Gladys Aylward

At twenty-seven years of age, Gladys was told her grades were not good enough to continue her studies to become a missionary to China through the China Inland Missions. She was devastated.  But she decided to get a job as a maid and save money to go to China on her own.  Each week, she would take her earnings to Muller’s Shipping Agency and make payments on a train ride which would take her through Europe, Russia, and Siberia before she’d arrive at Tientsin in Northern China.  Within a year, she’d saved the money needed and had heard of Mrs. Lawson who was seventy-three years old and had gone back to China alone—even though she’d hoped to take someone with her.  After contacting Mrs. Lawson, Gladys was on her way!

Gladys had never traveled alone—much less to a country where she didn’t speak the language.  She’d gotten to Siberia and because of a war, the train unloaded everyone, except Gladys, at a town before they moved on to pick up the dead or wounded near the battlefield.  Gladys had to walk back to the nearest town all alone, in the snow, for two days and nights.  When she arrived, she was sent on a train to Russia where she was nearly kidnapped and made to work in Russian factories as a machinist—but two strangers rescued her and got her on a boat to Japan where she was able to make her way to Tientsin.  Once she arrived in Tientsin, she learned that Mrs. Lawson had not really expected a maid from London to come to China and had gone on to a mountainous village about a month’s travel away. Gladys made the trip and arrived to help the abrupt Scottish woman in the village of Yangcheng.  

Mrs. Lawson had rented a “haunted house” very cheaply and the two women began to turn it into an inn for the mule teams to use.  They figured they’d be able to share the gospel with the muleteers and the gospel would spread as these men traveled through the villages.  Their inn was named The Inn of Eight Happinesses.  Their plan began to work when Mrs. Lawson fell from a balcony and died from her injuries.  Gladys had to assume new responsibilities and financial worries.  She wasn’t sure how she’d be able to pay taxes for the inn. 

The mandarin of Yangcheng came to the inn and asked Gladys to become the “foot inspector” of their area.  This person was to travel village to village and make sure girls’ feet were no longer being bound.  The only woman who had feet which were able to make the trips was Gladys—the foreign devil.  Gladys asked the mandarin if she’d be able to share the gospel as she traveled and the mandarin told her it was of no importance to him.  Gladys eagerly accepted the job which came with a salary!   She now could pay her taxes.  

Gladys traveled and shared the gospel which the Chinese people readily received—and gave a monthly foot report to the mandarin. On one of her trips to the mandarin, a woman was selling a child on the street.  She reported the practice to the mandarin in hopes to get it stopped, but the mandarin was actually afraid of the child traders.  Gladys stopped and “bought” the child on her way home and Ninepence became the first of many children Gladys adopted.  To protect her children’s status as their mother, Gladys also became the first foreigner to become a Chinese citizen with help from the mandarin.  Not only had Gladys become known as the Honorable Foot Inspector, but after stopping a riot at a prison, she became known as Ai-weh-deh which meant Virtuous One.  The mandarin held a dinner in Gladys’ honor and after giving her accolades, he told Gladys and all the guests, “ Ai-weh-deh, I have seen all that you are and all that you do, and I would like to become a Christian like you.”

Because of the Japanese invasion in China, war came to the villages.  By the time bombs hit Yangcheng, Gladys had five children of her own.  After the bombing, there were two hundred orphans who came to the Inn of Eight Happinesses to be cared for. Soon, Gladys led her troop of orphans to caves to hide from the Japanese.  A reporter from Time magazine found her and interviewed her about the orphans and after the article appeared in the magazine, there was a price on her head.  Japanese posters appeared with her name: Wanted Dead or Alive!  She learned that if she could get the children to Sian, the government would care for the orphans.  She sent 100 of the children with a man who got them there safely.  He was to come back and get the other 100...but was killed on the way.  Gladys had to take the children over a mountain, across a large river, and on a coal car with very little food on the way.  The trip took weeks. Upon delivery of the children to the orphanage, Gladys fell into a coma, suffering from pneumonia, typhoid, and malnutrition.  She appeared to be much older than her thirty-eight years.  Gladys returned to London to heal.  As she stepped off the train, her own parents didn’t even recognize her.  She began mission work—sending clothing and necessities to China.  Within ten years, Gladys was ready to go back to China.  However, she couldn’t re-enter the mainland because no foreigners were allowed—even though she was also a Chinese citizen.  So she went to Formosa where she ministered to Chinese people.  She was once again Ai-weh-deh. Gladys died in Formosa at 67-years-of age.   She died in her sleep with a newborn baby in a crib next to her, a baby  who had been abandoned.  She was buried in Taipei on a hill...facing China.