_The Right to a Normal Romance, If Any_
I was in the CIM Mission Home in Vancouver, B. C., an accepted
candidate. In two more weeks I was to sail for China, the land where
three of my sisters were already laboring as missionaries. One had
been out for six years, had been married while on the field, and was
almost ready for furlough. The other two sisters had been out a
shorter period. They were both single, and stationed together. That
day I had received a letter from them written from a little hill
resort operated by our Mission, where they and others had gone to
escape the worst of the summer heat. Now, for missionaries, a summer
resort is the most common place for a romance to develop! The letter
was a gay description of their life there, and ended with the
following sentence:
"There are thirty-three of us here now: seven married couples with
nine children, nine single ladies, and one single man! There is one
more single man expected, we hear, but even at that, I'm afraid there
isn't much hope for us!"
The dinner bell rang, and I hurried down. But who was that elderly
couple in the old-fashioned clothes? Perhaps I had been told that they
were to arrive that day, but if so I had not remembered it. They were
introduced all around the circle--missionaries who had just come from
China! We sat down, and I found myself beside the lady.
"What did they say your name was?" she asked, apologetically. "I have
such a time remembering names."
I told her, and she immediately pricked up her ears. "Williamson!" she
said. "Don't you have a sister in China?"
"Yes, I have three there," I replied.
"Well, isn't that a coincidence! When I was in Shanghai I heard--no,
you couldn't have heard it yet, for the news was just out--I'm _sure_
it must have been your sister! Anyway, just before we left Shanghai
there was a great hubbub about the news of a new engagement, and I'm
almost certain--Dear," turning to her husband, "who was it that we
heard was engaged, just before we left Shanghai?"
Her husband did not remember. "Well, I'm almost sure it was your
sister, anyway!" she declared.
"My sister! But it couldn't be!" I replied rather dazedly, thinking of
the letter I had just received. "Which one? What was her first name?"
Unfortunately she could not remember that, nor did she know that
there were two Miss Williamsons in China. And as for the name of the
man--she had no idea about that, either. The whole thing seemed
extremely vague, and altogether unlikely, and I dismissed it from my
mind.
A week later I received another letter from my two sisters. To my
amazement I read the news that the younger of them had just become
engaged to the single man who had arrived at the hill resort the day
after the previous letter was written!
After I had partly recovered from the shock, my mind went back to what
I had heard of the courtship of my married sister, also in China. The
man who later became her husband was stationed at a place a thousand
miles from where she was. They had been very slightly acquainted when
they were in Bible institute in America, six or seven years before.
Suddenly he started writing to her, and after two or three letters,
asked her to marry him. When she went down to Shanghai for the
wedding, practically all she knew of him was from his letters.
The other sister, who went with her at that time, told me later that
when they went to the railway station in Shanghai to meet the expected
groom, who did not arrive until the day after they did, she almost had
heart failure. After they went to bed that night she could not go to
sleep for thinking, "What if she shouldn't want to marry him, now
that she's seen him! I'm sure _I_ wouldn't!"
Succeeding days set her mind at rest, however, for it was quite
evident that the promised bride _did_ want to marry him--and so it
turned out all right after all!
* * * * *
"What a strange family you come from!" you say. "Your sisters rush
into marriage in such a precipitous way!"
No, not at all. Such courtships are fairly common among missionaries.
The reason for this is obvious. There is very little opportunity on
the mission field for becoming acquainted with eligible persons of the
opposite sex. Unless the missionary is prepared to give up his calling
in order to marry, his range of choice is necessarily limited to other
missionaries; and missionaries, when at work, are usually widely
scattered. Most of our mission stations had only one household, with
only two, three, or four missionaries. Obviously, it would not be very
likely that two single workers of opposite sex would be included in
the group; to say nothing of the fact that such an allocation of
workers would normally be considered highly unconventional! Usually
single women workers were sent to one station, and a man (or men, if
there were that many) to another. Missionary travel, except for going
to a summer resort, was usually confined to one's own district, and
missionaries working outside that district met very infrequently.
Another factor that must be taken into consideration is the
restriction which local custom puts upon social mingling of the sexes
in heathen lands. Most missionaries live in near contact with the
people, and it is only right that they should do so. The missionary
who prefers to withdraw from the people is not likely to make many
converts. Local people, both Christian and heathen, are encouraged to
come freely into the missionary's home, and much of his work may be
done by just such quiet contacts. The missionaries come in as
strangers. They present a new way of life. Is it any wonder that, as
much as is possible, everything that they do is watched? Sometimes the
watching is in order to criticize; sometimes it is in order to
imitate; but always they are watched. If what the watchers see seems
good to them, they may give themselves to the One about whom the
missionaries preach. If they see things that offend them, they may
stumble and turn away. Because of this, local conventions _must_ be
taken into consideration; and in many heathen lands what we would call
only ordinary friendliness between two persons of opposite sex would
be looked upon not only with disapproval, but even with suspicion.
Mission rules in regard to such matters are usually very strict, as
the following quotation from _The Overseas Manual of the China Inland
Mission Overseas Missionary Fellowship_ (1955) will show!
It is important that the missionary in his daily life among
Eastern peoples should maintain a standard of dignity and
courtesy which is essentially Christian and not merely
Western. It must be remembered that a careless disregard of
local conventions will give offense to nationals whose good
opinion is of value, and may prove a serious hindrance to
the progress of the Gospel. Great care should be taken
particularly by lady workers when extending hospitality to
missionary brethren or _vice versa_, lest any action lead to
misunderstanding and injury to the work. Engaged couples
should also be especially careful of their deportment,
remembering that they will be setting a standard of behavior
for young Christians no longer bound by old conventions and
looking, perhaps, for guidance to their missionary
friends.... Engaged couples will not be designated to work
in the same center (pp. 21, 22).
So, between the limitation that a narrow circle of eligible
acquaintances sets, and the restriction entailed in conforming to
local custom, young missionaries may often feel that the chance for
any normal kind of romance is snatched from them. Small wonder that
the summer resort and the post office, the two avenues of courtship
left open to them, are speedily utilized, and that engagements are
often made on what would seem at home to be too short acquaintance!
If _you_ knew that you had only a few weeks in which to become better
acquainted and do your courting, and that when those few weeks had
passed each would return to his own station, with no opportunity of
meeting again for at least another year, perhaps you would speed
things up too!
If the choice of a life partner were a matter to be decided purely "on
one's own," then this sort of situation on the mission field might
lead to many a tragedy. Thank God, that is not the case! After all, He
is the One whom we want to make the choice for us, and He can be
depended upon. Certainly any young missionary should make this a
matter of definite prayer. If God has chosen the two for each other,
He will see to it that they meet; and He will bear witness in their
hearts as to His leading, so that they need not hesitate or fear. If
we set our hearts on some certain thing, irrespective of whether or
not it is His will, disaster will result. If we commit the matter
entirely to Him, and trust Him to work out His own perfect will, we
can go ahead, with confidence, knowing that the union (if He indicates
it) will be as the path of the just, that "shineth more and more unto
the perfect day." If anyone doubts this, let him look at any
missionary couple. In spite of all the difficulties and dangers, the
percentage of happily married couples must be greater among
missionaries than it is anywhere else!
To any thinking young person, another problem, not yet discussed, must
be evident. If there are twice as many single women as single men on
the mission field (and there are), some of the women must either marry
men who are not missionaries, and so leave the field, or else remain
single. The shortage of men on the mission field is often deplored,
and it is true that in many cases the work would be better off with a
larger proportion of men. I shall always remember, however, hearing
one of my sisters say: "Before I came to the mission field I thought
that the reason there were more women than men on the field was that
more of the women were wholly consecrated to the cause of Christ; but
after I had been out for some time I changed my mind. Now I believe
that God calls more women than men because _more women are needed_."
The army of unmarried women missionaries on the field is there, not
because there happen to be more women than men on the field, and,
since we do not believe in polygamy, some were left over; but because
there is a work that they can do that no one else can. Most men need
wives, and the fact that a man has a wife and family is more of a help
than a hindrance in most types of missionary work. A man missionary
can leave his family for weeks or months, and even though married, he
can engage in the arduous itineration that is often necessary. But a
married woman missionary, as soon as she becomes a mother, is bound to
her children, and that usually means that she bound to her home. She
can engage in missionary work in the place where she lives, but she
cannot travel easily. She cannot go out for weeks or months with a
women's evangelistic band. She cannot go from church to church,
holding Bible classes for the women. In many places, when teams of men
workers go about, the women are left almost untouched. There must be
women workers to reach the women. There is plenty of work for the
married woman missionary to engage in; but there are certain types of
work which her responsibilities will not allow her to undertake.
"That's the type of work I want to do!" declares one young woman. "To
spend weeks and months in the country villages, living in the people's
homes and really becoming one with them--that's the only work that
counts! _I_ shall never be married."
"Oh," says another, "I'm sure there is much work a married woman can
do that would be impossible to the single woman. Anyway, I wasn't cut
out for a spinster! It doesn't matter if there _are_ only half as many
men as women; _some_ of the women get married, and I'll be one of the
'some.'"
Well, friends, both of you are wrong. It's not up to you to say what
sort of work you want to do, and it's not up to you to say whether you
will be married, or one of the single crowd. Since most girls want to
be married, it is a good thing for each to face the possibility that
God _might_, for a reason, want her to remain single; but that does
not mean that I am encouraging anyone to take a vow of celibacy! I
know of one young woman missionary who told various fellow workers,
and even some of the local Christians, that she was never going to get
married. The Lord began to deal with her--at the same time that a
young man was laying siege to her heart! She finally surrendered to
the Lord, and gave up her cherished dreams of the kind of missionary
career she had mapped out for herself. A few years later she was a
happy missionary wife and mother!
Most of the above is particularly directed to young women, but it may
apply to young men as well. In a limited number of cases it may be
necessary for men to remain single, particularly those who engage in
pioneer work of a sort that would be impossible for women. This
probably means giving up anything that could rightly be called a
"home." Even where two single men are together, "batching it" is
usually a sorry business; but when the call of the Lord comes, He will
give grace. In that respect it is much easier for women. Two
unmarried women can live together and make a home that seems like a
home; most men do not seem to have that gift!
The advantages and disadvantages of the single woman missionary, as
over and against those of the married woman (or vice versa) are often
debated. The single woman certainly has the advantage in being able to
give all her time and energy to the work, though the married woman can
give help to married women in a way that an unmarried woman cannot. It
is not a matter for anyone to decide arbitrarily. Remember that "each
man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another
after that" (I Cor. 7:7). Whatever God has called us to do, we _can_
do. Each state has its own blessings. When one sees the "trouble in
the flesh" (I Cor. 7:28, K.J.V.) that bringing up children on the
mission field entails,[5] it is almost enough to make one feel that
the single state is the easier. It _is_ easier in some ways, of
course. Yet remaining single is not easy either. Every human heart
longs for someone to "belong to," and perhaps the hardest thing that
the single missionary has to face is that she can never, never say to
anyone, "I'm going to stay with you."