The “ Indian Bear “ was on its last transpacific voyage with two young missionary families bound for Taiwan, each with two small children. It had been nearly a month since the freighter had left the shores of California, surviving one of the worst typhoons the ship and its salty captain had ever weathered. For him the carrying of missionaries posed a hazard. “The better the missionaries the worse the typhoon” was his cynical comment as the storm raged to an unbelievable fury, tearing containers loose which had been welded to the deck. It was frightening to hear him say as he secured the port holes, “You may as wellquit your praying as it’s all up to Father Neptune now.“ Experiencing one of the worst storms ever in which we had to literally tie our children to their beds we remembered the captain’s comment and took courage, “the rougher the storm the better the missionaries!” Passing Korea and Japan, we at last reached the port city of Keelung where Pastor Cameron Carter, principal of Taiwan Training Institute (TTI) met our group with the greeting, “Welcome to China.”
In January of 1955, TTI was some miles off a dirt road from Taipei on a compound surrounded by rice fields. Dorothy and I with our two little children, Larry and Janet, moved into one of the three Section II (foreign) houses, which faced across a rice field another row of much smaller Section I (Chinese) faculty and staff homes. Thus began a wonderful, sometimes painful yet joyous first five years of mission life for the young Nelson family.
We were age 25 when the call to China came just after the completion of a Master’s degree program at the Seminary and a short term of service as Youth Pastor of the Loma Linda Hill Church. After considerable opposition by well meaning friends to the idea of our going with little children into the “war zone” of Formosa (Taiwan); ordination took place, and we were sent with the blessings of loved ones.
Our task was the learning of Chinese and the development of an educational program for Chinese youth, with particular emphasis on ministerial training. Concurrently departmental positions were carried which included the Youth Department. The South China Island Union President, a dear friend, Ezra Longway, explained to me there was a budget for this department of $50 a year and that I should promote the youth work vigorously while not neglecting my language study and teaching! I recall the disappointment on the face of one veteran missionary teacher to whom I was introduced and whom I was to eventually replace. “I thought they were going to send us a teacher!” was his remark. Our tears and fears, joys and laughter of early years were recorded in the book, “Treasures of Taiwan” edited by Dorothy’s mother Ruth Kipp Nelson. (R &H). Dorothy has always been a Nelson, daughter of Elder J.R. Nelson, of the Youth and National Service Departments of the General Conference.
Following the pioneer Adventist missionaries of the late 19thCentury, led by Abram La Rue, the 20the Century might be viewed as having five “generations” of missionaries, the first three groups served terms on the mainland, prior to the escape from the communist armies to Taiwan in 1949. The last two generations of missionaries joined the younger third group who had been on the mainland and were called back to Taiwan for China service. This third group included one who became for me a hero and model missionary, Pastor Milton Lee, with his associates of that generation, Doyle Barnett, Carl Curry, and Jerry Christensen with their dedicated and hard working wives. “China Doctor” Harry Miller, MD, was among the few of the “first generation” missionaries still in the field. It was our great privilege to be closely associated with him from the time he opened the Taiwan Sanitarium and Hospital, the year of our arrival, until my brief service as president of the South China Union College with campuses in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the mid-seventies. We worked under the leadership of “2ndand 3rdgeneration” missionaries.
Pastors Carter, Longway, and our Union Treasurer “Uncle Billy” Hilliard were of the “second generation” and showed great consideration to the “fresh recruits” such as ourselves who were of the “fourth generation.” In our era was one who served as our Union Treasurer, Pastor Don Gilbert, later to become treasurer of the General Conference, and Pastor Larry Colburn who, following many years of leadership in the Far East, is currently in the General Conference Secretariat.
The China missionaries were a close knit group, and we younger missionaries felt they were rather slow in accepting us. It seemed we needed to prove ourselves to be worthy of our mission. The day after our arrival in China I became deliriously ill with fever. Dr. Miller soon arrived to see me and admonished, “Wilbur, now you are in China and there is something you must learn, “Man-man-de” (slowly, slowly). Those were my first words of the Chinese language.
The older missionaries had passed through war and suffering on the mainland of which we knew nothing.They spoke the language, understood the people, endured hardships and had been tested. They also were bound together by inter-marriage, and the positions of administration they held. Milton Lee, son of early China Evangelist Frederick Lee, married the daughter of another veteran of China missions, Pastor M.C. Warren. Ezra Longway’s daughter was married to Carl Curry, president of the Taiwan Mission, and Union Treasurer Hilliard’s son Bill was president of the Hong Kong-Macao mission.
Some in the “fourth generation” of China missionaries (in the fifties to the seventies), had “new” ideas about missionary practice and policies. A few questioned the priority given to construction buildings rather than “living” temples. At times churches were built for congregations yet to be won (since property and construction costs were cheap in the early days on Taiwan). In Hong Kong “mission” schools were crowded with non-Christian students. “Faithful” (or “favorite”) worker and their children were sponsored for up-grading to America. Many never returned. So overspent was the budget for the Taiwan Sanitarium and Hospital in the fifties that for years no worker could receive a full month’s salary. Our Union president was constantly “Ingathering“to supply us with living allowances when indebtedness cut off Division appropriations for foreign salaries. As the “mission” schools in Hong kong multiplied some viewed them as more of a commercial than a soul-winning endeavor. The politics and military rule of the Kuo Ming Tang on Taiwan allowed no question about the forces of Chiang Kai Shek returning to rule the mainland. Our concern was that a strong foundation be built for the “New China” church that would carry the Message back to the Mainland.Building strong workers of unquestioned character, and churches with zeal for the evangelization of China from Taiwan and Hong Kong, was our goal. Some feel we failed, but perhaps that would be their judgment of the ministry of Jesus when only one of the disciples followed Him to the cross. I prefer to believe God will work through His church and His people in ways more wonderful than we can now know for the finishing of theGospel commission in China. The more critically thinking younger missionaries wondered if “we learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history. “
Perhaps today we have matured sufficiently to review the past history of the church in China honestly, even the most recent past, as plans are laid for the future. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the church in China is the fastest growing of any land on earth. I believe the truly great days of the China mission lie ahead as the present spiritual vacuum draws millions to the uplifted Christ. In view of growing materialism and corruption with the decline of morality, there is recognized in China’s political leadership a need for restoring the old life values. Recently prayer for peace has been publicized suggesting some greater tolerance for Christianity and appreciation of its value system. Through health education we see a great open door for nationwide media presentation in China of the Adventist Lifestyle as represented by the NEWSTART program of Weimar Institute, where we currently have our base for international Health Expo evangelism.
Though we never experienced the hardships of earlier missionaries, we too suffered illness and injuries. As young “recruits” we wished for a greater acceptance by the older workers. In time, we could speak the language reasonably well (I complete Stanford’s first Master’s degree in Chinese); a “hardening “process took place, and somewhat limited respect and acceptance was given us. But in China there has long been a resistance to change by both Chinese and foreign leadership. Dr. Miller knew this when he taught me that first day, “Man-man-de”.
The astonishing pace of progress and change on the China mainland today is nothing less than miraculous after centuries of seeming stagnation. Can the thinking of church leaders match this pace?
Close friendship and association between Chinese and “foreigners” are not often realized, but we have advanced toward such fellowship. One difficulty was that vegetarianism was practiced by most missionaries and rarely by Chinese workers. Food and eating are of such major importance to Chinese that the inability “to eat from the same dishes at one table” naturally created a barrier.
Position in China for centuries was based on “degrees”. It was felt I should have a doctorate. The fifties, sixties, and seventies were marked by a growing demand for degrees throughout the Adventist church. The era of universities had arrived. I passed through six degree programs in an endeavor to “accommodate the prejudices of those who required them.” This made possible my serving on the religion faculty at Pacific Union College and later as professor and department chairman at Loma Linda University’s School of Public Health in the field of Health Education. Later come service to over twenty nations in the Western Pacific Region as Advisor on Health Education for The World Health Organization. I view those activities as a brief interlude from my primary ministerial and missionary calling. Recently we have returned to public evangelism, holding meeting in over forty cities of Russia and surrounding nations, using the Health Expo approach designed by Dorothy when we joined General Conference President Pastor Neal Wilson in his Manila Crusade of 1982. This was a program that would eventually reach over fifty nations.
I am a minister and missionary, not a “scholar.” The focus of my work again is on health education and soul-winning within China and nearby nations.
After my first doctorate was completed in Asian Studies at Claremont, I was assigned to teach Bible to Cantonese speaking middle school students at our Clear Water Bay campus in Hong Kong. My language was Mandarin. Few of my students were Christians and they seemed disinterested. This was a unique discipline for both of them and myself! However, in that school we saw our student body change from about 80% non-Adventist to 80% Adventistto 80% Adventist within the next three years. We were thrilled by the response among the thousands of boat people to our “Operation Sea Light,” and the student evangelism from our chapel-clinic barge, the “Sea Light.” From their first day in our classes, students began house to house (boat to boat) missionary visitation. From these youth came several of today’s church leaders in Hong Kong.
Dorothy taught in fields of Music (in which she holds a master’s degree), English,and Bible. She worked with Dr. Samuel Young in the preparation of a new Chinese Church Hymnal and other music publications. Two sons were born at the Taiwan Sanitarium (both of whom became physicians and are active in international health evangelism), delivered by our missionary associate, Dr. Daniel Mitchell. Our health ministry was enhanced as Dorothy completed nursing and the Master of Public Health degree, and I the Master’s and Doctor’s degrees in Health Education, with research closely related to our China missionary work.
It was a joy and a privilege to have a part in the training of a new generation of Chinese ministers, who later were to give leadership to the work of the South China Union Mission. Dedicated younger missionaries followed us, trained for future China mainland service. One of these families, Pastor and Mrs. John Ash with their children, did return and they continue their important ministry for China. For years our daily prayer was “Lord, open the way that we may go back to the Mainland.” God has answered that prayer. To have lived to see the growth of the China work, and to have had a small part in it through the changing course of missions over the forty years of our turbulent era, was a great privilege for which we praise God.
For some ten years to the time of this writing in 1955, I have worked as Consultant on Health Education to various national and regional institutions in the Peoples’ Republic of China as well as to the China office of the General Conference. I have crossed the borders into China over a hundred times finding unique opportunities for the proclamation of the Adventist life style and the winning of souls to Christ through personal witnessing, and showing a better way of life through group programs and the media. Dorothy continues, with our entire family, to have a vital interest in this land to which we were called both in youth and later years to help “prepare the way of the Lord.”
I am deeply grateful to God and His Church for the call to service to China. I hope to continue to labor there for the winning of souls for the Kingdom, until laid to rest, or until with God’s family in China we greet our Lord’s return.
One year later Bill was laid to rest after being attacked by an unknown assailment on the streets of Guangzhou…one he never saw on Feb.7, 1996. He died among people he loved so fervently and now awaits the Lifegiver to be reunited to family and those he lived to serve around the globe.
Found on an airline sick sack among his things he kept in the Philippines werehis handwritten words, “China is a dangerous mountain to scale for Christ but I have come to China for one purpose and one purpose alone…to bring Christ to China. “