The Life of Gladys Aylward
Gladys Aylward returned to her job as a housemaid with a heavy heart.
She was sure God had called her to be a missionary to China, but having just failed Bible school she knew that no missionary organisation would sponsor her, and because she had no rich friends, she would have to save the money for the fare from London herself.
Once Gladys had earned three pounds, the twenty-seven-year-old set out to find a shipping agency who would get her a deposit on a ticket to China. The clerk behind the desk didn’t take her seriously at first, but Gladys was determined.
She got the deposit and returned every Friday for seven months with a little more money until she had paid off the ticket.
Gladys knew that if she was going to get more missionary training, she would have to give it to herself. So she went to a busy square, climbed onto a soapbox, and started preaching. Many of those passing by jeered at her.
But each time she did this, Gladys cared less and less about what those people thought of her.
One day at church her ears pricked up when she overheard a woman talking about an elderly missionary, Mrs Lawson, who had just returned to China. Mrs Lawson had wanted to take someone back and train them up, so that they could carry on her work when she died.
Gladys blurted, “That’s me!” Then she copied down Mrs Lawson's address, which was in Tientsin province.
A Treacherous Journey
And so, on the 15th of October 1930, a large crowd gathered at the train station to wave her goodbye. Gladys clambered aboard carrying everything she owned. The train chugged her across Europe through Russia into Siberia.
The further they rode, the colder it became.
Gladys also noticed the kind of passengers aboard. As grannies and businessmen stepped off, soldiers climbed on until she was the last civilian on the train.
Then, there came a point where the train could not continue, for there was fighting going on up ahead. The conductor had tried to get her off at Chita, which had the last train station, but she had misunderstood because of the language barrier and stubbornly stayed on the train.
Now, the conductor launched into a charades act explaining that the train was staying here and that Gladys would have to walk thirty miles through the snow back to Chita.
She had no other option but to obey.
After a tiring journey up the train track, Gladys curled up in the snow alone with the sound of wolves howling and cannons firing.
Two days later, in Chita, the official examining her passport got excited when he noticed her occupation: “missionary.”
“Ah! We need good machinist who make machine go good!” he exclaimed. Gladys eventually gave up trying to convey to him the difference between “missionary” and “machinery.”
After taking most of the clothes in her bag, the officials put Gladys on a train heading to China.
But this was not to be.
More confusion led to her driving to Vladivostok instead. Here again, her passport was checked, however this time they changed “missionary” to “machinist."
When a rowdy hotel clerk, who was intent on sending her to the factories, took to following her every move, Gladys knew that she must escape.
Very kindly, a pair of complete strangers snuck her out of the hotel and led her to the docks where she boarded a ship to Japan. There was a missionary compound in Japan where she was warmly welcomed, and here she had her first good night’s sleep since leaving London.
She was soon aboard a steamship to Tientsin, China.
Gladys gratefully thanked God that her journey was nearly over.
Gladys Aylward Arrives in China
One of the first things she noticed there was the women and girls painfully hobbling about on their tiny bound feet. In China, small feet were considered beautiful.
When she arrived in Tientsin, Gladys was distraught to learn that Mrs Lawson hadn’t been there for some time. In fact, the last anyone had heard of her she was a twenty-five days’ journey away by train and then by bus.
After a bone-jarring ride, Gladys finally made it there only to discover that Mrs Lawson had left that district months ago. She was supposedly staying in a walled town called Yangcheng nestled high in the mountains, which took two days by mule train to reach.
Sitting in a basket on a mule’s back, Gladys prayed that Mrs Lawson really would be there.
Despite the many picturesque houses in Yangcheng, the mule train stopped in front of what looked like an abandoned, vandalised building.
An elderly woman stepped out of the rubble and introduced herself as Mrs Lawson. This white-haired, blue-eyed woman had a sharp gruff manner, toughened by fifty-three years of service in China.
The people of Yangcheng were afraid of white “foreign devils” and threw mud and spat on them. Amongst other entertainment, executions were a common occurrence. Eventually, the townspeople started tolerating Mrs Lawson and Gladys, however, they still would never think of attending a Bible study or Church.
Then, one afternoon, Mrs Lawson had an idea.
They would convert their house into an inn for the travelling muleteers. It would be an inviting clean place and it would offer something unique: Bible stories.
The people could never resist a good story.
When it was up and running, Gladys’s job was bringing the mules into their courtyard and cleaning and feeding them. Ten months later, the inn was proving to be a great success.
While Mrs Lawson was on a trip to a nearby village, news reached Gladys that she had fallen from a balcony and hurt herself.
Gladys set out to find her immediately.
Mrs Lawson was much worse than Gladys had imagined, and she died three weeks later back at the inn.
This left Gladys in charge of the finances and management.
An Unexpected New Career
It was only then that Gladys discovered that Mrs Lawson had been using her supporters’ donations to pay the large monthly tax to the district’s mandarin. Gladys had no supporters, and the inn’s profits only covered enough money for itself.
Upsetting the Mandarin could mean your head would be the next on the wall.
Then one day the mandarin himself paid Gladys an unexpected visit. Being someone who never concerned himself with minor matters, Gladys suspected the end of herself. Instead, the Mandarin had come to ask a favour of her.
You see, the new government had just outlawed foot binding, and they were holding each Mandarin personally responsible for the un-binding of every single girl’s feet in their province. However, because no man was allowed to look at a woman’s feet, the Mandarin needed a woman with unbound feet to travel his province and ensure that all girls’ feet were unbound.
There was only one woman who fit that job description: Gladys.
So, accompanied by two soldiers, she set out the next day.
With the Mandarin’s authority backing her, Gladys was respected in all the towns she went to, and she grew to know many village elders. She likewise preached about the living God wherever she travelled and grew extremely familiar with the countryside of that district.
The Mandarin was so impressed with the job she had done that any time he needed the bravest person in the province, he would call for her.
Prison Ministry
This is why she was summoned to the prison when the prisoners were rioting and killing each other.
The Warden and soldiers were too scared to go in, so they summoned Gladys and commanded her, “You, and the living God about whom you preach, go into the prison and stop the riot.”
An idea had developed that because she had the living God within her, she couldn’t be killed. She reasoned that if she didn’t go in, word would spread around Yangcheng that there was no living God in her.
On the other hand, she also knew that Christians could certainly still be killed.
While praying under her breath, she agreed to go in. Miraculously, she captured the prisoners’ attention. Taking charge, she ordered the dead to be piled up and the weapons handed to her.
One prisoner came over to her and introduced himself.
He apologised for the fight and explained that they really hadn’t meant to kill anyone. All they did every day was sit and wait for the day to end.
Gladys was horrified and visited the prison warden every day for months until she convinced him to provide the bored prisoners with useful occupations. She ran many of the activities herself and the situation within the prison was turned around.
The Second World War and the Japanese Invasion
One day, as Gladys was walking to report to the Mandarin about her foot inspection tours, she came across a child seller. The lady had a sick little girl that she was trying to sell. Gladys bought or ‘adopted’ the child—as she preferred to think of it.
Not long afterwards, she took in a little boy—and as WWII broke out over Yangcheng, the inn became home to many more children whose parents had died in those perilous Japanese bombings.
Along with the devastation of the bombs, came word that the Japanese were marching toward Yangcheng. They would arrive in two days.
The Mandarin and Gladys decided that, once the dead had been buried, everyone must abandon the town and disperse throughout the countryside.
Because of her foot-inspecting travels, Gladys knew the perfect place to go. She led a group of about forty people to a small town with no road that led to it and it wasn’t on any map either. They lived there in caves and sent scouts back to Yangcheng to report the happenings there.
Just when it seemed that it would be safe to move back to town, news arrived that the Japanese were coming back.
Before leaving Yangcheng for the final time, the Mandarin held an important meeting. Gladys sat in the seat of honour and listened in curiosity as the Mandarin gave a full account of all the incredible things she’d done, reaching the climax, he announced that he had decided to become a Christian too.
Throughout the war, thousands of people found their way to the converted cove, which was now a makeshift hospital.
After the Japanese Occupation of Yangcheng
When Gladys discovered that the Japanese had again retreated from Yangcheng, she repaired the inn and moved her nearly 200 children back there.
She had heard of an orphanage out of the warzone in the next province, Sian, which could house some of her children. So she kissed one hundred of them goodbye—all of whom arrived safely at the orphanage five weeks later.
Because or her knowledge of the countryside, the Nationalist government asked Gladys to keep track of the Japanese troop’s movements and report to them.
Soon an American journalist found his way to Gladys and wrote an article on her activities including her spy work for the Chinese. It was published in the Times magazine and read by millions worldwide.
Her name became a household word.
Unfortunately, a copy of this fell into the hands of the Japanese. Gladys was now a marked woman. Her name appeared on wanted posters, which offered a great reward to the person who handed her in.
Gladys was famous one hundred miles around, and she knew that eventually some person would give in to this temptation.
However, Gladys was determined not to leave unless God sent her away. Praying for guidance, she opened her Bible and read the verse her finger was on. It read, “Flee ye! Flee ye into the mountains! Dwell deeply in the hidden places, because the king of Babylon has conceived a purpose against you!”
So along with her ninety-four remaining children, Gladys Aylward trudged out of Yangcheng for the last time. They headed across high mountain trails, trying to avoid the Japanese. Twelve days later and utterly exhausted, they entered an abandoned village on the banks of the Yellow River.
Into Hiding
Sian was an eight-day train ride beyond the river. But even the train station on the other side seemed like an eternity away. The starving children sat on the riverbank for four days while Gladys drifted in and out of consciousness.
All that while, not a single boat passed them.
Luckily, a Chinese Nationalist soldier overheard them singing and arranged a boat to take them across. When Gladys heard that, from there, a train could take them all the way to Sian, she put her hands over her face and sobbed with thankfulness.
But four days in, they discovered that a bridge had been bombed. So they walked another five days across more mountains and then rode on coal cars for three days and reached Sian at last!
But no.
Soldiers were guarding the train station there, to ensure that no more refugees came into Sian.
Gladys was told that the city of Fufeng may still accept them. Fufeng was a three days’ journey away. When they at last reached Fufeng, Gladys couldn’t celebrate.
She didn’t know where she was or who she was.
Despite her condition, she managed to find an orphanage that took all her children. Two days later, Gladys fell into a coma that no one could wake her from.
She was transferred to a hospital, where she lay semi-conscious for two months.
When she had recovered, Gladys returned to the missionary work that she loved so much.
Conclusion
In the following years, Gladys Aylward worked in prisons, refugee camps and leper communities. She witnessed more bloodshed as the communists took over.
She watched many of her converts be beheaded because of their Christian beliefs. Gladys was now watched much of the time and feared that she was endangering the local believers.
Although it had been seven years since her trek through the mountains, she needed more medical help and lots of rest.
She reluctantly accepted a ticket back to London.
After seventeen years apart, neither Gladys nor her parents recognised each other. In fact, Gladys looked older and more frail than her mother.
In England, Gladys was embarrassed to find out how famous she had become.
But in her heart, she longed to return to China.
Because no one was allowed to enter the mainland, Gladys sailed for Formosa, China, arriving in 1957 after ten years in England. Here, she continued her mission work and was grateful—just like Mrs Lawson had been—when a young missionary arrived from England to help her.
On New Year's Day, in 1970, Gladys Aylward fell asleep and never awoke.
She had lived a hard, full, and extremely influential life.
References:
Benge, J&G. (1998) Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime. Seattle: YWAM Publishing.
Burgess, A. (1959) The Small Woman: The heroic story of Gladys Aylward. London, Evans Brothers Limited.