At this time, she had returned to England and was giving talks at churches and schools all over the country. It is often forgotten that Gladys appeared on the popular television programme This is your life with Eamonn Andrews, on. Most of all, Gladys Aylward is an example for everyday ordinary people, that they can rise to do something for God that will make a difference in people’s lives. With God’s help, however, Gladys met every obstacle and is remembered today by millions the world over as the ‘small woman’ - a source of inspiration for those facing seeming impossible or insurmountable situations, including in foreign missions.
Then there was her famous trek for many days over high mountain ranges, with nearly 100 orphaned children, during the Sino-Japanese war in the late 1930s, to eventual safety across the Yellow River.Īs well as learning to read, write and speak fluent Chinese, and forgoing her British passport to become a naturalised Chinese citizen, this was the same missionary who had been deemed unqualified for Far Eastern challenges! These include her role as the mandarin’s official foot inspector helping to put an end to the cruel custom of foot-binding women, and her teaching of Bible stories to muleteers who passed through her inn at Yangcheng, even after Mrs Lawson died leaving Gladys alone in a remote area of China. The widely known facts about Gladys are well documented. Here she had arranged to assist an elderly, widowed missionary named Jeannie Lawson. She believed God had called her to go to China and she arrived, after a convoluted journey, at the village of Yangcheng, in the mountainous Shanxi province of northern China. After being rejected by the China Inland Mission as not being ‘qualified’ enough to learn Chinese, Gladys had decided to go it alone - only she wasn’t alone. Saving every spare penny she had, she put a deposit on a rail ticket to China, with the Trans-Siberian Railway. On suggesting this to her brother, Lawrence, he turned the idea back on her and said, ‘If you’re so interested in China, why don’t you go yourself?’ Dumbfounded, the reality hit Gladys - and that’s exactly what she did. Before long, she was cajoling friends and acquaintances into the idea of missionary service in that far-off land, but most were indifferent or laughed in derision.
Gladys became a parlour maid, as her progress in school was not outstanding.Īfter her conversion, she became increasingly concerned about the spiritual state of the millions of people in China who had never heard the gospel. Gladys May Aylward was born in Edmonton, London, in 1902, into a working-class family her parents both worked for the Post Office. Colin Nevin, who visited Gladys’ remote village of Yangcheng and paid respects at her grave in Taiwan on behalf of her family in England, shares with Evangelical Times some discoveries about one of the Christian heroines of the twentieth century. But there are many facets to Gladys’ story that are less well known. Most Christians are familiar with the story of Gladys Aylward, the diminutive London parlour maid and missionary to China, enshrined in Alan Burgess’ best-selling book The Small Woman and in the 1959 Hollywood film The inn of the sixth happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman.
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