The Parlour Maid Who Walked to China

In 1930, a London parlour maid named Gladys Aylward sat in a small room and wept. The China Inland Mission had rejected her application. At twenty-eight, she had failed her theological exams. The mission board's verdict was final: she was not suitable for overseas service.

The builders had examined the stone and set it aside.

But Gladys refused to accept that verdict as God's verdict. She saved every penny from her wages, bought a one-way train ticket across Siberia, and traveled alone through war zones to reach the remote mountain province of Yangcheng, China. There she ran an inn for muleteers, learned Mandarin, and over the years led hundreds to faith.

When the Japanese invaded in 1938, Gladys led nearly one hundred orphaned children on a twelve-day trek across the mountains to safety. She was wounded, starving, and fevered. At one river crossing, with enemy soldiers behind them and no boat in sight, a Chinese officer appeared with a vessel just large enough. Gladys wept and whispered what she had whispered a thousand times: "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good."