Chapter 16

THE AFTERYEARS

Fifty years have now sped by since our Weihsien prison camp days, and in so many ways these years were only possible because of the hammering, molding and refining effect of the earlier days of deprivation. They provided us with an armor for meeting the difficulties; they were an object lesson proving that perseverance wins in the end and God doesn't fail — even in the roughest of times. As we emerged from our years in camp it was with a much deeper reliance upon God and the certainty that He fulfills His promises!

The first morning, after arriving at OMS headquarters in Los Angeles, we were invited to tea at the home of OMS President, Mrs. Lettie B. Cowman. How godly and gracious she was. She looked at my pea-green army jacket, khaki shirt and trousers and particularly noticed my army boots. In the course of conversation she asked, "Would you object if I sent Lydia Bemmels (her nurse and companion) with you to buy a new pair of shoes?"

"No, of course not," I replied. Afterwards she requested that I give the old shoes to her, and later we heard she actually took up missionary offerings using those army boots as offering plates.

We were booked on one of the nicer trains from Los Angeles to Richmond, Virginia. Once, while sitting in the lounge car, the hostess came and visited with us. When there was a lull in the conversation, Sandra took her hand and while looking intently at her vividly painted fingernails asked in a plaintive tone, "Do they really hurt you very much?" We had five years of catching up to do.

In Richmond we were royally welcomed by Christine's family, relatives and church friends. We were made to feel special in that God had wonderfully protected us and spared our lives even in times of great danger. The Lord so helped that there was no thought of "pity poor me" or "what a difficult time we have had" but only praise for deliverance. How much we had for which to be thankful. After about ten days, we went by train to Gloversville, New York, where Mother and Dad were pastoring. They rolled out the red carpet for us. In short order Dad, knowing our need, scouted around for a used car. OMS had by this time sent a check for back allowance and so we had money in hand. In a providential set of circumstances we were led to a dealer who had a demonstrator, which he sold to us for $850 a '46 Ford V-8 sedan. In the immediate postwar months, this in itself was a small miracle.

OMS granted permission for further graduate study if I would do weekend deputation meetings and Christine would take meetings in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. She would travel by Greyhound bus, even though pregnant with our second child. In September, 1946, I entered The Biblical Seminary in New York. I was eager to learn the inductive method of Bible study to teach in our school in China. Late in April I received a phone call informing me that Christine had entered the hospital early that morning. I hopped the first train to Washington, D. C., and then took the next bus to Richmond. When I phoned Mother Camden, she broke the news that a healthy baby boy had been born that afternoon. I exclaimed, "A boy! Wonderful!" All in the waiting room got the announcement, with grins all around! That year I finished two-thirds of the requirements for my Master of Sacred Theology degree. But completion of the project would have to wait until our furlough of '61-'62.

Just as soon as final exams were written I left with two students for Winona Lake, Indiana, driving all night. Then, almost immediately, I went on to Asbury College because my brother-in-law, Dr. Eugene Erny, was the speaker for missionary day just prior to graduation. The night before commencement, however, I awakened with the hemorrhaging of a duodenal ulcer and was rushed to Lexington's Good Samaritan Hospital. For two days my life seemed to hang on a fragile thread. Christine came quickly from Richmond, leaving six-week-old Gery with her mother. Many were praying and Asbury students volunteered to give enough blood for nine transfusions. Slowly I began to recover, but for six months it was necessary to live on a diet of milk and strained baby food.

Thus, our return to the Orient was delayed until April, 1948. And, of course, we wanted to get back to „our people — our work.” But, our returning at that time was very difficult for me (Christine). Some weeks before our projected sailing date, my mother had had a mild heart attack. She remained at home but needed a great deal of bed rest. We had planned to drive across the country and sell our car in L.A. Now as the time of our departure drew nearer, I began "suggesting" to her that Meredith and Sandra would go on schedule, and I would keep ten-month-old Gery and help there at home. But each time I mentioned such a change in plans, she became agitated, saying we were needed in China and she would not even think of our delaying. I talked with her doctor, and he, too, encouraged me to go, saying her primary need was a time of worry-free rest. In praying for the Lord's guidance, I could find nothing (but my heart) that would warrant my staying. So with a tearful farewell we left. Ten days later Dad phoned us in Los Angeles, saying Mom was in the hospital. Then I knew I must have the Lord's clear word for going or staying. Gery was teething and irritable, and I was trying to get clothing for the four of us washed and ironed for the just over three-week voyage. I found very little time in our cramped quarters to get alone with the Word. But I prayed morning, noon, and night. Whatever else I was doing, I was praying. And, as always, He gave a very definite answer — "Leave your mother with Me." So we sailed and, of course, no message reached us while we were aboard the ship. We were in Nanking seven weeks before the cable came. Her funeral had been the week before. Yes, sometimes He asks hard things of His children but never, never, without the promise of His loving Presence.

Our new assignment was Nanking, central China (Meredith continues), where the Uri Chandler family and we were commissioned to rebuild the OMS Bible Institute. (The former Shanghai school had been bombed and burned during the war. Now it was decided to relocate in Nanking, the capital of the Republic.) We embarked upon our work with enthusiasm, started Bible classes in rented quarters, and located property for a new seminary campus. Then things began to fall apart. Chinese Communist troops started to roll down over China like a tidal wave, and soon we were hearing the big guns booming just across the Yangtse River from us. We had been back only seven months when evacuation notices came from the American Embassy. In 48 hours we packed all we could. The U.S. brought a destroyer up the river, taking Christine and our two children along with many other Americans to Shanghai, from where they sailed on the S.S. General Gordon to San Francisco.

Uri and I stayed on to close up that center of work. Stoves, desks, refrigerators, files and an assortment of mission equipment were crated and shipped out. We sold a few articles, but nobody wanted to buy anything with the prospect of a Communist take-over any day. The rate of currency exchange at that time was $2,000,000 Chinese to $1 U.S., which meant that when we sold a living room suite for 10 million we were getting only about $5 in our money. The pressures were great and varied. Would we be prisoners again? My ulcer became active and I was having stomach spasms. In spite of crowds fleeing the city, I managed to squeeze on a train bound for Shanghai and on New Year's Day checked into the China Inland Mission Hospital there.

After two weeks of bed rest, soft, bland diet and milk, I was told I could proceed to Canton. I made a booking on a war-vintage C-46. One engine sputtered and died, but we landed safely in the south China city.

Four months of recuperation followed, during which I enjoyed fellowship with the OMS group — the Howard Hills, the Dale McClains, and the Loren Sparks families. My new appointment arrived telling me to go to Allahabad, India, where I would fill in as academic dean for Wesley Duewel who was doing doctoral studies at the University of Cincinnati.

So in mid-May of 1949 I left Canton by bus for Hong Kong. The next stage was a flight in a non-pressurized DC-4 to Calcutta. The 90 of us aboard gasped for breath as we climbed to 13,000 feet over the mountains to land in Rangoon for the scheduled overnight stay.

Rangoon was hot and humid, and we had little time to clean up before the dinner hour in our hotel. Upon checking in I hurriedly hung my suit coat in the closet, washed, and went down to the evening meal. It had been a long eventful day, and soon after dinner I retired. At 6 a.m. we were called, and after a quick breakfast left for the airport.

When our bus was halfway to the airport, I suddenly remembered my suit coat hanging in the closet. The bottom of my world seemed to drop away as I realized that my passport, traveler's checks, and instructions from Eugene Erny (then India's field director) were in the pockets of that coat. What could I do? My mind became a cauldron of confusion. To cancel my flight would mean waiting in Rangoon for another week. In my imagination I could hear Christine saying, "You need a wife, Dear!"

At the airport we were soon called to board the plane. I filed in with the other passengers, found my seat, and fastened my seatbelt. One by one the engines came to life . . . except the fourth one. Grinding away on the starter, the pilot had no success. Finally the stewardess announced, "As you can see, we're having a minor problem with motor four. Passengers will please return to the waiting room. As soon as repairs are made we'll proceed to Calcutta."

Was the Lord working on my behalf? Running to the nearest phone, I tried to call the hotel. It was a long distance call and with insurgent troops operating near the city, the connection was extremely poor. When I finally got through, I yelled into the mouthpiece to be heard but the receptionist offered little hope. "The taxi drivers are not honest," she insisted, "and the hotel will take no responsibility for the coat or its contents"

"But, please," I begged, "send the first available taxi and tell the driver I'll make it worth his while."

The suspenseful moments dragged by. Each ten minutes seemed to be two hours. I paced back and forth in front of the airport looking for the taxi, while lifting urgent requests heavenward.

Finally, a rickety vintage cab chugged up in a cloud of dust. The driver had my coat with all of the contents in place! My heart did a tango as I paid that Burmese cabby liberally and thanked the Lord over and over.

Within minutes I heard, "Repairs are completed and CNAC's flight will proceed to Calcutta." We re-boarded and soon looked out at the fluffy, cumulus clouds over the Bay of Bengal. Settling back I reveled in a new understanding of a caring Heavenly Father who delayed a planeload of passengers long enough for a poor, forgetful missionary to retrieve a very important coat.

India was a tough assignment. This was 1949, shortly after India's independence, when all white faces were viewed with suspicion. When I stepped from the plane in Calcutta it was like entering a steam bath — high humidity and temperature above the 100 degree mark. The OMS Bible Seminary, for North India, is located in Allahabad at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna (now Yumuna) Rivers, one of the most sacred spots in all of the country. Classes began the first week in July, and I immediately plunged into class preparation and lectures. It was not until late August that word came informing me that Christine and the children had obtained a booking aboard the S.S. City of Lucknow, a British freighter, and would be arriving in Bombay in late September.

To be sure, I traveled to Bombay to meet them. We had been apart almost ten months; and in the meantime she had crossed the Pacific, gone from west to east in the U.S. with two small children, and kept house many months for her father in Richmond, Virginia. Finally, space was found on this particular ship sailing out of Montreal, crossing the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Then, to my dismay, I learned that because of crowded docks the ship was anchored far away in the outer harbor. I managed to hire a small rowboat and got out to the S.S. City of Lucknow. What a joyful reunion, but our son didn't even know me!

Our India assignment lasted till 1954. These were five years of growing and learning with heavy class responsibilities for the 30 or so students. I especially enjoyed teaching New Testament Greek (with the aid of J. Gresham Machen's textbook) while Christine taught Old Testament. Dr. Eugene Erny was elected president of OMS and in February, 1950, he and his family departed India for Los Angeles headquarters. That year he bequeathed to me the job of editing Revival Magazine and the writing of a correspondence course on the Book of Acts. These proved to be labors of love, and I greatly enjoyed the many hours of study and the proofreading of each month's magazine. The press facility was extremely poor and type was hand set. Yet the letters of appreciation and of spiritual help and blessing were a great encouragement to Christine and me.

An enjoyable part of our assignment was to lead youth sings at a private school for Anglo-Indian students. Most Monday mornings Christine or I played the piano, led in the singing of choruses, and then she gave an object lesson. We loved those young people and were grateful for the privilege of telling them more of His love.

The annual Spiritual Life Convention was a high point of each year. This provided opportunity to reach out to the whole community and enjoy the ministries of outstanding evangelists. Five hundred people and more would pack out the shamiana (tent pavilion) erected in front of the school's administration building for those eight days of special meetings.

We witnessed, and had part in, the beginnings and rise of the Evangelical Fellowship of India. This annual convocation brought a whole new perspective for cooperative evangelical missions in India. It was an encouragement to us, who were working in areas where few were willing to cut off their chutia (the long lock of hair at the base of the head) and step out as witnesses for Christ. One family actually committed their son to an insane asylum rather than permit him to take Christian baptism.

On September 25, 1950 (the 10th anniversary of our sailing to Peking), Sheryl Lynn was born. Christine was in an Anglo-Indian clinic where conditions were far from ideal. This arrival of our second daughter and third child was cause for rejoicing.

Visitors from the U.S. brought great uplift to help us when the going was difficult. Miss Lois Richardson and Miss Carrie Hazzard came as choice servants of God. Dr. Stanley Tam and the Byron Crouses brought great encouragement on a tour that marked the beginning of the Men For Missions movement in OMS. Dr. and Mrs. Dwight Ferguson followed shortly thereafter, and we caught their burning vision to involve laymen in the task of carrying out the Great Commission. During the three-years that Garnett Phillippe was directing the North India work, an agreement with Bible Churchmen's Mission Society was effected whereby B.C.M.S. would provide us faculty members and their students would train along with OMS young people. We greatly enjoyed fellowship with the Reverend Sam and Mary Esther Burgoyne and the Reverend Robert Brough.

During our time in Allahabad a tragedy occurred during the January, 1954, Kumbh Mela, the greatest Hindu festival which is held every twelve years. It had rained the night before and the ground was muddy. At dawn; just following the coming of the Sadhus (holy men) up from the Ganges River, throngs of pilgrims began pushing and shoving to get into the water for a sacred bath. Timing was of vast importance because of the belief that the water was now more sacred, more efficacious due to the Sadhus recent presence in it. This brought on a stampede of immense proportions, and people were trampled to death. A police inspector with whom we talked said he counted more than 1000 bodies, their noses and mouths packed with mud. They werestacked up like cord wood at least eight feet high. The following night our sky was aglow as a huge funeral pyre lighted the whole area. What a grim demonstration of false worship — with so many precious ones suddenly ushered into eternity.

Furlough time had come. In Bombay we boarded a P. & O. liner for England where we spent a few days visiting friends and then revelled in the amenities furnished on the S.S. United States to New York. While in London we received the news that Dr. C. P. Culver, OMS home-land director, had suffered a heart attack and passed into the presence of the Lord. His death would greatly alter our plans for further graduate study.

We were in India when the mission revised its regulations concerning missionary support. Before that time everything came out of the "same sock" — the general fund. Now, we were told, missionaries would be responsible for raising their own funds to cover allowances, travel, equipment, etc. Support requirements were calculated in terms of $5-a-month units called "shares" and the total number depended, of course, upon the size of the family and the living costs on the various fields.

Due to the death of Charles Culver, we were asked to stay in the U.S. two years instead of the usual one, to help in homeland ministries. I was appointed head of the Prayer Circle Department and worked out of the Winona Lake office, while Christine and the children lived in Wilmore, Kentucky.

That year we had practically no deputation services. Then we moved to Winona Lake and I knew that the time had come when we must face this share challenge head on, if we were to get back to the Orient.

Now it was quite an easy and simple thing when we were in meetings to appeal for support for other missionaries but considerably harder to ask for funds for ourselves. And I'm afraid that what we said often sounded like, "You wouldn't want to help support the Helsbys, would you?" Needless to say, we had very few takers.

Thus "raising support" loomed before us as a huge obstacle. We had been assigned to Taiwan and the required number of shares for us was nearly 100. Wonderfully in this furlough time the Lord had blessed us with a full complement, for with the happy arrival of our second son, Lee Gordon, we now had two boys and two girls. So now we were in need of shares for six: Christine recalls that every day as she knelt by the bed, she found it almost impossible to pray for the Taiwanese, to whom we were being sent, or for any other request for her eyes were riveted on the devil who, seated on the opposite side of the bed, was holding high a placard on which was written in enormous letters, 100 shares ― 100 shares — 100 SHARES. This went on for weeks until she felt truly defeated.

Then after one final night of tossing and turning and viewing these impossible placards, she knew she must find the Lord's answer. Ever since college days she had looked to the Word for guidance. So she covenanted to stay in the Bible until the Lord gave her a settling promise that this share requirement was of Him and, therefore, He was in this with us. By finally reaching this point of determination in the matter, in less than a week He definitely put His finger on II Chronicles 25:9, "But what shall we do for the hundred talents [which she, of course, interpreted shares], and the man of God answered, the Lord is able to give thee much more than this." And He did!

God has never failed us. His promise was fulfilled and on August 31, 1956, we arrived in Taiwan to resume our ministry among the Chinese.

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