Alabama Baptists have history of missionaries in Shandong

Alabama Baptists have history of missionaries in Shandong

From the beginning of the Southern Baptist denomination’s existence in 1845, reaching the country of China has always been a top priority.

According to “Taking Christianity to China: Alabama Missionaries to Central China 1850–1950,” China remained the central focus of Southern Baptist missions until the last missionary was expelled in 1951.

“The Foreign Mission Board appointed more than 620 missionaries to the country between 1845 and 1948. Chinese church membership reached 123,000,” historian Wayne Flynt writes.

By 1903, Shandong had 21 Southern Baptist missionaries and the province served as the center of the denomination’s North China mission. At least eight Alabama Baptist missionaries served in Shandong between 1890 and 1925.

In 1905, the denomination sponsored 88 missionaries to China and eight of those were from Alabama.

Alabama medicine

One of those Alabamians was Cynthia Miller, a nurse from Clay County. She served in Laichow for 31 years. She was with Lottie Moon when Moon died at Kobe, Japan, while on her way back to the United States.

Dr. Thomas Oscar and Lizzie Hearn, a couple from Brooksville (Ala.), ministered in Shandong for 18 years, from 1907 to 1925. The couple served as medical missionaries working with famine relief and even fought for more rights for Chinese women.

Hearn, Lottie Moon’s last physician during her stay in China, eventually gave up his medical practice in Pingdu to do more evangelistic work in Laiyang, another town in Shandong.

Reading about the stories and adventures of these missionaries who gave their lives to further the gospel in Shandong inspires current Baptists and propels the cause for sending missionaries today.

Personal letters, papers and effects of many of these missionaries are safely kept in the Special Collections department at Samford University’s library. The department recently acquired scrapbooks and even a pair of the tiny shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet from one of the Hearns’ descendants.

“Through their papers and records we can see what life was like,” said librarian and archivist Elizabeth Wells. “These are such a rich source of information. It gives a more complete look at what people were like.

Wells was especially excited about discovering the Chinese shoes that were in one of the trunks.

“Lizzie Hearn was involved in the movement to stop binding girls’ feet. You can read about it but now you can see it in this real, visible source,” Wells said. “You’re able to understand more about the influence of missionaries on a culture and vice versa. Through the Hearns’ scrapbook we were able to see what China was like, how the missionaries taught and what they learned.”

Photos of the hospital the Hearns helped to build — which is still standing today — and pictures of the Hearns with Chinese show proof of the impact that this Alabama couple had while in Shandong.

Another Alabama Baptist missionary, Willie Hays Kelly from Wilcox, served in Shanghai for 44 years.

Correspondence from this female teacher who went to China against the wishes of her father are also housed in the Special Collections department at Samford.