Chapter 40 269

Women In MissionMarguerite Kraft and Meg Crossman

After the last road ended, it was a two-day hike towhere the Balangao people lived. The Balangao, a

tribe of former headhunters, still sacrificed to pow-erful and demanding spirits who caused sickness, death andconstant turmoil. Two single women missionaries, trained inBible translation, were on their way to work among them.

When they arrived, they were greeted by men wearingG-strings and women wrapped in cloth from homemadelooms. It is hard to say who was more amazed. TheBalangao had asked for Americans to come live with themand write their language, but they never dreamed theAmericans would be women!

An old man offered to be their father and was faithful inlooking after them. Besides the work of translation, thesewomen began giving medical assistance, learning about thespirit world, and answering questions about life and death.One of them, Jo Shetler, stayed for 20 years, winning herway into the hearts and lives of these people and completingthe New Testament translation. Because of this dedication,thousands now know Jesus as Lord of the Balangao.1

Jo Shetler, a shy farm girl with a dream, has stirred manywith her story. However, stories remain unwritten of multi-tudes of women who likewise obeyed the call of God toserve Him on the far horizons. Many women do not realizehow greatly God can use their giftedness and commitmentin situations such as this.

From the Earliest DaysThe Book of Acts records the account of Priscilla, a womanspecifically used of God to touch people in at least three dif-ferent nations: Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor. Apparently anative of the eastern area of Asia Minor, this woman of Jew-ish faith lived with her husband, Aquila, in Rome until theJews were expelled. When they met Paul in Corinth, theymay already have become believers. They hosted Paul, led ahouse church, and were assigned by Paul to disciple the elo-quent and committed Egyptian Jew, Apollos, “instructinghim in the way of God more perfectly” (Acts 18:26).

Paul recognized and honored their gifts and they movedwith him to the work in Ephesus. Since Priscilla’s name is al-most always listed first, some scholars suggest that “the wifewas more prominent and helpful to Church.”2 It is perhapsmost interesting to note that her role in cross-cultural service,

Marguerite Kraft

served as a mis-

sionary to the

Kamwe people

of Northern Ni-

geria. She is now Professor of An-

thropology and Linguistics at the

School of Intercultural Studies,

Biola University and author of

Worldview and the Communica-tion of the Gospel and Understand-ing Spiritual Power.

Meg Crossman

was the Execu-

tive Director of

I.C.A.R.E. prison

ministries for 10

years. Meg is best known as a mis-

sion mobilizer and a coordinator

of the Perspectives course in

Tempe, Arizona. She edited a ver-

sion of the Perspectives course

called Worldwide Perspectives.From Worldwide Perspectives,

edited by Meg Crossman, 1996.

Used by permission of William

Carey Library, Pasadena, CA.

Chapter 40 WOMEN IN MISSION271

leadership, and teaching were perceived as sonormal they did not require special commentor explanation by the writer of Acts. Her roleseems to have been accepted and expectedrather than extraordinary.

Many women were martyred for their lovefor Jesus in the first three centuries of Chris-tianity. Lucia of Sicily, who lived about A.D.300, was involved in Christian charitablework there. After marrying a wealthy noble-man, she was ordered to stop giving to thepoor; she refused and was sent to jail. Thereshe was persecuted and condemned to death.Melania, coming from a wealthy family inRome with estates all around the Mediterra-nean, used her resources to give to the poorand to build monasteries and churches forboth men and women in Africa and Jerusa-lem. Her missionary journeys started as shefled from Rome during the invasion by theGoths in A.D. 410. As a refugee, she andmany other women played an important rolein the great missionary movement. Somewomen were taken as hostages to NorthernEurope where they later married their captorsand evangelized them.3 Clare, who lived andworked in the early thirteenth century, was areformer where Christianity had forgotten thepoor. She founded the Franciscan order ofbarefoot nuns in Italy.4 Women who chose toremain single, serve God, and live the clois-tered life were given the opportunity throughthe accepted ecclesiastical framework to pro-claim the gospel. In the Catholic tradition,priests, bishops and nuns built churches andhospitals, and founded schools and orphan-ages in order to establish the faith.

In The Early Missionary MovementThe Protestant Reformation in the SixteenthCentury brought about changes in the role ofwomen in Christianity. The reformers reem-phasized that women’s role was in the hometo be supportive of men. Arthur Glasserwrites, “…the reformers also subjectedwomen to the confining perspective that theironly recognized vocation was marriage. Withthe dissolution of the convents, women losttheir last chance of churchly service outsidethe narrow circle of husband, home and chil-dren.”5 Within Protestantism, the problemthen arose as to whether women had the

right to respond to the promptings of theHoly Spirit to proclaim the word of God.

In the early days of the Protestant missionadvance, most women who went to the fieldwere wives of missionaries. Discerning menrecognized that contact with women in mostnon-Western societies was impossible forthem, so women had to undertake this re-sponsibility. They received little recognitionfor the heavy load they carried, managing thehome and children as well as developing pro-grams to reach local women and girls.

Initially, single women could only go tothe field to care for missionaries’ children orserve alongside the missionary family. How-ever, little by little, new opportunities arose.R. Pierce Beaver describes the work ofCynthia Farrar in India, Elizabeth Agnew inCeylon, and other single women who beganto supervise women’s schools.6 Quietly, theyhelped in zenanas and harems. Doors openedthrough medical service. Yet their effectivework was seldom publicized.

However, leaders like D.L. Moody, A.B.Simpson, and A.J. Gordon believed in en-couraging women’s gifts for public ministry.Both J. Hudson Taylor, founder of China In-land Mission, and Fredrik Franson, founderof TEAM (the Evangelical Alliance Mission),saw the need to recruit and send women toevangelize cross-culturally. In 1888, Taylorwrote, “We are manning our stations with la-dies.”7 Throughout its initial history, his mis-sion expected women, both single and mar-

MARGUERITE KRAFT AND MEG CROSSMAN 271

The pioneer

spirit, full of

dedication and

faithfulness,

which women

throughout

history have

shown will set

the standard.

ried, to carry out all the missionary duties,including preaching and teaching.

In Jane Hunter’s study of correspon-dence and published articles from womenon the field, she discovered the “vast major-ity of women missionaries were motivatedby a deep sense of commitment to God, farmore than by any desire to attain personalrecognition or power.”8 From such movingreports, women in the churches at homecaught a dynamic world vision, volunteer-ing their money, time, energy, organiza-tional ability, and prayer support. Leaderssuch as Annie Armstrong and Helen BarretMontgomery dedicated themselves to de-veloping missionary prayer groups, raisingfunds, and mobilizing Christians to supportfield work of all kinds.9

A New Way of SendingThe Civil War in the United States became acatalyst for change in the way women weresent. After the Civil War, so many men diedthat women were either widowed or un-likely to marry. This forced women into anunusual range of responsibilities. They ranbusinesses, banks, farms, formed colleges,and for the next 50 years inherited a largerrole than men as the major muscle of themission movement.10

Since missionary boards still refused tosend women directly to the work, womensimply organized their own boards. Firstwas the Women’s Union Missionary Society.In the years to follow, many others werecreated. Their funds were raised above andbeyond the regular denominational missiongiving, indicating the phenomenal job ofmissions awareness these boards wereachieving on the home front. They builtwomen’s colleges, specifically to trainwomen for missionary service. Besidesrousing women to go overseas, more than100,000 women’s missionary societies be-came active in local churches, an un-matched base for prayer and funding.

By 1900, over 40 denominational women’ssocieties existed, with over three million ac-tive women raising funds to build hospitalsand schools around the world, paying thesalaries of indigenous female evangelists,and sending single women as missionary

doctors, teachers, and evangelists.11 By theearly decades of the 20th Century, thewomen’s missionary movement had becomethe largest women’s movement in the UnitedStates, and women outnumbered men on themission field by a ratio of more than two toone.12 Sadly, as these boards were persuadedto combine with the denominational boardsin the 1920s and 30s, women gradually losttheir opportunity to direct the work.

And Still TodayOverall, probably two-thirds of the mis-sions force has been, and currently is, fe-male. Many mission executives agree thatthe more difficult and dangerous the work,the more likely women are to volunteer todo it! David Yonggi Cho concludes from hisexperience that women are the best choicefor difficult, pioneering work. “We have

found that in thesesituations, womenwill never give up.Men are good forbuilding up thework, but women arebest for perseveringwhen men get dis-couraged.”13

Some fear that be-cause of the uniqueobstacles of reachingthe Muslim world,Western women canplay no part. Yet in anomadic Muslim

group in Sub-Saharan Africa, a single womanis effectively training Imams (Islamic teach-ers) in the gospel. They perceive her to benon-threatening, “just a woman.” Buildingupon a foundation of interpersonal relation-ship and Bible knowledge, she does not givethem answers herself, but directs them to theWord. The Lord has confirmed her teaching,giving dreams and visions to these leaders.As they have been converted, they are nowtraining many others. She is accepted as aloving, caring elder sister, who gives highpriority to their welfare.

Jim Reapsome’s editorial in World Pulse(Oct. 9, 1992) advocating more training andmore support for women received an al-

Chapter 40 WOMEN IN MISSION273

most immediate letter of thanks from a mis-sionary to a Muslim group in SoutheastAsia. He wrote:

Interestingly enough, despite the commonemphasis on training and using men, herein—, some of the best evangelists are allwomen! In fact, three of our most impor-tant co-workers (who are really doing themost cutting-edge ministry) are women. Interms of Americans, we only have onesingle man who made the sacrifice to comehere but four single women, with threemore on the way. In the face of chauvinis-tic Islam, it is good to be reminded thattrue Christianity is not chauvinistic, but anequally exciting call to new, fulfilling lifefor women and men.14

Opportunities In Special AreasWomen in mission have demonstrated a ho-listic approach with emphasis on both evan-gelism and meeting human needs. Theyhave shown a deep commitment to and con-cern for women and children. Education,medical work, and struggles against footbinding, child marriage, female infanticide,and oppressive social, religious, and eco-nomic structures were commonly the focus

of their work. With their holistic approach tomissions, women were committed to heal-ing. Thus, medical missions were dominatedby women for many years. Since womenwere less involved in denominational activi-ties and more focused on human need, itwas easier for them to be ecumenically-minded and risk cooperation for commonpurposes. Women led in founding ecumeni-cal mission organizations.

In recent years, women have played im-portant roles in mission specialization.Wycliffe Bible Translators found over theyears that teams of single women did wellon the field—-a far greater number of suchteams successfully finish translations than

teams of single men. Eliza-beth Greene, a woman pilotwho served in the Air Forcein WWII, was one of thefounders of Mission Avia-tion Fellowship. Gospel Re-cordings, providing Chris-tian tapes and records inmany languages (using na-tive speakers to give theWord rather than waitingfor a printed translation)was founded through JoyRidderhof’s vision and ef-fort. Ruth Siemens’ creativeidea resulted in Global Op-portunities, assisting laypersons to find tentmakerpositions overseas. Womenhave been permitted greatlatitude in Christian minis-try, with their work rangingfrom evangelism andchurch planting to translat-ing Scripture and teachingin seminaries.

Christian women today need to know andcelebrate their heritage. We can study womenof greatness who served in Christ’s cause andclaim them as our role models. From MarySlessor, single woman pioneer in Africa, to AnnJudson of Burma and Rosalind Goforth ofChina, wives who fully served; from AmyCarmichael of India to Mildred Cable in theGobi Desert; from Gladys Aylward, the littlechambermaid determined to get to China, to

MARGUERITE KRAFT AND MEG CROSSMAN 273

End Notes1. Shetler, Joanne, The Word Came With Power (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1992).2. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan

Publishing House, 1961), p. 1,117, on Acts 18:183. Malcolm, Kari Torjesen, Women at the Crossroads: A Path Beyond Feminism and Traditionalism

(Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity Press, 1982), pp. 99-1004. Ibid., p. 1045. Glasser, Arthur, “One-half the Church—and Mission,” Women and the Ministries of Christ, eds.,

Roberta Hestenes and Lois Curly (Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, 1978) pp. 88-926. Beaver, R. Pierce, American Protestant Women in World Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: William B.

Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), pp.59-867. Beaver, R. Pierce, All Loves Excelling (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 1168. Tucker, Ruth, Guardians of the Great Commission (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1988), p. 389. Ibid., pp. 102-11010. Winter, Ralph, personal interview, September 199111. Robert, Dana L., American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice

(Macon, GA.:Mercer University Press, 1996), p. 12912. Tucker, Ruth, Guardians of the Great Commission (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1988) p. 1013. Paul Yonggi Cho at El Shaddai Pastor’s Fellowship luncheon in Phoenix, AZ, March 198814. Personal letter to Jim Reapsome, October 25, 1992. Used with permission.

Study Questions1. Why might teams of single women bible translators have a more successful record of completing

the translation?

2. How might women missionaries be especially effective in male-dominated cultures?

3. In what times and in what ways did women play a dominant role in missions?

Eliza Davis George, black woman missionaryto Liberia; from translator Rachel Saint to medi-cal doctor Helen Roseveare; from Isobel Kuhnand Elisabeth Elliot, mobilizing missionary au-thors, to Lottie Moon, pacesetting mission edu-cator; from simple Filipino housemaids in theMiddle East to women executives in denomi-national offices to unsung Bible women inChina, the roll is lengthy and glorious!

The roll is, however, incomplete, expect-antly awaiting the contribution of currentand future generations. God’s women nowenjoy freedoms and opportunities theirforebearers never anticipated. Most smallbusinesses started in the United States are

owned by women. Women now hold highlyresponsible positions in government, busi-ness, law, and medicine. “To whom much isgiven, much is required.” How will womenof God today harvest such opportunities fortheir Father’s purposes?

Women, stirred by the task that lies ahead,can mobilize, devoting their skills, their ac-cessibility, their knowledge, their tenderness,their intuitiveness, their own distinctive fer-vor to the work. The pioneer spirit, full ofdedication and faithfulness, which womenthroughout history have shown will set thestandard. The task is too vast to be com-pleted without all God’s people!