The child sat stock-still for a moment, considering. Then she burst out, "But I don't want to like the horrid stuff!"
Other people's ways, other people's customs, other people's standards—do we want to like them? Or do we cling tenaciously to our own, insisting that they are the only good and right ones? It is the attitude of mind and heart that matters. If we are willing to give up our own standard of living, willing to live as far as possible according to someone else's standards, then surely it is the business of our Master to make that possible in such degree as He sees is needed and best. Before we go to the field then, let us give up all right to our own standard of living, and be ready contentedly to embrace, as far as He makes possible, that of the people to whom He sends us.
Chapter 3
The Right to the Ordinary Safeguards of Good Health
"They must count the cost, and be prepared to live lives of privation, of toil, and perhaps of loneliness and danger. They will need to trust God to meet their need in sickness as well as in health, since it may sometimes be impossible to secure expert medical aid. But, if they are faithful servants, they will find in Christ and in His Word a fulness, a meetness, a preciousness, a joy and strength, that will far outweigh any sacrifice they may be called upon to make for Him."
—The Overseas Manual of the
China Inland Mission
Overseas Missionary Fellowship
(1955), p. 4.
I carefully spread a large handkerchief on the desk to keep my arm from sticking, took up my pen, and began painstakingly to practice writing the intricate Chinese characters before me. Every few minutes I stopped to wipe the perspiration from my face.
"How about going out to Uncle Wong's with me?" My sister had come into the room. "The pastor's wife intended to go with me, but now she has company and can't go. It will give you a good chance to practice talking Chinese, so the time won't be wasted—as far as your study goes, I mean."