MRS. CHING

One day as I travelled, the road was especially rough and stony, for it led straight across the mountains. The mules were laden with provisions and bedding, and I was sitting right on top of the pack being carried by the leader of the mules. I was hot, tired and dirty and would have liked a bath and a comfortable bed, for we had travelled a long way since leaving home. But just ahead lay a village with a bad reputation, so I had more important things than baths to worry about. The two soldiers who had been appointed to act as my body-guards walked solidly along beside the mules. They scarcely spoke, but I believe they were secretly proud to be in charge of this strange foreign woman. They had found that although I was small they had to do as I told them. They had also found that I always told them the truth, and that I treated them kindly. In time, my soldiers and I became quite fond of each other. As we entered Yuan Tsun (Luster Village), no one was in sight, until a muleteer shouted, and out ran the innkeeper. We were taken into a filthy, dark room, smelling horribly of animals. The innkeeper looked at me suspiciously when told that I was Ai-weh-deh, and why I had come. “I will see the women tonight,” I said. “Wait until tomorrow,” the inn-keeper suggested. “If I do, word will get around the village, and the women will have time to hide the little girls. We will begin at once,” I replied firmly. So my two soldiers and I started out, the innkeeper muttering curses after us. I told my soldiers to hurry, for I felt sure that the innkeeper was already sending messengers around the village. We saw several women and inspected the children, and ordered that there must be no more bound feet. Then we came to a house where there was no glimmer of light. I felt that here there was going to be a struggle. I knocked and called. There was absolute silence. Then one of my soldiers banged on the door, shouting, “Open up, this is Ai-weh-deh who has been sent by the Mandarin.” Still silence. “Call and tell them that I am coming in through the window if the door is not opened,” I ordered. The door opened a crack, and a tiny, frightened face peered round it. Immediately I pushed the door wide, and stepped inside. “Now, woman,” I said boldly, “I know what you are hiding, because the God I worship has told me all about it. So bring those little girls out at once, or I will search and find them myself.” The woman scuttled away and returned with a poor, thin, terrified little creature about four years old. She could not stand for her little feet were in the process of being bound and her eyes were full of tears. She crouched pitifully on the floor. I picked up the child, the tears now streaming down my face at the sight of her misery. “Is all well?” shouted the soldiers at the door. “All is well,” I replied and sat on the kang (brick bed), with the child on my knee and quickly unbound her tiny, hot, aching feet. “Fetch some warm water in a bowl,” I ordered. “Oh, that is good,” the child murmured, her tears turning to smiles as I massaged and bathed her feet. I started singing softly and the child relaxed sleepily in my arms. Suddenly she started up. “What about Precious Pearl, and Jade Lily, and Glorious Ruby and Crystal?” “They will come too,” I said gently and put her down. “Bring the other children,” I ordered the woman, who had stood staring at me all this time. “There are no other children,” she declared. “That child talks stupidly.” Going to the door, I called to my soldiers, “There are other little girls, but this woman will not bring them out.” “There are no more children!” she shouted. “Then we will search,” the soldiers said firmly. “Very well, I will bring them,” the woman said sulkily, and brought out four others. I unbound all their tiny feet, and bathed each one, singing to them and loving them. At first they were intimidated and terrified, but gradually their fear disappeared, and before long all five little girls were peacefully asleep. Feeling that I dared not leave these children, for I did not trust the woman who had charge of them, I told the soldiers to fetch our belongings from the inn. They made themselves as comfortable as possible in the outer room while I shared the kang with the five children and the frightened, grumpy woman. A little lamp containing peanut oil was left burning, so the room was not in complete darkness. In the middle of the night I awakened to see the woman sitting up, weeping bitterly. Creeping over to her, I asked her what was the matter. “I am frightened of my master,” she sobbed. “He will kill me when he returns.” “I will deal with him,” I said boldly. “I have been sent by the Government, and my two soldiers will see to it that he does you no harm.” “You cannot understand,” she moaned. “He is wicked and cruel. He bought me, and now he has bought these children. As soon as their feet are ready, he will sell them to whoever will pay the most money for them.” “I know Someone who will take away all your fear,” I replied. “Jesus Christ has sent me to help you. I will tell you about Him, and He will comfort you.” Lying beside this poor, frightened, lonely woman, who had been bought like a mule and was now kept like a slave, I told her the story of God's great love for poor creatures like herself, of Jesus Who loved her and died for her; and I told her how happy she could be. This wonderful news seemed too good to be true. Never had she heard anything like this before. How much she longed for this Jesus to help her and to save her from the terrible beating her master would give her when he heard that she had let Ai-weh-deh into the house. For two more days I went from house to house with my soldiers, returning each night to the home of the five little girls, where Mrs. Ching was living in dread of the moment when her master would return. On the third morning, I roused them all as soon as it was light. “I am going to take you all to live with me in the city in my mule inn where I have other little boys and girls,” I told Tiger Lily, Precious Pearl, Jade Lily, Glorious Ruby and Crystal. “You will learn to read and to sing and to love Tien Fu (your heavenly Father), Who sent me to look after you.” “What about Mrs. Ching?” they asked. They did not love this woman, for she had been cruel and unkind to them, but they knew what would happen if she were left behind. “Mrs. Ching will go with us too,” I replied. The children rushed around excitedly on their unbound feet, full of happy expectation. Already they looked very different from the frightened, dirty little waifs I had first seen. My two soldiers seemed quite glad to take such a large group under their protection and all of us, with the exception of Mrs. Ching, set off gladly for home. She, poor woman, believed she was being taken to prison. To her the city was an awful place. There would be no one to speak for her. Her master would follow her because he had paid money for her, and he would either leave her in prison or drag her back to the village and beat her continually. On reaching the city, it seemed as if hundreds of children rushed out to greet us. Actually there were only twenty-four, but they jumped and shouted and knocked each other over in their efforts to be the first to reach me. The old man who acted as cook calmly looked on. He was just as glad to see us as the children, but he was too old to shout and run. Bao Bao (Precious Bundle), the youngest, somehow reached me first, and I took him in my arms. I was as delighted to see my dear children as they were to see me. Gradually they quieted down, and politely, one by one, I introduced the newcomers. Then I handed the five awed little girls over to a “big sister” who took them away to be washed and fed and put to bed. Mrs. Ching watched all this in silence. Then she came nearer and said, “When are you going to send me to prison?” “Prison!” I exclaimed. “I am not going to send you to prison. This is going to be your home. You will have to sleep with me, I am afraid, as the inn will be full tonight.” Mrs. Ching stared in amazement. “You mean you want me to live here with you? You know how mean and cruel I had been to those little girls. I refused your God, I was rude to you, yet you still want me?” “Yes, I want you because my God wants you,” I replied. Mrs. Ching turned away and stumbled into the kitchen, where Chang, the old man, was stirring a huge pot. I Followed and stood near the door, wondering how Chang would treat the newcomer. “You can stir this,” he said without looking up. “I want to make a little pot of nice thick porridge for my dear one.” “Your ‘dear one’? An old man like you has a ‘dear one’?” Mrs. Ching exclaimed. “Yes, I am sixty-eight, and I love for the first time in my life, and not even one of my own race. But I am not ashamed. I love her because she told me about Jesus.” “Oh, you mean Ai-weh-deh?” “Who else? I was a lonely, bad-tempered old man until she came to my village. I listened to her stories and her songs, and I was interes-ted. I learned that she needed a cook, and here I am. I cannot cook, but that does not matter. I do my best. I love these children, to whom Ai-weh-deh is now more than father and mother. Oh yes, sometimes they are naughty, but Ai-weh-deh says God loves even naughty, wicked people, so we must do the same.” At that moment the children swarmed in from the other door-way, holding up their little bowls to be filled. Then standing around we sang: Come and eat, for Jesus invites you; He loves and feeds you. Just trust Him. Amen. Just as they had finished eating, there was a commotion outside the inn, and in came a crowd of muleteers with their dirty, tired mules. Mrs. Ching stared in bewilderment as these rough men settled down with their bowls of food. It was almost dark when I went into the crowded courtyard and began to talk to the children and men who were gathered there. We sang a chorus, I said a short prayer, then I told the old, old story of God's great love for man. They sat there in the twilight, listening intently, only the stamp of the mules disturbing the peace of the evening. Then the children hurried off to bed, and one by one, the men also fell asleep. Gradually the inn settled for the night. Only Mrs. Ching and I, in our little room, were awake. Suddenly she burst into tears. “I have been a wicked woman, Ai-weh-deh,” she sobbed, “but I want to be different. “Teach me how to live for the Jesus you talk and sing about. Ask Him to forgive my sins and to give me peace.” Together we knelt down and prayed to the loving Saviour Who had seen this poor woman’s misery, and soon she was radiant with joy! After a great struggle, we were able to buy Mrs. Ching from her horrible master. Soon she was telling other women like herself how Jesus Christ had saved her and changed her life from one of misery to one of joy. “My heart was bound up tight with sin, like I bound up the feet of the little girls,” she said. “Now I am free and my heart can grow big with happiness!” [Gladys Aylward with Christine Hunter, The Little Woman, Moody Publishers, Chicago, 1974]. Gladys Aylward (1902–1970) was born in London. She was a former domestic worker who became a missionary in China and is best known for her work with children. Aylward became a Chinese citizen in 1936. Four years later, despite being in ill health herself, she led more than 100 children over the mountains to safety at the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War. She eventually settled in Taiwan and set up an orphanage where she died in 1970. Her life story was portrayed by Ingrid Bergman in the 1958 American 20th Century Fox film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.