Women Workers In Foreign Fields
Women Workers In Foreign Fields Women Workers in Foreign Fields
Hattie Lee Ewing
Shizuoa, Japan The fidelity of women to Jesus, their great benefactor and friend, during His three years’ ministry and at the cross and sepulcher, should be enough to inspire women of all ages to give their hearts and lives in service to Him. Not only while Christ lived upon the earth were women prominent in service for Him. The books of the New Testa`ment give us many examples of their influence and of their work in the growth of the church.
Dorcas was a woman of good deeds. We do not know whether she was a widow or a single woman. It seems that in this revelation concerning her work God deemed it sufficient for us to know that her “good deeds” made her a woman greatly loved in her community. Lydia, the first convert to Christ on the European con`tinent, asked the apostles to abide in her house if they judged her to be faithful. We know enough about this woman to understand that she obeyed God. It is likely that her house was the worship place for some time for the Christians of Philippi. Yet we do not know wheth`er she had a husband, or whether or not she had children. The Word of God suggests to us no questions whatever as to whether or not she should be a Christian worker, or if her time was given too much to her own household to accomplish any good for the Master’s cause. Yet today people who wish to drop whatever hint or suggestion they may to hinder the church from supporting missionaries on foreign soil, will say that married women have too much to do educating their own children, therefore cannot accomplish anything in aiding their husbands in church work.
Priscilla in her culture and ability was an expounder of the truth with her husband in correcting and guiding into all truth the gospel preacher, Apollos. What else did this woman have to do? Did she have a family? Did she aid her husband daily in teaching the gospel as they made tents and talked with those who came about? God tells us enough. By His word we know that she taught, not as a public proclaimer of the gospel, but that she taught in a place and in a wa> that pleased God. Let’s remember her as an example. Her record is not to emphasise that she was married, but that she taught. When Paul commended to the Roman church his sister Phoebe he mentions no one with her. He does not suggest that this woman go- mg to that great pagan city might be misjudged by the pagan minds of that land, as is sometimes suggested by some, of our modern critics. Neither did Paul caution the leaders of the church in Rome, to watch Phoebe and guard her lest she not knowing her sphere, might go be`yond and attempt to do the work not given tor women to do. It seems that Paul knew her to be a true convert of Christ, well taught in gospel truth, and that she knew well what work was there for her to do, and that she could do “all things in Him who strengthened.” In such women as Philip’s four \irgin daughters who prophesied— ’spoke for God”—and those women mentioned by Paul, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis, Julia and the sisters of Nercus, no time nor space is given to quibble about their state of life nor their right to do service. The Holy Spnit wrote by the pen of Paul only words of commenda`tion for them.
Women today who go out to the far away fields to do gospel teaching do so with a clear understanding that their work out there is to be just what the woman’s wrork is in the church in America, just what it was in Priscilla’s day, in the time of Dorcas and others whom God has named for our examples. They go out to meet the needs of the people in those lands in certain “good works” where a woman’s help is needed. Both the manied woman and the single woman out there are. doing what the woman .should do ami nothing more. God has not made any distinction between the “good works” a married woman can do and the “good works” a single woman can do. Many of them are aiding the sick both in ministering to their physical need and in telling the gospel story. Sister Bixler has done much in teach`ing Japanese women who needed her helping hand in their distress. Miss Sarah Andrews sat by the bedside of Mrs. Murakami and told her the blessed story just before her death, and she was blessed to see the little Japanese, woman confess her Lord and be buried with Him in baptism before she passed into the great beyond. 1 his is only one ex`ample of many, many who have hungered to know rhe truth and have in a quiet personal way been told it by a good woman. The women on the foreign fields teach the. native wromen how to better dress and feed themselves and their families. Especially is there a crying need among the Africans for such work. Without rhe work of the wives and daughters of our missionaries in Africa, that work would not be done efficiently. Our women in Japan and other fields are conducting Sunday school classes for children, daily kindergartens where they supervise native Christian women as they teach the chil`dren. They also conduct Bible classes for native women and in their personal teaching give much guidance which aids in the development of our Bible teachers among the natives. The kindergarten offers great opportunities for both the training of children and the opening of doers to heathen homes where the gospel preacher may go in and teach. The most outstanding work of this type done by a woman is that of Miss Lillie Cypert. She has specialised in it for some fifteen years and her kindergartens meet government demands, and at the same time are being taught by Chris`tian women whom Sister Cypert supervises. Her influence then is to see that the native teachers are able to teach the Bible daily to those children, and to meet the parents, help them in their problems and to gain their friendship in order that they will come to hear the gospel. The Japanese preacher of the gospel located in her town has the over`sight of the church work, and he and other male members do all that should be done in public service, while she and the preacher’s wife and women teachers do the work among the women and children. In my own field in southern Japan the work has always been opened by a Japanese preacher and his wife, and I have joined them to do my part. Though I have not done kindergarten work, I aid them in Children's Bible classes in several localities. Sister Takaoka (wife of the preacher) joins me in teaching daily classes for women and girls. As there is a demand in Japan for teaching them how to make Western style clothing we devote some time to this as a channel for making contact, and with these classes we teach the Bible, give out tracts, and when a woman is interested enough we give her a Testa`ment to take to her home for study. Together she and I visit the sick, help the needy when we can, and go to funerals to express our sym`pathy. Her husband joins us in this personal work when he is free from his own work of study and preaching and visiting.
One phase of the work which I have loved to do, although many of the missionaries drift away from it as they get more into the native language, is to conduct Bible classes in the English language. In my own house, seated at a table where a few young men and women of college age will come, eager to hear and speak English, which they study in school, together we read the Bible in English and exchange questions and answers. There is no public teaching here, but only a quiet study hour in a class room of my own home where a few sit in round-table discussion. Even in such a work as this the preacher and his wife are present, together with the elderly widow who lives with me. If prayer is offered before or after study, Brother Takaoka leads it for us, and when a question hard to answer arises, he explains it in the native language. The English Bible class thus becomes a channel through which souls are lead to hear the gospel.
Many examples might be given of woman’s work as it is being ‘ done in the far mission fields today, but you would find them to be the same type of work which the women are doing in the homeland.
If all of us would wish to get to work and do what we can for the Master’s Kingdom, we would soon cease to be critics, and would be-come zealous workers. We would soon see His kingdom, the Church of Christ, spreading surely and unitedly to “all the world. Then we might see the Prince of Peace ruling in the hearts of man. Then we could rejoice together and instead of always wishing to question a woman for doing her part, we would say with the Christ, “She hath done what she could.”
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What examples of women workers do we find in the New Testament? What work did they do?
2. Is woman’s work in foreign lands essentially different from woman’s work in the church in the homeland?
3. What work in foreign lands can women do under the supervision of the church, that would not and could
not be done unless they did it?
4. Can you see how heathen women in foreign lands could not know of woman’s place and responsibility in
the church and Christian homes if there were not women workers, both married and unmarried, on: the
foreign field?
5. What women workers do you know of in the various fields?