Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us (Romans 8:35,37).
Charlotte Digges, “Lottie”, Moon spent most of her life sacrificing all that she had for her love for the Chinese people. Truly she was one of the most Christ-like women who ever lived. Like Jesus her life reflected love, compassion, unselfishness, humility, kindness, service, and peacefulness.
After spending the last six weeks discussing the politics of our day I thought it was time for a good story of the life of a woman who showed us the way to live in accordance with our beliefs no matter how hard the times in which we live. After this election, we see that we have one of the most evil administrations in history. How can we face this? What shall we do? There is much that I have already tried to encourage women to do in the Pro-life movement especially, but overall on this blog-site I have also encouraged women to follow their calling from God. Throughout history, God is glorified when His saints just follow Him. Lottie Moon is an exemplary person for us to follow.
There is so much to tell about this remarkable woman that it is impossible to put in a 
short posting. I would like to recommend the book by Catherine B. Allen, “The New Lottie Moon Story”. The book was originally published in 1980 (same title) but updated with new information about China in the 1997 edition. It is very inspiring both for our personal lives and for an emphasis on missions. After all, our main job that Jesus gave us is to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Lottie answered the call to do this personally.
Lottie Moon was born in Virginia on December 12, 1840. She was named Charlotte Digges Moon after her grandmother, but everyone called her “Lottie.” She was very petite, less than five feet tall. This would turn out to be one of the ways that God used her in China. The children loved her there, perhaps because she seemed to fit in with them.
Lottie received her education as a teacher at Hollins College and Albemarle Female Institute and accepted an appointment as a Baptist missionary to China in 1873. .
There had been a brief romance in Lottie’s life. She could have married and lived in the United States. But the young man had changed his theology in a way that Lottie did not approve of. Anyway she said, “God had first claim on my life, and since the two conflicted, there could be no question about the result.” The most important thing for Lottie was that the Chinese people should know Jesus.
Lottie spent most of the next thirty-nine years in Tengchow and P’ingtu, China. She wore Chinese clothes and lived like the Chinese people. The Chinese people respected Lottie. Her selfless giving won many Chinese to Christ. She often had poor, suffering or sick women living with her in her own small house.
Lottie loved the Chinese people. She constantly made personal sacrifices to help the Chinese, giving them her own money for their needs. Though she went home to Virginia on several furloughs, as time went on she came to consider China her home.
There were over eighty villages within walking distance from Lottie’s home and she made it a point to visit every one of them every fall. This really should put to shame our modern ministers who complain about writing one sermon a week while sitting in their comfortable homes with their new cars in the driveway.
As was the custom in China, Lottie worked with the women and children. In that culture, men were separate from the women. Having grown up a Southern lady with respect for men as the leaders it was easy for her to fit in with this part of Chinese culture. She would bake cookies for the children who would then invite her to their homes. Lottie would be able to share the Gospel with their mothers. She also started Bible studies. Whenever Lottie visited one of the villages there would always be a crowd gathered waiting to hear her tell stories. When Lottie visited in the villages, the men would stand off to one side, within hearing, and pretend to be busy but they would be soaking up every word.
It is interesting to note that there were sometimes no male missionaries available to teach the men. The Chinese male converts were starved for teaching. Since women were not allowed to teach men, one way that this could be accommodated was that a curtain would be put up in the room where Lottie was teaching the women and girls. The men would sit on the other side and listen in.
It was also not unusual for men to come to the outside of her home and listen through a hole in the paper window. Gradually throughout her lifetime, Lottie would teach more and more groups including older boys, and eventually some men in mixed Bible studies.
While she lived in China, Lottie wrote letters to the Foreign Mission Board, begging for more missionaries. She was often alone or had very little help. They also reduced the amount of money they would send her whenever they had financial difficulties. This would eventually be an indirect cause of her death.
When the famine came in P’ingtu, she gave all that she had. She could not bear to see the Chinese women starving so she gave them her own food. She ate so little that she literally starved. She was very sick from malnutrition. A devoted missionary nurse, Miss Cynthia Miller, agreed with a local doctor that she needed to get her home to the US to see a doctor. But Lottie died on board a ship in the harbor at Kobe, Japan. She died on December 24, 1912. Lottie was 72 years old.
After her death, the Women’s Missions groups realized how important it was to support missionaries. Because she was so determined, Woman’s Missionary Union® collected the Christmas Offering to give to the Foreign Mission Board. At Annie Armstrong’s suggestion, the offering was named for Lottie Moon in 1919. Today it is called the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering® for International Missions.
What are you called to do? Do it with while “applying all diligence” (II Peter 1:5). We are not all called to go to a foreign country like Lottie Moon. We are not going to starve to death as Lottie did. But there is a different way that most of us are called. We are called to the really hard tasks of everyday living. Most of us are called to live right here and raise up the next generation for Christ – an equally important if not greater task requiring as much diligence as any missionary had to endure.
The times we live in are hard. We cannot be June Cleaver living in an idealistic situation. Let us be like Lottie Moon. The purpose of this blog is to encourage women to live courageously in our spiritually difficult times. Be careful to follow your Biblical calling. Prayerfully consider how to balance your time for yourself, your family, your community, and the world.
