never been allowed to return home on furlough. All they had been allowed was one short vacation to Japan. Was it any wonder that Tarleton Crawford had fled back to the United States for a break?

Lottie was convinced that the Southern Baptists could do a much better job helping their missionaries stay healthy in body and mind while on the mission field. Current mission policies needed to be reformed to reflect the realities a missionary faced every day. When she accompanied Edmonia home, Lottie had raised the issue with the Foreign Mission Board of missionaries being allowed to take a furlough. She decided it was now time to once again stir up the board over the issue. She knew that change would not happen overnight, and she was prepared to keep pushing, even if it took a lifetime.

Again Lottie resorted to paper and pen. She fired off her first volley, a letter to the Foreign Mission Board urging it to consider furloughs for missionaries rather than sending them out for life and making them feel like second-class Christians if their health failed and they had to return home. In her letter she wrote, “It is as if you were saying to a soldier you were sending to the front, ‘Do battle with the enemy. Mind, no furloughs! We expect you to fall on the field.’ ”

While she waited for a response to her letter, Lottie became busier than ever. Now that Tarleton Crawford was gone, Lottie, Martha Crawford, and Sallie Holmes had taken over his work responsibilities in addition to their own. Things soon got worse. Sallie, who still had not heard anything from her son, Landrum, spent

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