For the first time in almost 60 years, BMS World Mission will have personnel with a new partner in China this September.
Volunteers Sally Ball and Rhoda McDonald will spend four months teaching English to classes of 50 children in Chinese schools through Sinoteach International in Yantai.
Both Sally and Rhoda responded to BMS’ request for people to serve in China, after a delegation visited the country last September.
Return
For Sally, from Caerphilly, it is very much a return to her roots.
She was born in Xi’an in 1942 and grew up in China with her family, who were BMS missionaries.
Her parents Brynmor and Margaret Price were both children of BMS couples, Fred and May Price and James and Evelyn Watson. Sally’s great uncle and aunt Fred and Gertie Tussell were also BMS missionaries.
Sally says, “Sinoteach places volunteers into boarding schools but I’m sure it will be different to my own experience as a boarder in the 1950s and very different to how things were when my father was at Cheefoo school in China in the 1930s.”
She adds, “I’m excited about the chance to discover more about the changing scene in China, especially having just read China Road by Dan Gifford.
“I hope we’ll meet English-speaking Christians there and get more of an idea of how they view Christianity and perhaps what they feel about the return of BMS.”
Whereas Sally has previously taught English to three Chinese schoolgirls, Rhoda, her colleague in China, has been teaching English as a foreign language for the last nine years.
Her interest in the country started as a child when she briefly met the pioneering missionary Gladys Aylward.
“I then wondered if God had called me to China when I was a teenager,” she says, “but the exclusion of missionaries at that time made that idea seem impossible.”
God spoke again to Rhoda last Christmas when her daughter showed her a BMS leaflet. Nine months on and she’ll be heading there.
She is both excited and nervous about what lies ahead.
Ambassador
“Despite attempts to exclude God and the gospel from China the Church continues to grow. I want to be a supporter and ambassador for the work of the gospel. “I hope to be able to give British Christians a deeper understanding of the challenges of living as a Christian in China, so that they can pray more effectively.”
Rhoda, who is from Hornchurch in Essex, has concerns over the very different and limiting language. “Another enormous challenge will be the classes of 50 children – most of whom have no brothers or sisters.
“And, on a practical level, I do not know yet what the school accommodation will be like and how to negotiate the public transport system.”
One of those ‘many more’ are a couple who will be training at BMS’ International Mission Centre from September 2010 in preparation to serve in China on a long-term basis.
It is hoped that several long-term workers will then go to China in summer 2011.
Jenny Dorman and Vivienne Lee, have spent some of their summer visiting BMS partners in China, and preparing the way ahead for Sally and Rhoda’s arrival in September.
As well as time spent at Sinoteach, Jenny and Vivienne visited Yidu Medical School, another place that BMS is seeking to send long-term workers.