The Small Woman Who Carried No Credentials

In 1930, the China Inland Mission rejected Gladys Aylward. She was a parlor maid from Edmonton, north London — no university degree, no seminary training, no impressive references. The mission board deemed her too old at twenty-seven and too academically limited to learn Mandarin. By every human measure of qualification, she had nothing to commend her. So Gladys saved her wages, bought the cheapest rail ticket she could find, and traveled alone across Siberia to reach Yangcheng in the mountains of Shanxi Province.…