Belle and the children stayed on in Dallas for a year after John left, with Belle finishing the manuscript for Nests Above the Abyss and arranging for it to be published. Then it was time for the family to head back to China as well. Belle sold the house to the first person who came to look at the place, for more money than she and John had paid for it, and then she packed up the family’s belongings.
Belle and Danny were due to set sail for China from Houston. First the family had to travel to Pennsylvania, where Kathryn would stay behind with friends to finish high school in the United States. Belle hated having to say good-bye to her daughter yet again, but she had learned by now that part of being a missionary meant saying good-bye to those you loved in order for some greater good to be accomplished.
From Pennsylvania, Belle and three-year-old Danny caught the train to Houston, where they boarded the Joseph Lee, a decrepit old freighter, but the only ship available for the trip to China. Forty-six days after setting sail from Houston, the Joseph Lee docked in Shanghai. Belle and Danny were glad to get off the ship and be back in China.
In Shanghai John and Isobel were reunited. John described the chaotic state of affairs in the countryside. “Bridges everywhere are blown up, roads are gone, villages are burned, robbers are everywhere, and the people generally are living in a state of fear.” Because conditions were too dangerous for Belle and Danny to navigate by road, they would fly to Yunnan Province while John and a friend would drive to Yunnan in a truck loaded with their belongings and supplies for the Lisu people.
The Kuhn family were soon safely together again in Tali, where Belle was delighted to find Eva enrolled in a nursing school. As soon as Eva saw Belle, she begged to be allowed to quit nursing school and return to the Lisu with the Kuhns. Belle was tempted to give in to Eva’s request, as Eva was a hard worker and a good friend, but she resisted. She told Eva she needed to stay and finish the school and then she could join them once again at Oak Flat.
John had superintendent business to take care of in western Yunnan Province and could not leave right away to return to the Lisu. However, since Belle was eager to get back to the Lisu as quickly as possible, John secured a guide to escort Belle and Danny home to Oak Flat.
At the end of the trek, as Belle and her son neared Oak Flat, a group of Christians rushed out to meet them. They led Danny along the final leg of the journey on a white horse with silver bells on its bridle. Belle smiled as Danny waved like a little prince from atop the horse. She knew that he would surely enjoy his new home.
On Sunday, three hundred Lisu from all over the valley came to greet Belle and bring her gifts. Since corn and vegetables were in scarce supply because of a long drought, most people gave eggs instead—over one hundred in all.
Once the official welcome was over, it was straight back to work for Belle. John finally made it back to Oak Flat, and together he and Belle ran the biggest Rainy Season Bible School ever. During the school Belle was able to demonstrate some new ways of evangelizing children that she had learned while on furlough in the United States. The RSBS was a huge success, but as soon as it was finished, John was again on his way to take care of more CIM business.
No sooner had John left than Belle began to feel more alone than she had ever felt before. She and Danny were the only Europeans for miles around, and Danny had contracted typhoid fever. More often than not the disease was a killer, and Belle prayed fervently that it would not take the life of her young son. Night after night she sat with Danny, wiping his brow with cold water and moistening his dry lips with ointment. Belle had no time to send for help. All she could do was pray for strength for Danny to fight the disease in his body. And that is what happened. Slowly, over many days, Danny’s condition began to improve.
Danny had not fully recovered when Belle had to handle another crisis on her own. While the Kuhns had been away on furlough, some of the Christians in the church had chosen to go after positions of power in the village, even if it meant leaving their Christian principles behind. One of those who had done this was a man named Keh-deh-seh-pa, who had decided that his son deserved to be a teacher at the new Christian school that had been set up, even though no one else thought the son was fit for the job. The resident missionary had to give his or her approval of the appointment, and Belle refused to do so.
Instead of going along with the decision of Belle and the church elders, Keh-deh-seh-pa used force and craftiness to try to get his own way. First he tried to frighten Belle into recommending his son for the job. One night Belle heard men outside under her window communicating with each other using birdcalls. The hairs on her neck rose as she crept over to Danny’s bed and crawled in beside him. She hugged Danny and prayed that the men would not come inside and harm them. The night passed without their being harmed. The next day Keh-deh-seh-pa tried a new tactic. He talked the local magistrate into detaining two prisoners right in Belle’s kitchen. The prisoners were tied to the door jambs, and Belle was told that if they went missing from her kitchen, she would be charged with interfering with the course of justice.
“Justice!” Belle snorted, angry at how a man who had been a Christian could stoop to doing this to secure a teaching job for his son. Still, she decided it was wise not to touch the prisoners, who stayed tied up in her kitchen for several days until John returned, cut the prisoners free, and dealt with the situation.
Belle was relieved to have her hut to herself again, but deep down she could see that the winds of change were blowing up the Salween River Valley. The chaos in China after the defeat of the Japanese had now turned into civil war between the Nationalist Chinese and the Communists. As time went on and snippets of news drifted back to Oak Flat, it seemed that the Communists were gaining the upper hand in the fighting and now controlled more and more of the Chinese countryside. Slowly reports came that the Communists were operating in the mountains and valleys of western Yunnan.
Some of the reports were nothing more than windwords, but others were real. It seemed that the Communists had a strategy for taking over villages. First they would let bands of thugs terrorize villages, killing people and stealing their belongings. Their brutality would shock the local population so much that when Communist soldiers came to liberate their village from the bands of thugs, the villagers would be so grateful that they would give allegiance to the Communists. Even a number of Christians were doing so, much to Belle’s chagrin. And now the Communists were starting to use this tactic along the Salween River Valley.
Just before Christmas 1948, Belle had to agree with the Christian men of the village. It was no longer safe for her and Danny to stay alone at Oak Flat. The men told her that she would be safer on the western side of the valley at Village of the Olives. Lucius, a church elder, built a house for Belle right next to his own house on the track that led to the center of town.
Belle was relieved that she had moved when she learned that on Christmas Eve a band of thugs had come looking for her at Oak Flat. When they did not find her, they had turned their attention to nearby Place-of-Action Village. In the dead of night they dropped hand grenades on sleeping villagers, killing thirteen men and wounding many more.
After this incident, many people began urging Belle to leave the Salween River Valley altogether before more violence erupted. Belle was well aware that CIM missionaries throughout China were being persecuted and some even killed by the Communists. In fact, it seemed to Belle that it was only a matter of time before the Communists would eventually gain control over all of China. But until that time, she wanted to use every minute available to reach as many of the Lisu as possible with the gospel.
Chapter 17
Climb or Die
One of the advantages, Belle soon discovered, of being located at Village of the Olives was that she was much closer to many Lisu who had never before heard the gospel, and so she kept herself busy evangelizing among them.
Communist troops became more active in the mountains of western Yunnan Province. On one occasion a group of Communist soldiers took up residence in the village, demanding that the locals feed them and work for them. Fortunately the soldiers did not harass Belle, who, along with everyone else in the village, breathed a sigh of relief when they moved on.
Belle loved it when John was home with her, but in such troubled times he was often away taking care of CIM business and trying to encourage beleaguered missionaries throughout western Yunnan Province. On one of his trips away John was trapped for two months in Paoshan when the town came under siege from Communist forces. When he returned to Village of the Olives, the news he brought was gloomy. The Communists were now in firm control of Northern China and were pushing south. It wasn’t long before news filtered back into the mountains that the governor of Yunnan Province had ceded control of the province to the Communists. Then on October 1, 1949, the Communist leader Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and about two million people had fled to the island of Formosa, leaving mainland China in the hands of the Communists.
In early January 1950, John again returned to Village of the Olives, and to Belle’s delight he brought with him Eva, who had finished her nursing training. In fact, Eva turned out to be a skilled nurse, and her reputation quickly spread throughout the region.
As John and Belle talked over the situation in the country, John conceded that it was time for Belle and Danny to leave China. Because of the situation, it would be impossible for Belle and Danny to make it overland to the coast and catch a ship back to North America. Instead, they would have to cross the mountains to Burma and make their way home from there. John would not be going with them, because he felt that he needed to remain in China as long as he could to encourage the local Christians in such troubled times. Belle had expected this, but it was not easy for her to bear. Then John said something that redirected her attention. “Before you go, let’s hold the biggest and best Bible school ever! When we leave, the future of the church in this valley will depend on Lisu Christians, so let’s prepare them by giving them the best teaching possible.”
John and Belle set to work and quickly arranged the school. What followed was indeed the biggest and the best RSBS they had ever run among the Lisu. Then it was time for Belle and Danny to leave, and on March 10, 1950, they set out. As they headed off up the trail, Belle looked one last time at the village and people she loved. In her heart she knew that she would never see them again. John stood on a rocky outcrop and waved, and Belle wondered when she would see her husband again.
John had arranged for a group of faithful Lisu men to guide his wife and six-year-old son to safety over the mountains. It would be a long and treacherous journey at this time of year. The snow on eleven-thousand-foot Pien-Ma Pass would be deep and the going slow. Belle knew that in guiding them over the mountains, their Lisu guides would be risking their own lives to get their missionary to safety. She was grateful for their commitment to her and Danny.
The trip was every bit as difficult as Belle had expected, but eventually they made it over the snowbound pass and into Burma. Once in Burma they faced a ten-day trek though the jungle—staying close together to discourage tiger attacks—to the Burmese town of Myitkyina. At Myitkyina Belle said good-bye to her Lisu guides, and eventually she and Danny made it to Rangoon. Of course, fleeing China in the manner they had meant that their visas and paperwork were not in order, and they had no money. They experienced delays while things were sorted out, but eventually Belle and Danny were able to fly from Rangoon to Hong Kong, where they secured passage on a ship headed for North America. Nearly three months had passed from the time Belle and Danny had set out from Village of the Olives until the ship carrying them steamed into Vancouver Harbor. An exhausted Belle was heartened to be greeted by her brother, the Whipple children, and several women who had once been part of the Girls’ Corner Club where Belle had worked so many years before.
