“My heart rejoices that I am on the way to China. I feel unworthy of the privilege of going…but I am trusting that God shall use me to do a great work for Him there.” – Miss Bertha Smith
Depending on your church background, you may be familiar this time of year with the name Lottie Moon. She was a missionary to China, and the International Mission Board’s Christmas offering is named after her. She is an absolute legend, and plenty of churches still break out the Lottie Moon envelopes at Christmas time. But when I think of Lottie Moon, I often think of her successor, a little legend herself named Bertha Smith, whom I had the honor of meeting when I was 10 years old.
Miss Bertha, as she was affectionately called, served as a missionary in China and Taiwan from 1917 to 1958. Do the math—it’s hard to grasp. Forty-one tumultuous years, including World War II and the invasion of communism, spent overseas as a single woman telling Asian people about Jesus. Despite the hostility, her service in the Shantung region was part of an incredible spiritual awakening and revival in the 1920s that led to literally tens of millions of Chinese people coming to Christ.
When I met her, she was toward the end of her life, in her late 90's. It was like meeting Yoda. I remember there was an air about her that was just different. She spoke differently. She behaved differently. She dressed differently. I remember her sometimes in a kind of Asian outfit, but always in a dress so long that the hem surely swept the floor clean wherever she walked. She routinely let ladies around her know how much she despised both makeup and pants. It was probably a grace from the Lord that she didn’t live long enough to see Sephora and Lululemon.
To say she had a fiery character would be like saying I kinda like BBQ. During the 1980s, when a prominent Baptist seminary began to slip into liberal theology and shy away from biblical authority, someone asked Miss Bertha if she prayed for the ailing seminary. “Yes, of course, I do,” she replied. “And if God answers my prayers in the affirmative—it will burn to the ground.”
As a guest speaker at our church in Charlotte, North Carolina, we put her up at a nice hotel downtown. During her time with us, we found out that Miss Bertha had been leaving the hotel late at night to walk down the road to a pharmacy. My dad tried to kindly warn her that this was not a smart thing for her to do at her age, all by herself. This, of course, had no effect, as she retorted, “My God kept me safe in communist China; I am sure He can do the same in downtown Charlotte.” Can’t really argue with that. She had fierce passion for prayer and dependence on God.
“I had been in China for twenty-five years, and during that time had learned, when anything new and unexpected came up, to get on my knees and turn it over to the Lord just as soon as possible. The problem then became His responsibility, and I was saved from the worry of it.”
But my favorite story of Miss Bertha is one my dad told me many times. He and another preacher friend had gathered with Miss Bertha to pray before a service she was speaking at. As they bowed their heads, this preacher friend began to pray, “Lord, we come before you to ask that you would bless our time tonight—”
Mid-sentence, Miss Bertha cut him off, yelling, “STOP!”
At this point in the story, dad would get so tickled recalling the look of shock on his friend’s face. This tiny little 90+ year-old Jedi Master of a woman had just shut him down mid-prayer. “Just look at yourself,” she chuffed. “We don’t come into His presence making demands…bringing our list. We come into His presence with thanksgiving and adoration—or we don’t come at all.” Mouth agape, Dad’s friend could only muster a sheepish reply, “Yes, ma’am.” Class dismissed.
To be sure, Miss Bertha was not one to be studied for the nuances of Southern hospitality. By all accounts, her orneriness was off-putting to many- but it’s funny in retrospect. What has stuck with me all these years is just how different her passion was for prayer, the Word, and simply working for the mission of Jesus. I’m struck by her thoughts when she finally retired from the mission field:
“I felt that I was just then qualified from experience for missionary work. The forty-one and a half years had been very short, interesting indeed, at times thrilling, and always rewarding.”
During her “very short” years of mission work, she served in China, Taiwan, Australia, Burma, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines, South America, and Zimbabwe… and after all that, she only then said she was starting to feel qualified.
I think that’s really good news as we get older. A relief. If we have a pulse, we are never done being equipped and qualified for what God has for us next—the next mission, the next station. With trust and dependence on the Lord, we are always just getting started, in a sense. That, I believe, is a countercultural posture toward competency and experience that I want to have, too. The thrill and reward of knowing that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
*the cover image is from a bible gifted to Miss Bertha Smith on her 90th birthday