The Student Mission story is always unfolding. With every new story of salvation and answered prayer, there is another story of someone committing to pray to see a move of God in the student generation. Some of these stories are hundreds of years old, with people whose names we may not know, making a huge impact on the student mission narrative we are a part of today. To highlight the story you're a part of, we're sharing some stories from years before. Check out this one below.
Born in 1840 to a wealthy, plantation-owning Virginian family, Charlotte Moon was a well educated and cultured woman, speaking several languages. She was indifferent to her mother’s Baptist faith, and whilst studying at Valley Union Seminary (now Hollins University) she ridiculed Christians. However, God got a hold of her, and she was converted after attending a revival meeting on campus in 1859: “I went to a campus revival to scoff, and returned to my room to pray all night.”
Lottie spent the American Civil War teaching in schools and managing her family’s estate with her widowed mother. After the War, she began to feel called to missionary service. Her denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, was reluctant to take single women as missionaries as it was not seen as ‘proper.’ However, after relaxing their rules, Lottie soon followed her sister and set sail for China at twenty three years old. At under five foot she was diminutive, but where she lacked height she did not lack boldness.
Lottie quickly felt called to be an evangelist and church planter, but faced much opposition as her mission board’s policy prohibited female preachers. Undeterred, she went to inland China to preach the gospel anyway to men and women, and relentlessly advocated to people back home that women be allowed to use whatever gifting they may have. In a great personal challenge, she also passed up a marriage proposal from a professor in the States to whom she was close to focus on her calling: “God had first claim on my life and since the two conflicted, there could be no question about the result.” Her ministry saw hundreds come to faith and numerous churches start. She vigorously recruited volunteers and raised money, mobilising thousands of women in the States to pray, volunteer and donate to foreign missions, resulting in the creation of the Woman’s Missionary Union within the Southern Baptist Convention.
Drought, plague and rebellion shook China from 1894 to 1911 yet Lottie persisted in her work, giving away all her money and food to help the starving. As her health faded she eventually boarded a ship to return to America, but she died at sea on Christmas Eve 1912. In honour of her legacy, Southern Baptist annual world missions funding effort, which has raised hundreds of millions, is named after Lottie and held annually at Christmas.
