On the seventeenth of December in the year 1840, Charlotte Diggs Moon, later to be known as Lottie Moon, was born in the small Virginia town of Viewmont. The third of seven children and the second of four daughters, Lottie was born into a family of considerable wealth and power. Her ancestry included “English royal favorites, Quaker scholars, colonial governors, heroes of duels and of the American Revolution, and a Lady Gordon known as 'The White Rose of Scotland'“ (Hyatt p.94). She grew up on a Virginia tobacco plantation surrounded by her family, servants, and several thousand acres of land.
Unlike most women during her time, Charlotte had many opportunities to succeed due to her high education and extensive knowledge. She was educated at the Albemarle Female Institute where, at her 1861 graduation where she received a master's degree in classics, she earned the reputation of being one of “the first southern women [along with her four classmates] ever to earn the A.M.” (Hyatt p.95). Another important occurrence in college took place when Lottie reluctantly attended a campus revival only to discover that it would forever change her life. She has said, about the revival, “I went to the service to scoff, and returned to my room praying all night” (Jeffreys p.1). While this was Lottie's first true connection with God and His word, her second connection, a sermon by Reverend Headden would be by far more powerful than the first.
In addition to her education, Lottie's strength and determination as a woman, and more importantly as a woman of faith, was due in large part to the influence of her mother and her sisters. In 1852, Edward Moon, Lottie's father, died in a riverboat accident. From then on, her house was a complete matriarch with her mother in charge of everything that went on in regards to the house life as well as the plantation. Under the influence of her mother, Lottie and her siblings all grew into very individualistic and strong-minded adults. Her older sister, Orianna, refused to go to finishing schools, became the first woman to earn a medical degree south of the Mason-Dixon line, and was a Lucy Stone feminist (Hyatt p.94). Even though Lottie was not known as a true feminist, she absorbed much of her mother's and sister's spirit and independence. This independence would later help her as she would spend forty years of her life as a missionary in the North Chinese cities of Tengchow and P'ingtu.
In the 1860s, Lottie taught in the states of Alabama and Kentucky, where she met a woman by the name of Anna Cunningham Safford, and together they started a female high school in Cartersville, GA in 1871. Lottie was soon dissatisfied with teaching and sought something else, but did not know exactly what her destiny was until she went to church one day. That particular day, the Reverend Headden was giving his sermon on the topic, “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” That sermon struck a chord in Lottie and she knew that day that her destiny was to become a missionary and to spread God's word. She mentioned that she was interested in going to China to follow in the destiny that God had set for her. Many thought that this move to China was extremely drastic, for how could a woman “raised in the midst of culture, society, and educational advantages” leave all of this behind for a foreign and unknown land only “to live in poverty and difficulty” (Creweburkeville.com p.1)? Disregarding other people's concerns, Lottie followed her vocation, and left for North China, following her younger sister, Edmonia, who had already been there for a year as a missionary.
In December 1873, Lottie Moon was greeted in Tengchow, China by two other missionaries in the North China Mission, which, at the time, consisted of Martha and T.P Crawford, Sally Holmes, and Edmonia Moon. There, she began working in a group with the other women missionaries that was known as Women's Work. “Women's work was in a sense a feminist movement, obviously, but is rationale and basic orientation were always evangelistic. The main goal was to save the souls of Chinese women, for their own sakes and because the men would eventually follow” (Hyatt p86). Lottie participated in Women's Work for the majority of the time that she was in China and saw it grow as an accepted missionary group. Upon arriving in Tengchow, she was instantly intrigued by the Chinese people, noting that they “depicted an interesting mixture of heathenism with advanced culture and ethical teachings” (Hyatt p96). The first few years in Tengchow were a period of personal adjustment where Lottie remained close to home and close to her sister. She initially tried to establish a boarding school for girls of upper-class families in Tengchow, but after 6 years, she only had 15 pupils (Creweburkeville.com p.1). While she saw an increasing number of students at her school, she didn't feel as though she was reaching out to enough people, and that, as a servant of God and His Word, she needed to do more. There were other important problems going on in Lottie's life during this same time period. One dealt with her sister, Edmonia, and the other with Dr. Crawford Toy.
Edmonia, who was still a young woman at age 19, was not adapting well to her missionary life in China. She constantly complained of different illnesses and shocked the other missionaries with her constantly obnoxious behavior. Not only was she becoming a problem to the North China Mission, but also the Chinese people found her overwhelming and rude. Eventually Edmonia became too much to bear and Lottie escorted her back to Virginia and stayed with her until she was well again. As soon as Edmonia had recovered, Lottie immediately requested more funds to be sent back to China and was returned on Christmas Eve. The other problem that Lottie faced involved her fiancé, Dr. Crawford Toy. After refusing his proposal several times, Lottie finally agreed to marry Dr. Toy, but the engagement was called off once again due to his religious beliefs. Dr. Toy was fascinated with Darwinism and the theory of evolution, all contradictory to Lottie's beliefs as well as her mission in China. She decided that she could not love a man who was not a follower of God as she was and broke off the engagement. She described her emotional conflict between God and Dr. Toy when she stated, “God had first claim on my life, and since the two conflicted, there could be no question about the result” (Hyatt p.99). This decision was also a huge turning point in Lottie's life in that it signified her complete devotion to God and the church as she surrendered herself to carrying out his will. But when she set off for China the second time, she was even more alone than ever for she lacked both her fiancé affections and her sister's support.
Lottie Moon faced many challenges during her time in China, including adapting to a new style of dress, speaking a new language, eating different food, and trying to understand a new culture with different traditions and ways of life than her own. Lottie eventually overcame these obstacles, as she became a fluent speaker of Chinese, she adapted their style of dress, and even angered a male missionary when she refused to shake his hand because it was a custom that the Chinese people thought to be weird (Hyatt p107). One of her biggest challenges in China was coping with the gender conflict. There, she clashed with the male leadership and refused to follow by their rules, demanding, “What women want who come to China is free opportunity to do the largest possible work. What women have a right to demand is perfect equality” (Jeffreys p1). Lottie was only allowed to teach God's word to women and children because it was uncustomary for a woman to preach to a man; so peasant women became the focus of her work. In reaching out to women and children, she hoped that some of her influence would rub off on the men since she wasn't able to reach them directly. However, later on in her life, pastors and men of high position came seeking her for conferences because, through her determination in spreading the word of God, she had become an inspiration to the people of North China whose lives she touched (Creweburkeville.com p3).
In total, Lottie spent four decades in China, dividing her time mainly between two towns, Tengchow and P'ingtu. While she traveled occasionally to surrounding villages, she considered both of these places her home. Her life in Tengchow was completely different from that in P'ingtu. Tengchow was a city that was wealthier, busier, and harder to reach the closed hearts of the citizens, whereas P'ingtu was much poorer but was home to a more devoted and open-minded community. Lottie was constantly torn between the two villages; she had the comfort of better-living and the support of her American missionaries in the city, but she had the attention and friendship of those in the country to aid in her ultimate mission. Also, when Lottie lived in Tengchow, she had a nice house that was referred to as “Little Cross Roads” by those who visited, but when she was in P'ingtu, she lived as a commoner in an attempt to reach the locals by becoming one of them. In P'ingtu Lottie initially picked up the habit of wearing the traditional dress and living without any of the luxuries that she had while living in the city. At first the village was opposed to her and ran down the street after her calling her “Old Devil Woman,” but she continued in her determined manner to prove to them that there was nothing special about her and this attitude eventually earned her the respect of the majority of the community and more friends than she had made in ten years of living in Tengchow. She also adjusted her method of reaching out to people, waiting now for them to approach her, and stated that “we need to make friends before we can make converts” (Hyatt p109). While she reached more people in P'ingtu, as she got older, Lottie remained in her house in Tengchow where she could receive the help of the other missionaries.
Another well-known trait of Lottie Moon was her prolific letter writing, which were often pleas for money in support of missions. “Most of her writing was directed toward Baptist women in appeal for foreign mission support. She saw that women were the ones who saved the Southern Methodist Church, so she believed they could do the same with the Baptist church” (Cobern p1). In fact, when she asked that all money in support of missionaries be handled solely by the women of the church, she spawned a religious, feminist movement in the United States by helping form the Women's Missionary Union. Her writings were printed in missionary magazines all over the world and helped raise awareness of her experiences in China as well as the need for more missionaries to China and all over the world. Probably her most famous letter was dated the 15th of September 1887, and it is credited with providing the inspiration for the creation of a Southern Baptist offering to support international missions, which later became the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. In part of this letter she wrote: “In a word, Southern Methodist women, in one year, have contributed to missions, clear of all expenses, nearly sixty-five thousand dollars! Doesn't this put us Baptist women to shame? For one, I confess I am heartily ashamed” (Moon p1). Part of Lottie's success as a missionary was her ability to touch the hearts of others through her writings to gain financial support, while at the same time inspiring others to become missionaries themselves to help spread God's message to foreign lands and even within the United States.
In 1912, nearly forty years after Lottie initially embarked to China, her mission came to an end. Due to the famine outbreaks that were occurring in China, Lottie contributed her salary as well as her inheritance in an effort to help out those in need by forming a relief service. Her savings dwindled away and her relief efforts were failing, and Lottie fell into a deep depression. In an attempt to sympathize with the people that she had grown to love in the country that she had grown to call home, she started starving herself. Her condition worsened and when the other missionaries became deeply concerned, they put her on a boat to be sent back to the Virginia where she could be nursed to health. However, on Christmas Eve, 1912, Charlotte Diggs Moon died aboard a ship while docked at a port in Japan. She was cremated according the Japanese law and the ashes were sent back to Virginia, where, on the marble marker next to her burial site the words were written, “Faithful unto Death,” and “Forty years a missionary of Southern Baptist Convention in China” (Creweburkeville.com, p2).
The teachings of Lottie Moon are so lasting because her ideas were so radical to the Chinese people and to the missionary in general. Being a Southern Belle from a wealthy and privileged family, she made radical feminist statements that caused controversy in missionary magazines all over the world. She once wrote “Simple justice demands that women should have equal rights with men in mission meetings and in the conduct of their work,” which some this as being “improper in her role as a female missionary” (Cobern p1). Her actions were also radical, as she once walked through an angry anti-Christian mob and demanded that “they would have to kill her first,” and eventually broke up the mob. In fact, during her four decades in China, she endured the bombings of the Japanese, lived through the ravages of the Civil War, and even convinced feuding warlords to cease-fire as she traveled across battlefields (Bridges p1). She was never afraid of death, for she always believed that she was in the hands of God and that when her time was over, then it was God's wish. Lottie also knew that she had to be different and have radical ideas in order for her to achieve her mission. If she had remained “in her proper role” as a woman, then Lottie Moon would be just another missionary who failed to convert people to the Gospel. And the institutions that came out of her extreme ideas and actions, such as the Women's Missionary Union and Women's Work, have ensured her immortality.
Lottie's influence is as prominent today, more than 100 years later, as it was when she was living in North China. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering donations totaled more than $120 million in the year 2001, where all of the proceeds go to support the missionary movement and missionaries who are currently abroad following in Lottie's footsteps (www.imb.org, p1). The first Lottie Moon Christmas Offering was collected in 1888, and the donations have been steadily increasing up to the current date. It is no coincidence that the Lottie Moon offering is during the Christmas season since all of her most important life events happened in the month of December: her birth, her first arrival in China, and her death. While Lottie gave everything she had to offer to the Chinese, ironically, it was her failure to arouse interest in others in giving to missions that insured her most lasting legacy (Jeffreys p1). Lottie's influence can still be seen in North China, where there is a great openness to the gospel. Now that her teachings have been rooted in North China for several generations, the people of North China have accepted the gospel and are traveling to other provinces in order to spread God's word and keep the memory of Lottie Moon alive (Bridges p1). The name of Lottie Moon has become a legend among missionaries and Baptists and she has been described as “setting her face like flint toward China and using every ounce of her life to tell the good news and wrap her God-filled life among the broken ones she met” (Rogers p1). Even in her death, she is still able to touch the lives of thousands each year by helping others continue her work to spread God's word and follow His destiny.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bridges, Erich. “The Power of a Life Freely Given.” International Missions Emphasis. . 1 Feb. 2002.
Cobern, Kristie. “Charlotte 'Lottie' Diggs Moon.” Women of Faith. 3 Feb. 2002 .
Hyatt, Jr., Irwin T. Our Ordered Lives Confess. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976.
Jeffreys, Mary Ann. “Lottie Moon: A life poured out in China.” Crosswalk.com: The Intersection of Faith and Life. 2 Feb. 2002 .
“Meet Lottie Moon: One Rebellious Lady.” Crewe Burkeville Chamber of Commerce 5 November 2000. 2 February 2002 .
Moon, Lottie D. “The letter that started it all.” International Missions Emphasis. . 3 Feb. 2002.
Rogers, Jenny. “Jenny's Light and 'Lottie's China.'“ International Missions Emphasis. . 31 Jan. 2002
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