Mildred Cable

Alice Mildred Cable ( Chinese  盖 群英 , Pinyin Gài Qúnyīng ; born February 21, 1878 in Guildford , † April 30, 1952 ) was a missionary of the China Inland Mission .

Life

Cable was the daughter of a wealthy Guildford cloth merchant and had decided early in her life that she would be a missionary. She studied Pharmacy and Human Sciences at the University of London . She was first in a relationship with a man who also wanted to be a missionary, but he then changed his mind and did not want to marry her without her also giving up this intention. She broke off the engagement and joined the China Inland Mission in 1901. There she met Evangeline (Eva) French, a missionary who wanted to return to China after her first home leave. They both worked together for the rest of their lives.

Cable and French were stationed in Huozhou , Shanxi , and toured the surrounding area. Eve's younger sister Francesca met the two in 1910 (1908 according to some sources) and they became known as the "Trio". After 20 years in Huozhou, they said the mission should be placed in the hands of Chinese workers. They then wanted to work in the relatively unknown, predominantly Muslim west of China. Although there were concerns about having women proselytized in this region in particular, their proposal was finally accepted in 1923. The starting point of the "trio" was Jiuquan , in the far west of the Gansu province .

Travel in Central Asia

The following 13 years, in the words of Mildred Cable: "From Etzingol to Turpan, from Jiuquan to Chuguchak, we spent ... years following the trade routes, caravan routes, looking for countless paths and exploring hidden oases .... We crossed five times the desert, and became part of their lives. " Cables and French's book "The Gobi Desert" has been said to be "perhaps the best of many good books on Central Asia and the ancient Silk Road through the deserts of western China."

In June 1923 they traveled 1,500 miles (2,414 km) in Central Asia to evangelize and reached Zhangye (then called Kantschou). Zhangye was the last city inside the Great Wall . A Chinese evangelist was already working there, and at his request they stayed at a Bible school over the winter. When summer came, they traveled further west through the Hexi Corridor , this time with some of the Chinese believers who had trained them. They rented houses for themselves and a building for a church in Jiuquan, which later became their mission station. From Jiuquan they went on extensive trips, selling and giving away Bibles and Christian literature, to the Tibetan villages in Qinghai Province , to Mongolian settlements and Muslim communities in Xinjiang Province . They studied the Uighur language to be able to speak to Muslim women, although there were few converts among Muslims. Crescent Lake was one of the oases Cable and the French sisters visited.

The women trio were independent, strong-willed and courageous. Eva French was criticized for celebrating communion in her Chinese community on Christmas Eve 1924 , which at that time only men were allowed. But she was not intimidated by the criticism, and Mildred Cable also celebrated communion the following Easter. Their way of traveling in Central Asia differed from the contemporary expeditions of Asian explorers, such as Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin , who often traveled in large caravans with armed guards. The trio of women loaded the wagons with religious literature and crossed the Silk Road alone or with a few Chinese employees.

The interpersonal relationships in the "Trio" were designed in such a way that Mildred Cable was the 'father figure', Francesca the mother, and Eva the strong-willed wonderful child. Mildred was called "Napoleon" by some of her colleagues.

On their home vacation to England in 1926, they traveled through Russian Siberia . After returning in 1928, they went on a year-long trip to Xinjiang (then known as Chinese Turkestan).

Further activity

The trio left China in 1936 and could not return afterwards because in August 1938 all foreigners were ordered by the local warlords to leave Gansu and Xinjiang. Cable and the French sisters moved to Dorset . After her retirement, Cable became a much sought-after speaker and made several international lecture tours. She and Francesca French became book authors. Mildred Cable was vice president of the British and Foreign Bible Society until her death in Dorset in 1952. The Times obituary said of Mildred Cable: "There are few people whose death is a loss to thousands. She was one of those which make it easier to believe in the communion of saints. "

bibliography

The majority of these works were written with Francesca French.

• Mother India's daughters: An Impression, London: Page & Thomas, (189-?)
• Something Happened, Hodder and Stoughton (1933)
• A Desert journal: Letter from Central Asia (1934)
• Ambassadors for Christ (1935)
• Toward Spiritual Maturity: A Handbook for Those Who Seek It (1939)
• A Parable of Jade (1940)
• The Gobi Desert (1942)
• Wall of Spears: The Gobi Desert (1951)
• Important to Motorists (1935)
• The Book which Demands a Verdict (1946)
• George Hunter Apostle of Turkestan (1948)
• The Red Lama (1927)
• Journey With A Purpose, Hodder & Stoughton (1950)
• Grace, Child of the Gobi (1949)
• The Story of Topsy; Little Lonely of Central Asia (1947)
• Dispatches from North-west Kansu (1925)
• China. Her Life and Her People (1946)
• Why Not the World? The story of the work of God through the Bible Society, London: The British and Foreign Bible Society (1952)
• A Woman Who Laughed: Henrietta Soltau who laughed at impossibilities and cried 'It shall be done' London: The China Inland Mission (1934)
• The Challenge of Central Asia a brief survey of Tibet and its Borderlands, Mongolia, north-west Kansu, Chinese Turkistan, and Russian Central Asia, London; New York: World Dominion Press (1929)
• The Bible in mission lands, Fleming H Revell Co (1947)
• The Making of a Pioneer. Percy Mather of Central Asia (1935)
• "Come, follow": the call to service, London: Inter-Vanity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions, (1937)
• The needed gesture to the Church in China, London: World Dominion Press, (1927)
• The Bible in the world, London: Bible Reading Fellowship (1947)
• Powers of darkness: being a record of some observations in demonology (1920)
• Fulfillment of a dream of Pastor Hsi ’s: the story of the work in Hwochow (1917)
• With the Bible in Central Asia, London: British and Foreign Bible Society, (1937)
• Towards Spiritual Maturity - A Book For Those Who Seek It (1939)
• What it Means to be a Christian (1950)
• Through Jade Gate And Central Asia (1939?)

Biographies

• WJ Platt: Three Women: Mildred Cable, Francesca French, Evangeline French: The Authorized Biography (1964).
• Cecil Northcott: Star Over Gobi: The Story of Mildred Cable