![]() ![]() As they started for the interior after Carrie had had four wisdom teeth pulled without anesthetics they returned because complications developed. He was sure she could feel better if she made an effort. No romantic, Andrew thought Carrie's seasickness on the way over was all foolishness. The Bucks started to China as soon as they were married. 'It seemed to me to be the only way of putting everything clearly before her for her mature reflection." Daughter Pearl Buck asked him how he had proposed to Carrie, when he was ready to take her along on his mission. ![]() It gives less evidence of Pearl Buck's understanding of her father than of her stubborn attempt to understand him.Īndrew was tall, bony, large-faced, the son of a hot-tempered West Virginia landowner, born into what the neighbors said was the "preachingest family in Greenbrier County, with dissenting blood as strong as lye." When he got the call to be a missionary nothing could stop him, neither the opposition of his father, his lack of resources nor the five years he had to spend on the farm before he could start college at the age of 21. If The Exile is a labor of love, Fighting Angel is a labor of filial justice. This week in another purely biographical volume that is the December choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Pearl Buck gets around to giving her father his innings. Good, unquestioning, self-righteous, he caused Carrie more suffering than he knew. He emerged as a zealous, absent-minded man who was constantly pushing deeper into China to gather converts of doubtful loyalty and understanding. In that affectionate volume, Carrie Sydenstricker, sensible missionary and patient mother, far overshadowed her husband Andrew. Less than a year ago, Pearl Syden-stricker Buck published a sympathetic portrait of her mother called The Exile (TIME, Jan. Here is an interesting TIME magazine review (Nov. ![]() For Aylward that was a direct sign from God, and on October 15, 1932, tickets in hand, she departed from the Liverpool Street Station en route to China. (Rail passage through Europe, Russia, and Siberia was the cheapest transportation available.) She also began reading and inquiring about China, which brought her in contact with Jeannie Lawson, an elderly widowed China missionary who was eager to have assistance. She began depositing all her scant savings with the ticket agent at the railway station. So, alone in her little bedroom, once again employed as a parlor maid, she began planning for mission work in China. She was convinced that God was calling her, and if she could not obtain a mission’s sponsorship she would go on her own. It was this dream that brought her to the CIM headquarters in 1929, and it was that same dream that would not die when she was denied candidacy after her probationary term was over. With her conversion, her life changed, and she began dreaming about being a missionary. Although she had attended church occasionally, it was not until she was confronted by a stranger that she made profession of faith. It was with this combination of fantasy and reality that Alyward moved through her twenties, and perhaps would have continued on into her thirties and beyond but for a significant change in her life. She studied as hard as the other students, but, according to one biographer, “when it came to imbibing knowledge by normally accepted methods, Gladys’s powers of mental digestion seemed automatically to go into neutral, and occasionally reverse.” But despite this handicap, she became one of the most noted single woman missionaries in modern history. Although shewas bright conversationally, book learning seemed impossible for her. At twenty-eight, her age as not in her favor, but the primary reason for rejecting her was her poor academic showing - which may have been caused by a profound learning disability. She applied to the China Inland Mission in 1930 (a mission with a long-standing reputation for its acceptance of women) only to be turned down after a probationary term at the mission’s training center. If sex discrimination had been a factor in the past for women who had been denied missionary appointments, it was not the case with Gladys Aylward. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |