Lettie Cowman loved her missionary girls.
She actively recruited many herself.
My assistant and I laughed and felt charmed when we came across Lettie’s scrapbook from a trip to China. Her missionary girls looked like they were having a lot of fun in their off-hours.
Who were the Missionary Girls?
The list of names over her 55 years working with the Oriental Missionary Society, (OMS) is endless.
Many went on to marry missionary men and shared the gospel all over the world.
But we’ll focus on five: Annie Kartozian, Edna Kunkle, Rosalind Rinker, Esther Helsby Erny, and Katherine McCoy.
But Why Were they in China?
OMS opened a missionary station in Shanghai, China in 1924 and promptly built a Bible school and reestablished their headquarters from Seoul.
The continent is enormous and they had their work cut out for them in a time of great upheaval in China.
Most other missionary organizations were fleeing the continent, particularly after the brutal beheading of John and Betty Stam.
But OMS felt called to go in. Secretarial workers, regular missionaries, and families all moved to Shanghai. In 1925, they opened the Charles Cowman Memoiral Bible School.
Several years later, they opened a new mission field in Beijing and established the Ernest Kilbourne Memorial Bible Training Institute.
The vast country needed missionaries. Lettie Cowman went right to work.
She always saw it as a matchmaking operation. While riding in the car one day in Southern California, she felt a chill and told Annie Kartozian in the backseat, that if she didn’t mind cold weather, she’d make a great missionary to northern China.
Annie headed to China six months later.
Others followed doing secretarial work, teaching at the Bible training institute, and helping to run the mission in general.
They occasionally had time off to see the countryside, and they shared the photos with Lettie.
In Edna Kunkle’s case, Lettie merely sent her an application and told her she needed to raise $500 to go.
This was during the Great Depression. Edna, to her surprise, raised $700!
Lettie Cowman Comes to Visit
Lettie visited China several times during the 1930s and relished her time in country.
She traveled to Beijing, met with the families and women stationed there, and tried to encourage everyone.
China in the 1930s was a difficult spot, particularly for western missionaries.
Lettie always took a special interest in the women–both married and single–giving up years of their lives to share the gospel.
She brought them gifts, listened to them, prayed and played hymns on the piano for them.
Lettie particularly enjoyed afternoon tea!
Her visits coincided with Board of Trustees meetings.
The trips also gave her a better sense of the ministry needs and how to pray for the missionary girls and others who depended on her leadership.
Lettie stayed with the missionary girls in the family homes while traveling in the east. She’d play the piano and sing hymns to wake them in the morning.
Cultivating relationships like that brought a closeness, and served to give the women a sympathetic ear and praying leader.
Lettie always loved and encouraged the women.
While she may not have been a true “servant leader,” she was a praying one.
And, of course, as her old friend Oswald Chambers wrote: “prayer is the greater work.”
What happened during the Chinese revolution?
Rinker described China as her adopted country and during her early years in Beijing recounted a foiled plot to blow up the compound. But she was commited to sharing the Gospel, no matter what.
The physical and spiritual plight of the Chinese people gripped their hearts. Kartozian described the women’s, “tiny, bound feet indicative of fetters. The men stagged under heavy loads.”
She was in Shanghai, trying to get their Chinese workers to safety when the Chinese army began shelling the compound.
Kartozian and Katherine McCoy eventually ended up in the Weisen internment camp for several years during WWII. (This is the same camp where Olympian Eric Liddell died during the war).
They were repatriated in December 1943 on the SS Gripsholm.
What happened to the missionary girls after China?
Most continued to serve OMS–whether in the home office or marrying another missionary and staying on the field.
Esther married fellow missionary Eugene Erny, and spent WWII in India setting up a new mission station there. Her husband eventually succeeded Lettie Cowman as president of OMS, and Esther wrote for the ministry magazine for many years.
Annie Kartozian remained with OMS for the rest of her life, as did Edna Kunkle Chandler.
Kartozian wrote a book about her experiences called God Has a Green Thumb: A Veteran Missionary Recounts her Adventures in China and Taiwan.
Rosalind Rinker eventually ended up at Asbury College and wrote Prayer: How to Have a Conversation with God.
In 2006, Christianity Today Magazine described Rinker’s book as the number 1 more important book on their list of The Top 50 Books that Have Shaped Evangelicals.
As I’ve mentioned before, writing Lettie’s biography impressed me by the committment of so many missionaries to share the gospel, no matter the hardship.
They all came out of their difficulties still firm in their faith and determined to share the gospel.
I’m humbled to having learned and written about them.
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