In my posts I try to gather info and pass it on to you. You can go to different sites and read the original sources that I gather from, but i hope my summaries make it simpler for you. Today, it’s Lottie Moon, missionary to China. Born in 1840, she went to China in 1873 at the age of 32 and spent 39 years there teaching women and girls and sharing the gospel in China. She was one of the first women to earn a master’s degree in the south. She never married (though engaged at one time) but instead dedicated her whole life to serving God. She spoke Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and was fluent in reading Hebrew. Instead of pursuing a career in the U.S. she chose to devote her life to sharing the gospel in China. She adopted Chinese dress and customs and identified with the Chinese people. “She took a special interest in Chinese women, establishing schools for girls and working to free them from customs such as foot binding.” (AI) Lottie had several nicknames in China—foreign devil, foreign lady teacher, heavenly book visitor, and the cookie maker. (Lottie baked cookies to win the hearts of the children and families who were frightened of her.)” (AI) She was often persecuted by Chinese who hated foreigners. “Throughout her missionary career, Moon faced plague, famine, revolution, and war. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894), the Boxer Rebellion (1900) and the Chinese Nationalist uprising (which overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911) all profoundly affected mission work. Famine and disease took their toll as well.” (from Wikipedia)

She is famous for her letters to southern Baptist Christians begging them to come do mission work in China among the 472 million Chinese living at that time, or send missionaries, or support sending missionaries. She was a realist. She once wrote home to the Foreign Mission Board, “Please say to the [new] missionaries: they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility and constant self-denial.” “Disease, turmoil and lack of co-workers threatened to undo Lottie’s work. But she gave herself completely to God, helping lay the foundation of what would become the modern Chinese church, one of the fastest-growing Christian movements in the world. Lottie Moon died at 72 — ill and in declining health after decades ministering to her beloved Chinese. But her legacy lives on. And today, when gifts aren’t growing as quickly as the number of workers God is calling to the field, her call for sacrificial giving rings with more urgency than ever.” (from the International Missions Board of the southern Baptist Church) There are now 1.4 billion Chinese. In 1918 the Women’s Missionary Union started the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international Missions. Lottie died in 1912. “In her final hours, she sang “Jesus Loves Me” with the missionary nurse who accompanied her. Lottie made one final gesture, pushing her fists together in the form of the Chinese greeting.” (AI) Due to declining health and sharing her food with starving Chinese, she weighed 50 pounds when she died. She was a feminist, promoting gender equality. She would have fit in quite well with the modern feminist movement!

I enjoyed learning more about Lottie Moon. I continue to be amazed at foreign missionaries like Lottie who suffered much to do life long mission work in foreign countries. My usual rant: the church in the U.S. should be sending and supporting missionaries to the unreached peoples groups around the world instead of spending 80% of the contributions on staff and buildings. Pray for all the missionaries abroad. In the messages to the 7 churches (Revelation 2,3), a warning is given several times to the churches to get back to their first love, to strengthen the things that remain, to repent of sin and worldliness, to oppose false teaching (like the lGBQT movement that has captured many churches), and to awake from lukewarm complacency. Those warnings would apply to many churches in the U.S.