Dear Mr. Rasmussen,

Many thanks for your permission to add a new story to our Weihsien-Paintings’ website.

You can reach me at: tapol@skynet.be
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all ...

Best regards,
Leopold Pander.
(Belgium)

Subject: Fwd: Mary L:. Scott's autobiography, Kept in Safeguard

Subject: Mary L:. Scott's autobiography, Kept in Safeguard

To: Erin Rasmussen
Re: Permission: portions of Kept in Safeguard for www.weihsien-paintings.org

I write to request your permission for the Weihsien Concentration Camp web site (www.weihsien-paintings.org) to post portions of Nazarene missionary, Mary L. Scott’s autobiography, Kept in Safeguard, copyright date, 1977.

These portions would include pages 54 to 94 (Chapter 4: Behind an Eight-Foot Wall; Chapter 5: Deliverance from the Skies , and as few paragraphs of Chapter 3: Peking Interlude) telling Mary L. Scott’s account and testimony of her internment in the Japanese-held Weihsien Concentration Camp in China during World War II.

Mary Scott was one of my heroes in that camp. She coached us young girls how to play softball. For almost three years, I was a child prisoner of the Japanese -- almost two years in Weihsien. Separated from our parents by warring armies, I and my three Taylor siblings did not see our missionary parents for 5 ½ years. Among 1,500 Allied prisoners, our school for the children of missionaries and our teachers had been interned in Weihsien

The Weihsien web site is the only web site that focuses exclusively on the Weihsien concentration Camp. Using resources from around the world, it creates an historical record that includes memories, documents, military records, newspaper and magazine stories, diaries, books, paintings, drawings, photographs, recordings from U.S. National Archives, maps -- all contributed – free – from or about Weihsien internees or their relatives.

It includes articles from sites as important as Associated Press, the Newark Star Ledger, the London Daily Mirror.

Access to the web site is free to people from all around the world. Contributors volunteer their contributions. No one is paid. Its value?

It has become a gold mine for former Weihsien internees, scholars, researchers, family members who are searching for family history.

One adoptee found her birth mother through this site.

Creator of the Weihsien web site is Leopold Pander, himself a former internee in Weihsien. Mr. Pander may be reached at:
Leopold Pander
Sentier du Berger: 15,
BE-1325-Corroy-Le Grand
Belgium.

Because I know the importance of creating and preserving this historical record, I have been an enthusiastic contributor to the site. I am the great grand daughter of Hudson Taylor, the pioneer, faith missionary who, in the 1800’s, was the first to open the gospel of Jesus Christ to every province in China. In 2005, I helped spearhead a reunion at the site of the Weihsien concentration camp to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our liberation.

Mary Scott’s account of Weihsien presents the story from the viewpoint of a missionary who trusted God – no matter what. Vividly among her recollections, she describes scrubbing the latrines as a service to God. What a compelling Christian testimony.

When I told Leopold Pander about Mary Scott’s fascinating account of Weihsien, he asked if I could help get permission to add Mary Scott’s remarkable story onto the Weihsien web site.

I see this as an opportunity to shine a new spotlight on this testimony – on one of your publications that has been out of print for decades.

I hope you do, too.
Mary Taylor Previte