A Small Woman and a Hundred Children on the Mountain Road

In the spring of 1940, as Japanese forces closed in on the city of Yangcheng in Shanxi Province, a small British missionary named Gladys Aylward gathered nearly one hundred orphaned children and began walking. There was no vehicle, no military escort, no supply line — just a five-foot woman and a column of children, some barely old enough to walk, heading across the mountains toward Sian in Shaanxi Province.

For twelve days they climbed steep mountain passes, slept in the open, and scrounged for what little food the war-ravaged countryside could offer. When they reached the Yellow River, there was no boat. Aylward stood at the bank with a hundred hungry, exhausted children and nowhere to go. One of the older girls asked why God did not open the water as He had for Moses. Before Aylward could answer, a Chinese officer appeared with a boat and ferried them across.

They arrived in Sian. Aylward collapsed with typhus, pneumonia, and malnutrition. She had carried the youngest children on her back through mountain passes while her own body was failing.

Isaiah 43:2 does not promise the river will disappear. It promises, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you." Gladys Aylward walked straight into the flood — sick, outnumbered, outmatched — and the God Who Sees brought her through. Faith is not the absence of the river. Faith is the next step into it, trusting that the One who called you will not let the waters sweep you away.