Two Pennies On Her Bible

Crushed with disappointment, she returned to her small upstairs room, opened her purse, and turned it upside down. Two pennies fell onto her Bible. She said, “O God, here’s my Bible! Here’s my money!

Here’s me! Use me, God.” She started scrimping and saving every penny she earned, and she finally determined that while she could never save enough to travel to China by ship, she could scrape together enough for a train ticket across Europe and Asia, a dangerous crossing because of a war blazing on the Manchurian border.

The day finally came when a few bewildered friends and family members gathered at London’s Liverpool Station to see her off. She traveled from England across the Channel to The Hague, across Europe to Moscow, and across Siberia toward China. Bundled in an overcoat and orange frock, Gladys carried her bedroll, two suitcases (one stocked with food), and a bag clanking with pots and pans. Day and night the train pressed on into the frigid, Siberian wasteland, and finally it stopped in the dead of night in the middle of the wasteland, at the war zone.

The other passengers, all soldiers, disembarked and headed in the direction of gunfire. Gladys got off and started trudging back, suitcases in hand, the way the train had come and nearly died before she found the nearest station.

By sheer determination Gladys Aylward finally arrived in China and moved in with an older single missionary woman-who, as it turned out, didn’t quite know what to do with her. To make a long story short, Gladys Aylward, parlor maid from England, became one of the most famous missionaries of the twentieth century, a woman that has been called “the most noted single woman missionary in modern history:’ A popular biography about her was made into a movie starring Ingrid Bergman.

She was featured in an episode of television’s “This Is Your Life:’ She dined with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. She traveled the world, speaking in some of America’s greatest churches. But the most notable thing about Gladys was her brokenness, her humility, and her willingness to be available to God.

She once said, “I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China. There was somebody else ... I don’t know who it was-God’s first choice. I don’t know what happened.

Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing ... And God looked down ... and saw Gladys Aylward.” “Think of what you were when you were called,” said Paul.

“Not many of you were wise, influential, or of noble birth. But God chose the lowly things ...

“ (1 Cor. 1 :26-27 NIV)