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Mission Lessons From The Life of Gladys Aylward - Compress
Mission Lessons From The Life of Gladys Aylward - Compress
Gladys Aylward
Family
Born on 24th February 1902 in
London
Had a sister and brother
From a working class family (Dad
was a mailman)
Background
• Became a maid at 14
• Her call to missions came about when she
attended a revival meeting at 18 years where
the preacher expounded on giving one’s life
over to the service of the Lord
• In her mid 20s she applied to China Inland
Mission Centre in London
• This ended in failure at 26 when she failed her
exams and was rejected for service as a
missionary (they also told her she was too old
and unfit to learn the difficult language of
China).
• She decided if she wouldn’t go to China with
CIM she would go on her own. She went back
to work as a maid and started saving up for
the trip
• Four years later, at 30, she heard of an aging
missionary in China, Mrs. Lawson who was
looking for someone to take over after her.
• Wrote to Mrs. Lawson and was accepted,if she
could get herself to China
• With passport, Bible, train tickets and 2
pounds 9 pence she boarded a train and set
off for China (couldn’t afford to travel by ship)
• She bought a one way ticket and in October
1930 she set off to China by the Trans-Siberian
Railway, despite the fact that China and the
Soviet Union were engaged in an undeclared
war.
• At one point on her journey she was asked to
get off the train as it was being used to carry
only Russian soldiers. She insisted on staying
and was dropped off later in the middle of
nowhere to eventually retrace her steps on
foot and take another train through Siberia.
• Her journey was far from interesting as she
was illegally detained in Siberia and was going
to be used as labour in the factories. She said
she was a missionary and they said they
needed machinists.
• She travelled by train, ship, bus, mule and
finally got to Yangchen in the mountaneous
province of Shansi in China where she met
Mrs. Lawson.
• The residents had never seen foreigners
before and distrusted them, calling them
‘white devils’.