To get to Yangtsung they made their way over the rolling hills of Yunnan Province. Belle marveled at the patchwork of colors spread across the landscape and reveled in the beauty that surrounded her. By nightfall they had reached their destination.
Of course, there was no hotel in Yangtsung; the only visitors to the place were family members of people who lived there. Instead, the missionary band was offered an upstairs room in an old temple in which to stay. Belle was happy enough with the accommodations. The only thing she did not have was privacy. Belle was the first white woman to ever visit Yangtsung, and the locals were enthralled with her. They gathered to listen to her rehearsed short sermon and surrounded her every time she left the temple. Adventurous boys would scale the walls of nearby buildings and peer through the window into their room, yelling down reports to those waiting on the ground of what Belle was up to. At night, when Belle lay down on her bedroll to sleep, word got around and the village women would come to see if they could visit her in bed! It was all a little exhausting for Belle.
During the day John and Belle walked out into the nearby countryside to meet the local people. Yang-tsung was located at one end of a narrow valley. A crystal-blue lake sparkled in the sun in the middle of the valley, and rice paddies covered most of the rest of the valley floor. Small farming enclaves dotted the edges of the valley, with mud brick houses set among tall, lush groves of bamboo. John and Belle and Mr. Yang would walk on until they found an open spot near one of the enclaves. There Belle would take out her guitar, and the three of them would sing songs in Chinese. If and when people began to gather, John would preach a short sermon in Chinese and Mr. Yang would give his testimony. When they were done, they would invite those who had stopped to hear them to come that evening to Yangtsung, where they were holding open-air gospel meetings. Then they would move on to the next enclave and do the same thing all over again. In this way, over several days they worked their way along the whole length of the valley, preaching the gospel to those they met.
As the week went by, however, Belle found that she had less and less energy. This was partly because Yin-chang prepared only bean curd and rice for their meals. Belle assumed that this was all that was available in Yangtsung, until she got up early one morning and visited the market. To her astonishment, baskets were overflowing with plump red tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions, and cabbage—all foods that she longed to eat.
Belle hurried back to their room and told John to ask Yin-chang to fix her a big plate of fresh vegetables for dinner. But that night the same meal was served—bean curd and rice. Belle, who had not eaten all day in anticipation of her evening meal, asked, “Isn’t there anything else in this place to eat?”
“Nothing. We did not see anything else at the market today,” Yin-chang’s wife replied.
By now Belle was seething with frustration. Just what did Yin-chang and his wife do all day, anyway? Tears welled up in her eyes, and before she knew it she was sobbing into her pillow. She knew she looked like a child having a tantrum, but Belle didn’t care. She was exhausted and hungry and angry with the hired help. Suddenly, in the midst of her tantrum, Belle’s mind flashed back to Ruth Paxson on the Empress of Russia on the voyage to Shanghai from Canada. “When you get to China, all the scum of your nature will rise to the top,” Ruth had told the new missionary recruits. Now Belle knew exactly what Ruth meant by those words. Nonetheless, she carried on with her tantrum until she eventually fell asleep. She awoke around midnight, her stomach growling with discontent. John brought her a little rice with bean curd on top, and Belle was so hungry that she ate it.
Upon their return to Chengchiang, Yin-chang and his wife became even more of a frustration to Belle. Even though they were paid well, they appeared to like to do as little work as possible. Not only that, they seemed to make sure that they had the best of everything in the house.
Things came to a head one day when Belle was studying Chinese in the front room with a local teacher. The doors were closed, but a cold northerly wind whistled in through the gaps around the folding door. When Belle began to shiver, she realized that it was time to do something about the temperature in the room. She called Yin-chang and asked him to fill the new portable stove with coal and bring it to her. Half an hour passed before Yin-chang reappeared with a tiny stove in which glowed two or three coals.
“Where is the big stove?” Belle asked.
Yin-chang shrugged, put down the small stove, and left the room.
When the language lesson was over, Belle decided to get to the bottom of the matter. John might have a relaxed attitude toward the servants, but she would not stand for an employee shrugging his shoulders at her!
Belle marched downstairs to Yin-chang’s room and knocked on the door. Yin-chang opened the door sheepishly. Looking over his shoulder, Belle could see in the room her new stove stuffed with brightly burning coals. A wave of warm air whooshed out the door. Belle turned and walked away before she exploded in anger.
Similar situations occurred. Yin-chang’s wife took their bathtub and started helping herself to Belle’s toiletries. With each new offense Belle became more and more angry, until one day she told John that he had to dismiss Yin-chang.
John did not agree. He pointed out that servants were hard to find and that Yin-chang did many things well. Also, Yin-chang had served John faithfully for several years while both men were bachelors. Now Belle was furious with both Yin-chang and his wife, and with John. She grabbed her shawl and hat and stomped out the door, slamming it behind her.
Belle walked for miles, arguing with herself, making up conversations to have with John about how she would not live another day with a lazy servant. Finally, as dusk began to descend, Belle stopped and looked around. She was in a village she had not visited before, and many people were looking at her curiously. Suddenly Belle realized how inappropriate it was for her to be walking alone at dusk. All respectable women were at home by now. She turned around and hurried back along the path she had come. As she walked, she calmed down enough to realize that this was more “scum” coming to the surface. No matter how Yin-chang and his wife behaved, she had to admit that she had behaved just as badly. She wondered what John was thinking of her now. And what of the people who had seen her walking along with a scowl on her face. What kind of Christian example had she been to them? Perhaps the residents of Chengchiang were laughing about Pastor John and his bad-tempered wife!
Belle hurried along as fast as she could, making it back inside the city gate before it was totally dark. She made her way up the cobblestone street to her house. John looked relieved to see her when she walked in but did not say much.
That night, after their Bible reading and prayers together, John turned to Belle. “If Yin-chang and his wife bother you that much, you may dismiss them. But I have to tell you, it will be difficult to replace them with anyone better.”
Belle felt the tenseness leave her body. “Thank you so much,” she replied. “I would rather do the extra work myself than depend on a lazy servant. And I am sure the Lord will send us someone better eventually.”
The Chengchiang church was not happy that Belle had dismissed Yin-chang and his wife. “There are worse sins for a servant than being lazy,” one of the deacons told her.
But Belle was more than glad to finally have the house to herself, that is, until she realized just how much work was involved in bargaining for their meat and vegetables every morning at the market, carrying the water by hand from the village well to wash the clothes and then iron them with a charcoal-filled iron, and balancing the pots on the fire grate so that everything cooked evenly but nothing boiled or tipped over.
Before too long John and Belle were asked if they would employ another servant, this time a woman who had been abandoned by her husband with only the clothes she was wearing. They agreed to hire the woman, who proved to be loyal and industrious. The woman cooked vegetables every day and completed the laundry in half the time it had taken Belle.
Belle was glad to be able to get back to her language study full-time. She still had a long way to go before she became fluent in Chinese, but she felt that she could now understand a lot of what was being spoken around her.
John and Belle had served together at Chengchiang for nearly six months, and while Belle was content, she was also anxious. It had now been over seven years since she’d heard about the Lisu people and dedicated herself to serving among them. Yes, she was in China, but the Lisu still seemed a long way off to her. She began to wonder just when China Inland Mission would appoint her and John to work among the Lisu.
Then one day John returned from a meeting with James Fraser in Kunming. He had a broad grin on his face. “We’re headed west!” he exclaimed to Belle.
“To the Lisu?” Belle gasped.
“No, not quite that far,” John replied. “I asked James if we could be stationed there, but he is worried that your health might be too delicate for that. But he did say that they need a couple to take over the work in the ancient city of Tali. The CIM house there has been vacant for a year, and the small church in the city needs encouragement and leadership.”
Belle hugged John tight. “It might not be Lisu territory, but it’s a whole lot closer. We might even be able to go on a mission expedition to the Lisu!”
It was the best news Belle had heard in a long time, and she started to pack immediately. Not that there was a lot to pack. She left her pretty furniture behind and vowed to buy sturdier, more easily cleaned furniture when they got to the new house.
Tears ran down Belle’s cheeks as she walked through the gates of Chengchiang for the last time. Six months before, when she first passed through the gates, she had been a naive missionary bride. But in the time she had spent living in Chengchiang, she had learned so much. The local church leaders had been patient with her as she came to terms with the hardships of missionary life. Now, at twenty-eight years of age, Belle felt she was ready for the next step in her missionary calling.
Chapter 10
Challenges
Belle braced herself for the challenging ten-day journey to Tali, which would be completed on foot, horseback, and sedan chair. Along the way, she and John and the team of coolies helping them move planned to stay in local inns, as there were no other accommodations. Belle loved the freedom the journey gave her to share the gospel with so many people who had never heard the message before, but she dreaded spending the nights in the inns.
For one thing, the inns were very loud; men, women, and children, along with their small livestock, lay down together in one or two common rooms. Roosters crowed all night, and the inevitable lice and bedbugs moved from one warm body to the next. Some travelers staying at the inns rose early, while others arrived late at night, making it difficult to get a good night’s sleep. Worst of all, as far as Belle was concerned, were the filthy conditions. A layer of soot from the fire coated everything in the inns, including the walls and floor, and chickens foraged under the table for dropped food.
Still, since every night spent in an inn was one night closer to their new home, Belle learned to bear the conditions, that is, until the third night, when she experienced the most gripping stomach cramps she had ever had. Then she began to vomit. Belle knew that she could not go on with the journey.
Fortunately, the group was near the town of Tsuhsiang, where an American woman missionary and a Chinese nurse, Miss Ling, lived. Belle was fading in and out of consciousness by the time John carried her into the mission compound. She was laid on a comfortable bed and fed boiled honey water with a spoon. At one point Belle heard Nurse Ling say, “It’s dysentery for sure. I have nursed many cases of this in Shanghai, but this is the worst I have ever seen.”
