Across the Yellow River with Empty Hands and Full Faith

In the spring of 1940, Gladys Aylward — a former parlour maid from Edmonton, London, barely five feet tall — faced an impossible task. With Japanese forces advancing through Shanxi province, she gathered nearly one hundred orphaned children from Yangcheng and set out on foot toward Sian, over a hundred miles of mountain trails away. She herself carried wounds from a Japanese attack. The children, some as young as four, stumbled along rocky paths with little food and no guarantee of survival.

For twelve days they walked through mountain passes where bandits and Japanese patrols lurked. When they reached the Yellow River, there was no ferry, no boat, no visible way across. Aylward knelt with the children and prayed. Eventually a Chinese patrol appeared with a boat and ferried them to the other side.

By the time she delivered every child safely to Sian, Aylward collapsed from typhus, pneumonia, and malnutrition.

Psalm 23:4 declares, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me." Gladys Aylward walked through that valley — wounded, starving, responsible for a hundred young lives — and she did not walk alone. The Good Shepherd met her at every impossible crossing.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to keep walking through the valley because you trust the One who walks beside you.