Rosalind looked up from her sewing with a puzzled look on her face. “Well, if we have given ten percent of our yearly income already, I don’t suppose we need to give any more until October,” she replied.
Jonathan sat down and stared at his wife. “Do you really think so?” he asked. “I was thinking the Lord has been so good to us that we should try to give another ten percent before the end of the year.”
“Well,” replied Rosalind hesitantly, “if you think that’s really what we should do with the baby coming and all…”
Jonathan left the conversation hanging, but over the next couple of days, Rosalind agreed that they should continue to give money to other missionaries. By the end of the year, they had given one fifth of their income away.
Jonathan plodded on with his language studies. As the summer approached, the weather seemed to get hotter and hotter. When Jonathan complained about it to some of the other missionaries, they told him the heat of Chefoo was nothing compared to the searing summer heat of the inland provinces where the Goforths would be serving. In late summer the Goforths’ first child, a healthy daughter whom they named Gertrude, was born on August 12, 1888. Jonathan and Rosalind prayed she would stay healthy, especially since there was an outbreak of cholera in Chefoo.
As the summer wound down, Jonathan Goforth’s plans began to take shape. He decided that his small family should move to Pangchwang, an American Board mission station located several days’ journey inland and closer to North Honan, their final destination. In Pangchwang, the Goforths continued their language studies, though Jonathan found learning the language difficult. Despite this, he was not discouraged but kept studying as hard as he could. Rosalind, on the other hand, was soon speaking fluent Mandarin.
From Pangchwang, Jonathan made several journeys into North Honan in preparation for moving his family there. Not only was he excited about what lay ahead, but also he was excited when his best friend from Knox College, Donald McGillivray, wrote to say he was coming to China to help set up the mission station in North Honan. Soon after Donald arrived, the small band of Canadian Presbyterian missionaries made plans to move from Pangchwang to Linching, a city located on the banks of the Wei River about fifty miles closer to North Honan.
Chapter 5
Sorrow and Success
Hold it steady,” Jonathan Goforth yelled as he prepared to jump onto the small wooden boat.
Two of the Chinese boatmen reached out and pulled him aboard.
“Hand me Gertrude,” Jonathan said, turning back to Rosalind, who was still standing on the dock.
Rosalind passed the ten-month-old child to her husband and then climbed aboard the boat herself.
Soon the Goforth family was seated in the center of the bobbing craft, ready for the next leg of their journey, a two-day trip up the Wei River to Linching. Donald McGillivray had gone on ahead and sent back word that the building renovations were almost complete and it was time for Jonathan and Rosalind to join him there.
Even though it was still early morning as the boat began making its way upriver, the sun beat down mercilessly. The air was stifling hot, and Jonathan watched with concern as Gertrude labored for each breath she took.
“We need a way to cool her down,” said Rosalind, her voice raised in motherly concern.
“Yes,” replied Jonathan. “I had no idea how spoiled we were being by the coast last summer. The captain says the temperature will be over one hundred degrees for most of the trip.”
Rosalind groaned and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. “Here, help me to find our sheets. I have an idea,” she said.
Jonathan opened their large wicker suitcase and rummaged around in it until he found two cotton sheets.
“I was thinking we could dip them in the water and then hang them over us,” Rosalind told her husband.
Jonathan nodded and followed his wife’s instructions.
Soon the three of them were sitting in the shade of the dripping wet sheets which, besides filtering out the sun, managed to lower the temperature around them a degree or two.
As the boatmen rhythmically paddled the boat, Jonathan pulled his Bible from a small leather bag. Tucked inside the Bible was a letter from Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission. Hudson Taylor had heard that the Canadian Presbyterian mission had been given the Honan region as its mission field in China, and he had written to offer Jonathan some advice. In the letter he said, “Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees.”
Jonathan sat for a long time thinking about Hudson Taylor’s advice in the letter. It was true, if he was going to achieve anything in his new mission field, it was going to come as the result of prayer. So right there Jonathan began to pray for the people who inhabited the many tiny villages and towns they passed on their way upriver to their new mission station.
When the boat finally arrived in Linching two days later, everyone was sore and stiff. True to his word, Donald McGillivray had everything under control. Renovations of the Goforths’ new home were almost complete, and Jonathan and Rosalind moved in.
From the very first night in the house, Jonathan noticed a foul odor in the neighborhood. He concluded that the house next door must have a dead animal rotting in its courtyard. However, the next day Jonathan discovered he had to look no farther than his own house to find the source of the stench.
Chinese workers were busy constructing a brick wall around the house, and Donald McGillivray had instructed them to get the water for the mortar from a nearby well. Eager to save themselves some effort, the workers had found a pond closer to the house from which to draw their water. But the pond was an open sewer, and the water the workers were using to mix the mortar was the source of the foul odor. As soon as Jonathan realized what they were doing, he insisted the workers walk the extra distance to the well to get clean water. He explained that not only did the water from the pond smell bad and attract flies but also it could make them ill.
Jonathan’s warning came too late, however. Many of the workers became ill with dysentery, and soon little Gertrude Goforth also came down with it. Dr. Perkins, a missionary with the American Board, helped Jonathan and Rosalind as much as she could as they battled to save their curly-haired little daughter. When Rosalind also got sick with dysentery, Jonathan became frantic with worry. He fretted that he was about to lose both his wife and his daughter.
Gertrude vacillated between life and death for six days until finally her tiny body could take no more. She died on July 24, 1889, twenty days after arriving in Linching and less than a month short of her first birthday. Rosalind, though, continued to cling to life.
In Linching, since there was nowhere to bury a foreigner, Jonathan hired a cart and, accompanied by Donald McGillivray, set out to take Gertrude’s body back to Pangchwang, where she could be buried in the mission cemetery. While he was in Pangchwang, Jonathan penned a letter to friends back in Canada.
None but those who have lost a precious treasure can understand our feelings, but the loss seems to be greater because we are far away in a strange land…“All things work together for good.” The Lord has a purpose in taking our loved one away. We pray that this loss will fit us more fully to tell these dying millions of Him who has gained the victory over death.
After arranging a funeral service and burying Gertrude beside the graves of two other missionary children, Jonathan Goforth and Donald McGillivray hurried back to Linching. Throughout the journey, Jonathan prayed that Rosalind would still be alive when he got back. He couldn’t bear the thought of making the same trip again to bury his wife. Thankfully, on his arrival, Rosalind was showing some sign of improvement. Eventually, after a slow recovery, she was able to rejoin Jonathan in language study.
Apart from the death of his daughter, Jonathan found language study to be the most difficult thing about living in China. The situation was made even more frustrating because Donald McGillivray was so good at the language. Even though Donald had been in China a year less than Jonathan, he had already memorized all of the characters in the Chinese version of the Gospels while Jonathan was still struggling to learn the first half of them.
This lack of progress in language proved most frustrating when it came to chapel time. The two missionaries took turns reading the Bible and explaining to the local Chinese people what it meant. More often than not, though, when it was Jonathan’s turn to read and speak, the people would beg him to sit down and let Donald McGillivray speak in his place. “We understand him, not you,” they would say to Jonathan as they pointed to Donald. “He talks our way.”
Jonathan could not blame them, yet he knew he could never go into the North Honan region unless he spoke Chinese well. He began to question whether he was capable of learning the language. He tried just as hard as Donald McGillivray at language study, but somehow he didn’t seem to have a knack for the language.
One day, after he had been in Linching for several months, Jonathan grew desperate. He hated it when it was his turn to preach, knowing that even the most patient Chinese person couldn’t make too much sense of what he said. As he left the house that day, he said to Rosalind, “If the Lord does not work a miracle for me with this language, I fear that I’m going to be a complete failure as a missionary!”
The walk to the chapel took about twenty minutes. As he walked, Jonathan prayed silently, asking God to help him unlock the keys to the Chinese language. Later, when he got up to speak at the chapel service, everything he had studied about the language seemed to come into focus. Jonathan listened to himself as he spoke, amazed at how well he was putting together the Chinese words. He had never been able to speak like that in Chinese. The Chinese people listening noticed, too. In fact, when Donald McGillivray got up to speak, the crowd yelled to Jonathan, “No, you keep going.”
Jonathan could hardly wait to get home and tell Rosalind about the breakthrough he had experienced with the language. He still had a lot of study to do before he was completely fluent in Chinese, but after his experience at the chapel service, he had confidence that he could master the language.
In the meantime, in preparation for moving to North Honan, Jonathan had begun making trips into the area, often accompanied by one of the medical doctors who served with the American Board. On one such trip in the fall of 1889, Jonathan and Dr. McClure set off together to visit Hsunhsien, where they met the magistrate of the city, who invited them both to dinner. After talking for a while during the meal, the magistrate’s voice grew very serious. “Sir,” he said, turning to the doctor, “my old chief of police has gone blind. Would you be kind enough to take a look at his eyes and see if there is anything you can do for him?”
“Certainly,” replied Dr. McClure. “Send for him.”
The magistrate turned and barked an order to his servant. Ten minutes later an elderly man was led into the room.
“This is Mr. Chou, whom I told you about,” said the magistrate.
The two missionaries greeted the blind man, and then Dr. McClure examined the man’s eyes. It took only a minute or two to make a diagnosis. “Mr. Chou, you have cataracts over both of your eyes. It will not be difficult to remove them and give you your sight back,” said the doctor.
“Ah!” exclaimed the old man in delight. “I am ready. When can we begin?”
“I cannot perform the operation right now,” apologized Dr. McClure. “I am due back in Linching next week, and I would need to stay with you for two weeks after such an operation. I will come back in six months, and I will stay long enough to operate on you and look after you.”
Jonathan watched as the smile on Mr. Chou’s face turned to a scowl. “Take me away from here,” Mr. Chou said to the man who had led him into the room. The two men stood and left, but Jonathan could hear Mr. Chou complaining as he walked away.
