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There is great news happening on the missionary field! Word4asia.com is sending missionaries to China for the first time since Covid began!
China needs to hear the word of God, and efforts have been going for a long time, all the way back into the early 1900s. One of the most memorable efforts was made by a woman named Isobel Kuhn in the early 1900s.
Isobel was born in Toronto into a Christian family, but instead of having her own faith, she relied heavily on the faith of her parents. She went to the University of British Columbia and suffered through heart break there, struggling to cope. Her father prayed for her, but she didn't believe that the prayers actually worked. Isobel was in so much despair, that she considered ending it all, but then she remembered her father, and didn't follow through.
That night, she thought she could strike a deal with God and asked Him to prove Himself to her. She was finally able to get some sleep, and after a time, she began to feel better about the future. Isobel began to pick up her Bible and pray to God for help and strength. She began to see a change inside, but it really began to show, when she ran into the person who had broken her heart. After praying to God, she realized that she didn't feel angry any longer and that she could move on! This was when she realized for certain that God was real. Through this, she also realized you cannot and should not strike a deal with God.
She began to go to a Bible study and began attending lectures from Vancouver Bible College. Isobel became a schoolteacher, but she felt lonely without all of her collage friends. After moving around a bit, she met this lady who made her consider becoming a missionary. At first, Isobel's mother was unhappy about this, and forbid her to go, but Isobel felt God's calling. She attended some of Vancouver's Bible evening classes, but at the rate she was going it would be a long time before she became a missionary. But God intervened and a friend of Isobel's who was supposed to go to China, withdrew and decided to use the money to send Isobel to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. It was there she felt called to go minister to the Lisu people.
She became a part of the CIM in Toronto, so she could be sent to China. She met her future husband John Kuhn and excepted his proposal through telegraph, and she would meet and marry him in China. They served in many provinces in China throughout the years, doing God's work. When back in America, she began to have Bibles translated into Lisu, so she could give them to people to read when she went back to China. Isobel began the Rainy Season Bible School, and began to teach the natives in China Bible study, preaching, and evangelization.
Unfortunately, World War 2 began and shook-up Isobel and John's progress, because the Japanese were about to attack... especially since their daughter was in the village under attack. All they could do was wait. Their daughter was ok, but the Japanese were killing many people, and she was sent home to America. The Kuhn family was separated though in different countries now, but it wasn't long before John and Isobel were able to find a way back to America.
But she was persistent in her calling and returned to China, where she went to help the Lisu people again. The Japanese had been defeated, but now China was in a civil war between the Nationalist Chinese and the Communists. She knew that it was only a matter of time till the Communists took over, so she made it her mission to try to reach as many people as possible until that moment came. And she did indeed. Sadly, her life began to slip away in 1954, when cancer began to take over. Even then, her sight was on spreading the gospel, because she urged John to stay in Thailand, where he was being a missionary. But he came home to be with her, later on, despite her protests. Isobel Kuhn died on March 20, 1957, with the news that over 700 Lisu people had been baptized.
Much of this information was pulled from the Christian Heroes: Then and Now Isobel Kuhn by Janet and Geoff Benge.
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Beautiful story...I'm definitely not tearing up