Letters - 1902.11 Extract from Annual Letters
Letter
Girls’ Boarding-school
Fuh-chow
Nov. 1902
The past year has been one of the happiest in my life. My relations with my fellow-workers are the happiest. My work is delightful, and, best of all, God’s working is seen in our midst in a way which makes us realize that although we are in ourselves weak and helpless, in Him we are able to do all things. My fellow-workers, Miss Bushell and Miss Lambert, will probably report on the work of the school, its financial position, etc., so I need not touch upon that.
My work has been throughout the year that of a “general help,” and I am so in love with it that I could wish it would remain so.
I find teaching in this school an increasing delight. The girls—over 200 of them—are bright and willing, and whether teaching Bible or other subjects, opportunities for training them in the ways of righteousness abound. It is cheering to hear, as we so often do, of how our pupils are used of God when they go to their homes. Here is one instance. One of our pupil-teachers left us to go and help in the Keng-tau school. Whilst away in the summer, staying with her mother in another village, she found an old school friend living near who had got cold and careless through the deadening influence of her husband’s heathen family. Some years ago I visited this girl, who husband kept an opium shop, and, in consequence of the husband ‘s threats, had to cease doing so. The girl herself seemed then very indifferent. This year, through the influence of her schoolmate, she has become a regular attendant at the church close by her home, and has been the means of leading nearly all her people to become inquirers. we hope soon to hear that they are baptized believers.
This term thirty of our girls have volunteered to go out to preach from house to house. We have a Christian Endeavour every Friday, when they give accounts of where they have been and what they have seen.
At the end of last term we had a closing prayer meeting, and about seventy requests for prayer and praise were read—all having been written by the girls themselves. Some of them were very touching. Many of them gave thanks for blessing and help received during the term, and asked prayer for their relatives and for themselves, that when at home they might set a good example, and be able to win them for Jesus.It may perhaps interest you to know our routine. We go into school at 8 a.m., and till 8:30 hear the repetition of a verse of Scripture and a verse of a hymn. Each class prepares in this way, in one term, quite a treasury of knowledge. At 8:30 we have prayers with a short address. At 9 the classes separate for singing and musical drill. At 10 each class assembles in its own rom for regular study until 12, when the bell rings for dinner. At 1:15 all assemble again for writing, which is taught by a literary man—the teacher of the school. Lessons go on until 4. At 6:30 the girls meet in the big schoolroom to prepare their lessons and for prayer, and by eight o’clock the lights in the bedrooms are all out, and quite reigns. It is a very happy life both for the girls and for us.