As Christmas time has drawn near, I found it fitting that our next Adventure Missions novel be “Lottie Moon” from the Christian Heroes: Then and Now series by Janet and Geoff Benge.
I have heard the name Lottie Moon passed around the Baptist church and even stamped on their Christmas offering, but had never personally read an account of the missionary’s life. Most are familiar with Lottie’s bold letters detailing the realities of the conditions faced in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s of Chinese missionary work. Lottie’s frank depictions of the disease and hardships mixed with her perseverance for Christ inspired many Christians into the mission field during her forty-one years of work in China. I wanted to share an excerpt with you from one of the last chapters of the book.
Where we pick up in the chapter, the Baptist Foreign Missions Board’s budget fell short of $56,000 in 1912 and therefore they were unable to send more funds and missionaries to aid in the work in China.
“The needs of the local people, however, were great because of the continuing famine, and Lottie was unsure what to do… Given the crisis, Lottie decided that every penny not spent on her was a penny she could give to help someone in need. Her old cook still made meals, but Lottie preferred to go out into the yard and give her portion of food to some passing emaciated child rather than eat it herself. Slowly, and without anyone realizing it, Lottie Moon was beginning to starve herself so that she could feed others.
By the time one of her fellow missionaries noticed what she was doing, Lottie weighed only fifty pounds. “
She was immediately sent off to a fellow missionary Dr. who decided that the best thing for Lottie was to return to the US to receive proper care for her 73 year old frail body.
“On December 13, 1912, Lottie was carried aboard the Manchuria, which was bound for San Francisco via Japan… Once Lottie was safely in bed in her cabin (on the ship), Lottie’s trunk, which had accompanied her on earlier journeys home, was placed at the foot of the bed. In fact, the trunk was empty. Lottie had given away everything she owned to needy Chinese people and had brought the trunk along only for appearances when she arrived in America.”
So why do we take a Lottie Moon offering at Christmas time?
Lottie Moon died on her return voyage to the US… she died on Christmas Eve, 1912. The annual Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions was titled in Lottie’s honor during the year of 1913 and later in 1918 it was permanently renamed in tribute of Lottie Moon’s devotion. The missionary who was to accompany Lottie Moon to America and witnessed her last breath, Cynthia Miller, penned in the final sentence of her account of Lottie’s final journey,
“It is infinitely touching that those who work hardest and make the most sacrifices for the Master should suffer because those in the homeland fail to give what is needed.”
Her trunk and her frail body spoke and speak volumes of her heart for the lost and dying world.
May we have such an open heart in us.
– Praying we meet our goal for Missions giving this year… that more would be called brothers and sisters in the Kingdom.
*** Quotations from “Lottie Moon: Giving Her All for China” by Janet and Geoff Benge pages 194, 197, 200. Copyright 2001 by YWAM Publishing.
