The Missionary No Board Would Send

In 1930, a London parlor maid named Gladys Aylward applied to the China Inland Mission. The board rejected her. At twenty-eight, they said, she was too old to learn Mandarin, too uneducated for formal ministry, too small and plain to survive the interior provinces. The builders examined this stone and set it aside. Gladys refused to accept their verdict. She scrubbed floors, saved every shilling, and bought a one-way ticket on the Trans-Siberian Railway — a harrowing journey through war zones that nearly killed her.…