China on Their Minds
Because there are parallels between Vernoy Johnson's upbringing and mine, Pietisten requested that I respond to his book The Momentous Years.
Vernoy's parents, Alfred and Ruth Johnson, served as Covenant missionaries in China during the 1920s. My parents, Barton and Molly Nelson, served as Covenant missionaries in China during the 1930s. Vernoy's parents left for China within a month of their manage in 1921 when both were in their mid-twenties. My parents left for China within a month of their manage in 1930 when both were in their mid-twenties. Vernoy was born in China and was nine-months-old when his parents ended their missionary service in China in 1927. While I was not born in China, I was six-months-old when my parents returned to China in 1936 to begin their second term as medical missionaries stationed at Bethesda Hospital in Siangyang.
The decade in which Vernoy's parents served and the decade during which my parents served in China were both marked by turmoil and violence — precipitated in the 1920s by warring factious of Chinese themselves and in the 1930s by the invading Japanese. The precarious situation brought on by the Japanese invasion was complicated by my mother's undiagnosed illness with the result that my family was evacuated in 1938 to the Philippine Islands, where I lived with my mother and two older brothers while my father returned alone to China Our family was reunited at the end of 1940 and returned to the United States in March of 1941.
Given these parallels, I found Vernoy's account of his parents' missionary experiences to be fascinating reading. It revived memories of my boyhood — not of China itself for I was too young, as was Vernoy, but memories of pictures in family albums, of place names, and of missionary reunions where persons mentioned in Vernoy's account would reminisce with my parents. At his father's memorial service in 1985, Vernoy observed that for his father, China was always uppermost in his mind." I sense that the same has been true for my parents.
I would guess that what prompted Vernoy to write The Momentous Years was something that has been a characteristic of my life as well, a mixture of admiration and wonder when it comes to the lives of one's parents. What could have prompted a pair of newlywed "twenty-somethings" to venture into a world of such uncertainties? Was it simply the adventuresome spirit of youth? Or, was there something far more calling, a call that could not be evaded or refused?
After reading Vernoy's account, I took his book to my mother, who remains a voracious reader at the age of 88. I thought that she would be more qualified to respond than I. After she had read the book, my mother's initial reaction was to say, "The Johnsons had a far more difficult time of it than your father and I did." Because I had never understood my parents' years in China to be easy ones, I was somewhat taken aback by her response. When pressed to explain, she pointed out, for one thing, the fact that things were pretty much in readiness for them, including a house built a decade earlier, when they arrived at the hospital compound in Siangyang. In contrast, my mother noted that the Johnsons arrived at their station in Icheng with the house intended for them still under construction, necessitating shelter in temporary and rather primitive housing.
According to my mother, most significant, however, was the fact that Icheng was fairly isolated whereas Siangyang along with Fancheng across the Han River was the region's population center, She felt that being stationed in Siangyang as opposed to Icheng resulted in fewer twinges of loneliness of the sort that Vernoy records his mother having had.
My mother also observed that there appeared to be more of an ecumenical dimension to her years in China. While that dimension may also have been characteristic of the Johnsons' years there, it does not stand out in Vernoy's account. There was a Lutheran mission in Fancheng, and my mother includes the missionaries there as being part of "one big happy family." In fact, as I was growing up after our return from China, I recall being at as many missionary reunions in a Lutheran setting as in a Covenant setting.
Which decade of service wins the "hardship sweepstakes" is really not important. On that, I am sure Vernoy would agree. What is of importance is for succeeding generations to know something of the toll exacted on those who ventured out to the Covenant's China mission. We owe Vernoy gratitude for helping make that possible.