Gladys Alyward

“I had gone to China with very little except youthful determination. After twenty years, I returned home with absolutely nothing but the knowledge that God had never failed me.”
-The Little Woman, p. 137-

It is almost impossible to fully capture Gladys Alyward’s life. Each time I read her story, I am once again in awe of what God can do through a life fully yielded to Him, and I realize that my journey with Him has barely begun.

Gladys was born into a working-class family in London in 1904, and served as a parlour maid for most of her young life. She encountered Christ at the age of 18, and as her faith in Him grew she became greatly burdened for the lost souls around the world – especially in China, where millions were dying without hearing the hope of the gospel. Gladys tried to those in her life who were qualified to go to China as missionaries, but no one seemed interested in risking their lives in a war-torn country among foreigners who did not want them there.

One day at about age 25, Gladys was sitting on her bed reading through the book of Nehemiah. She resonated with Nehemiah’s grief over the broken down wall of Jerusalem. She marveled at how this man oversaw the re-building of the wall, even in the face of impossible odds. And then as clearly as if there was a voice in the room with her, she heard the question, “Is Nehemiah’s God your God, Gladys?” “Yes,” she answered, “but I am not Nehemiah.” “That doesn’t matter,” the voice replied. “If Nehemiah’s God is your God, then you must go and do His work, just as Nehemiah did.”

As far as Gladys was concerned, those were her marching orders. Because she was only an uneducated servant, no missionary society would sponsor her to go to China. She had no money or support, no contacts in China, and no way of protecting herself as a single woman in a war-ridden land. But she knew she had to go.

At the age of 26, she boarded a train to China with only a small handful of coins in her pocket, and embarked upon one of the most extraordinary adventures of all time.

Over the next twenty years, Gladys preached the gospel to thousands of Chinese men and women, tended to hundreds of wounded soldiers during the war, single-handedly stopped a deadly riot at a men’s prison, cared for the sick and lepers, and adopted over 100 orphans, often going without food so that they could survive. During the Japanese invasion, she was on the “dead or alive most wanted list” and often narrowly escaped pursuers seeking to end her life – her clothing riddled with bullet holes. She led 200 orphans on a 6-week journey across the mountains to bring them to safety; a journey so exhausting that she lasped into a coma as soon as the task was completed.

Gladys’s life of complete abandon to Jesus Christ literally changed the face of a nation. At the end of her life, she wrote: "My heart is full of praise that one so insignificant, uneducated, and ordinary in every way could be used to His glory for the blessing of His people in poor persecuted China."

Girls, if you feel you have little to offer Christ – take note of this woman’s example. We need more “insignificant, ordinary” Christians who will stake everything upon the faithfulness and power of God!