Gladys Aylward

Gladys Aylward

Gladys Aylward (1902-1970), a plucky British missionary to China, was once led of the Lord to minister for several months in China’s second largest prison. At the same time, she was ministering at a nearby leper colony, and the Christians there earnestly prayed for her prison ministry.

Of her daily evangelistic ministry in the prison courtyard, Gladys related: “Rows and rows of horrible, dirty, cruel-faced, degraded men were lined up, with jailers at the end of each row. They were shouting, laughing and jeering. I was so small that a kind of little mound had to be built up for me to stand on. I talked to them, I told them stories, then they trotted off. Day after day I stood on that little mound, my heart hammering wildly, but with the knowledge of the terrible, desperate need of these men driving me on.”

Other Christians joined Gladys in the prison ministry, and after a few months forty prisoners had been converted and were in a class preparing for baptism. But thousands of prisoners still mocked at God’s Word, and the widespread spiritual blessing that the Christians had been diligently asking the Lord to bring to the prison had not come.

One of the prisoners Gladys sought to minister to was a murderer, of whom she reported: “Mr. Shan was young, handsome and arrogant, but there was something about him I felt to be utterly evil. He looked at me in a horribly offensive fashion and said unrepeatable things. I disliked him intensely, but I prayed for him, and I got my friends to pray for him. One day I tried to speak to him, but with an oath he turned and spat in my face, and I felt I almost hated him.”

Chinese prisoners like those to whom Gladys Aylward ministered

Chinese prisoners like those to whom Gladys Aylward ministered

Once after Gladys finished speaking in the courtyard, the prisoners formed into their lines to return to their cells. They always had to move at a trot, and were not to speak or be spoken to as they moved along. But that day, as Gladys saw Mr. Shan approaching, she sensed the Lord’s definite leading to speak to him. She was so agitated that she leaned forward, placed her hand on his shoulder and burst out, “Oh, Mr. Shan, aren’t you miserable?”

He threw off her hand with a horrible curse then angrily asked, “What is it to do with you if I am miserable?” “Because I am so happy,” she replied. “Of course you are,” he shot back. “Doesn’t the door open for you whenever you want to go out?” “Ah, that isn’t the reason,” she responded. “It is because Jesus Christ died for me.”

Shan moved on, and Gladys suddenly realized, to her dismay, that she had just violated one of China’s strictest unwritten laws – that no woman touches a man in public. She left the prison that day depressed and ashamed.

Meanwhile, Shan followed the line of prisoners to an inner courtyard where he sat down on a stone, his head bowed in his hands. Moments later, Dhu Cor, the first man who had been converted in the prison, saw Shan sitting there and asked, “Are you going to be ill?”

“Did you see what she did?” Shan queried.  “What?” Dhu Cor responded.  “She touched me.”  “No. That is a lie!”  “It is no lie. She put her hand on my shoulder.”  “I cannot believe it.”  Another prisoner who had been listening stated, “What he says is true. She did touch him.”

But then Shan gasped, “She touched me as if she loved me!” “Perhaps she does love you,” Dhu Cor replied. “What, a clean woman like her, love me, a murderer, who has cursed her and spat at her?!” Shan asked incredulously. “Yes,” responded Dhu Cor, “I believe she could because she believes that God loves you no matter what you have done.”

Gladys Aylward

Gladys Aylward

Mr. Shan’s heart was opened to the message of God’s love, and he trusted in Christ Jesus as his Savior from sin. His conversion was the beginning of a marked spiritual awakening that took place at the prison. Prisoners spent hours listening to the reading and teaching of God’s Word and hours more on their knees in prayer. So many prisoners were saved that afterward it took three full days of continuous baptisms for all of them to publicly profess their faith in Christ through that means.

The prison warden, convinced by the obvious alteration he had seen in even the most hardened criminals, was converted. He readily proclaimed that what he had been unable to do in five years, the power of the glorious Gospel of Christ had accomplished in one.

This true incident from Gladys Aylward’s ministry is recorded in her autobiography (co-authored with Christine Hunter), Gladys Aylward, The Little Woman. Other worthwhile books on Glady’s remarkable life and ministry include: A London Sparrow, The Story of Gladys Aylward, by Phyllis Thompson; Gladys Aylward, The Courageous English Missionary, by Catherine Swift.

Copyright 2016 by Vance E. Christie

Gladys Aylward

Gladys Aylward

Gladys Aylward (1902-1970) grew up in London, England. She was raised in a Christian home and attended church and Sunday school as a girl. But as she entered young adulthood she became impatient with religious matters. Her one great ambition was to become an actress. While working as a housemaid in London, she took drama classes in the evening.

One evening, instead, she attended a church service, although she hardly knew why. There she heard again the Gospel truths she had been taught as a child, realized that God had a claim on her life, and placed her trust in Christ Jesus as her Savior from sin.

Sometime later Gladys read a magazine article that spoke of millions of Chinese who had never even heard of Jesus, a thought that staggered her. She spoke with friends and relatives about that alarming situation but none of them seemed too concerned. Before long Gladys came to sense that God was directing her to go as a missionary to China.

She learned of the China Inland Mission training school for prospective missionaries in London.  She went through three months of its training program but was rejected as a suitable missionary candidate due to her lower academic performance.

For a time she served with a ministry in Swansea that sought to rescue young women from prostitution and drunkenness. While she thought that ministry worthwhile, she could never escape the thought that God desired her to be serving in China.

Gladys Aylward with one of her many adopted orphans

Gladys Aylward with one of her many adopted orphans

As Gladys endeavored to read and study through the Bible, she was arrested by the story in Genesis 12 of God calling Abraham to leave his relatives and country, to go to a distant land, and to be used there as a blessing to others. Her attention was also drawn to the example of Moses in the early chapters of Exodus. In order to carry out the challenging mission God called him to, he had to leave the comfort and security of the work and family he enjoyed in Midian. Gladys couldn’t help but draw parallels to her own situation and sense of God’s call on her life.

Eventually she returned to London and resumed working as a parlor maid. The third day on her new job she began reading the narrative concerning Nehemiah. She could relate to his being burdened over a distressing, distant situation that he could do nothing about. But after reading Nehemiah 2, she was filled with elation and exclaimed, “But he did go. He went in spite of everything!” From that Scripture passage Gladys was convinced that God was giving her marching orders – to go, as Nehemiah had in his own time and place, to play a part in addressing the concerning situation in China that had been so long on her heart.

She laid her Bible on her bed as well as her copy of a Daily Light devotional guide and all the money she possessed – only two and a half pence (cents). “O God,” she prayed simply, “here’s the Bible about which I long to tell others, here’s my Daily Light that every day will give me a new promise, and here is two and a half pence. If You want me, I am going to China with these.”

Just then her new mistress rang the service bell to summon her. “I always pay the fares of my maids when I engage them,” the mistress informed Gladys. “How much did you pay getting here?” When Gladys told her, the mistress promptly gave her three shillings, slightly more than she had paid for her travel fare. “So in a few moments my two and a half pence had increased by three shillings,” Gladys afterward related. (A shilling was worth twelve pence.)

Gladys worked hard, scrimped and in time saved up enough money to buy a one-way railway ticket to China. At last, at age thirty, she traveled to China to assist an aging lady missionary in her ministries in the mountains of Shansi Province in northeast China.

Gladys Aylward quotationThat was just the beginning of Gladys’s many years of devoted, sacrificial, faith-filled service in China. Her colorful missionary career there included ministries to muleteers, women, orphans, refugees, prisoners, soldiers and others. Her years of service were full of adventures, dangers, remarkable providential protection and provision, as well as much spiritual fruit.

After World War 2 Gladys helped establish and carry out ministries to Chinese refugees and orphans in England, Formosa (modern Taiwan) and Hong Kong. She also traveled widely throughout Britain, Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan, sharing of and raising funds for her ongoing ministries.

Books worth reading on Gladys Aylward’s life and ministry include: Gladys Aylward, The Little Woman (her autobiography, co-authored with Christine Hunter); A London Sparrow, The Story of Gladys Aylward, by Phyllis Thompson; Gladys Aylward, The Courageous English Missionary, by Catherine Swift; The Small Woman: Gladys Aylward, by Alan Burgess.

Copyright 2016 by Vance E. Christie