In the fall of 1913, Merritt C. Warren and his bride Wilma Landis arrived in Shanghai, China. There they spent six months in language study. The Warrens were assigned to join with the F. A. Allum family (an older couple from Australia) in opening new work in western China where as yet there was not a single Seventh-day Adventist. Chungking, Szechwan, was to be the headquarters for the West China Union Mission, which included Yunnan, Kweichow, and Szechwan. Two families of Chinese evangelists from Honan (Pastors Li Fa Kung and Shih Ru Ling) were also assigned to pioneer in this new Union.
Early in 1914 the men went to Chungking ahead of their families to arrange for suitable housing for four families and for a place of worship. With their first baby due in late July, Merritt Warren wanted to make sure he got back to his wife before that date.
When the baby was three months old, the Warrens set out for Chungking along with one of the Chinese families. The first thousand miles was by steamship to Ichang, beyond which early steamships dared not navigate. The four hundred miles from Ichang to Chungking had to be made by houseboat (a junk) pulled step by step slowly upstream by trackers. Especially dangerous were the rapids. The captain told them that one out of every ten junks gets damaged, and one out of twenty is lost, that a thousand people a year are drowned between Ichang and Chungking. It took 26 days for them to reach Chungking.
In Chungking, the summers were very hot. There was no electricity or running water. Because the three provinces of West China were very mountainous, there were no vehicles on wheels. All travel on land was on foot, unless one had the good fortune to afford a horse or else be carried in a sedan chair by coolies. During the next 18 years M.C. Warren probably walked more miles than any other China missionary. Often he was gone for several months at a time, and met with bandits numerous times.
Before very long, the Allum family returned to Australia due to failing health, leaving Warrant in charge of the work. Among early workers sent to reinforce the work in West China was the family of Dr. J. N. Andrews, who went to the borders of Tibet and established the work in Kangding. Among the early West China missionaries were the Blandfords (she died in Chengdu of pneumonia). The S.H. Lindts, and, later, the E. Hugheses, also labored in Chengtu, capital of Szechwan. The Ernest Lutz family and the Woolsey family and later the Effenberg family were at different times stationed in Chungking.
In 1927, four new missionary families were added to the work in West China. Pastor Warrant, the Union Superintendent, placed the Claude Miller and Dallas While families in Kunming, Yunnan. And in Kweiyang, Kwichow, he placed the Herbert Smith and the Alexander Buzzell families. Tragedy struck the new missionaries in both provinces. Herbert Smith was shot and killed by bandits as he journeyed toward Yunnan. In Kunming both Mrs Miller and Mrs White were murdered in bed at night while their husbands were on a missionary journey to open work in the Dali are. These three deaths among his workers brought untold grief to Merritt Warren.
Dallas White, with two little motherless girls, married and returned to the States. Pastor Miller remained to work and live among the Miao people in the mountains. Hundreds of Miao joined the church. Later, while attending a Division Committee in Shanghai, Claude Miller met a lovely young secretary, Irene Dawson, whom he married and took back to Kunming.
After leading out in the work of West China for eighteen years, Merritt Warrant was assigned to be the superintendent of the Central China Union, with headquarters in Hankow. The work in Central China was begun earlier than the work in West China and there were quite a large number of missionaries in that field, such as Dr. Brines in our Adventist hospital in Yencheng, Honan. Some of the other missionaries included the Stricklands, the Jameses, the Shaws, the Clarks, the Davises, the Carters.
In 1936, while the Warrens were still in Hangkow, their daughter Helen and her husband Milton Lee stopped by Hankow for a short visit on their way to be missionaries in Yunnan. Three years lateer, after the Warrens’ third furlough, Merritt Warren was assigned to lead in the work in Yunnan Mission. Japan was then occupying China’s coastal ports and China Division headquarters had been moved to Chungking. Warren’s next move was to the North-West Union with headquarters in Lanchow. Those years were most difficult because of the terrible inflation. Prices of everything kept rising. Salary increases for the national brethren could not keep up with the rising prices. Elder Warren did his best to make the available funds stretch as far as possible. (Even the envelopes that mail came in were turned carefully inside out and reused.)
Finally World War II ended and the Warrens took their fourth overdue furlough. But back to China they went after the war, to Hankow again. But peace was short-lived. This time it was the Communist tide sweeping down from the north. It seemed wise to evacuate the workers in Yencheng, Honan. Elder Warren went there in the cold of winter and helped bring out a large group of our workers, which included nurse Gertrude Green, the Dr. McMullen family, Otis Eric, and Dr. Paul Hwang’s wife and child. (Dr. Hwang offered to stay by the hospital through the impending crisis of a Communist takeover.) For over three weeks no one knew where they were or whether they were alive. They encountered both the National troops and the Communist army. God kept them safe even when bombs were falling all about them. The group arrived safely in Hankow. However, very soon all foreigners had to leave China.
In Hong Kong the Division President passed calls onto the China missionaries to either go to work in other mission fields or choose to return to their homeland. Pastor Warren was told that he could return to the States.
“But I am in good health. Isn’t there some field in the Orient where I can serve?” Merritt asked. He accepted a call to the Philippines, where English was spoken. The Warrens labored there for six years.
When the Warrens received a call to work in Taiwan, they gladly responded, happy to be laboring once more among the Chinese people.In Taiwan they lived in Taichung where he led out in the Voice of Prophecy Bible School as well as overseeing the churches in the central section of Taiwan.Five years later, at the age of 70, having given almost 48 years in mission service, Merritt Warren retired.He ever remained a missionary at heart, and until his death, he sent his second tithe to assist the mountain school in southern Taiwan.