Extract from:

‘Gladys Aylward – Her personal story as told to Christine Hunter’ (1970) pp.91-94.

‘So the hours went by until the dawn broke. A girl of thirteen, called Sualan, stood beside me.

”Ai-weh-deh, do you remember when God called Moses that he took the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry land and every one of them got safely across?”

I nodded.

Sualan smiled sweetly at me as she asked. “Do you believe it?”

“Of course, I do!” I replied immediately. “I would not teach you anything I did not believe.”

“Then why don’t we go across?” she asked simply.

That shook me. “But I am not Moses,” I gasped.

“Of course you are not, but Jehovah is still God!”

That was like a physical blow.

All the years I had been preaching, had I really believed that Moses did take the children of Israel through the Red Sea? Did I believe that the waters rolled back, and stood up on either side while they crossed dry-shod? I had staked my life on God’s mighty power. Why did I doubt now?

I turned to Sualan. “We will go across,” I said, and truly I believed it.

Sualan called some of the older ones together and we knelt in prayer.

Sualan prayed simply, “Here we are, Lord, just waiting for you to open the Yellow River for us.”

For myself, I bowed in silence, but in my heart I said, “O God, I am finished. I can do nothing more. I am at the end. I am nothing. It is only You, Lord, now – You above! O God, don’t let us down. Save us – prove Yourself.”

Some of the little boys ran up and pulled my skirt. “Get up, get up!” they shouted. “There is a big man here!”

I was trembling all over when I stood up. A Chinese officer stood watching me.

“Are you in charge of these children?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How many are here?”

“A hundred.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to cross the river.”

“But who are you?”

“I am Ai-weh-deh, of the mission hall in Yangcheng.”

“Are you crazy? Do you not realize that we expect a Japanese infantry attack at any moment? Don’t you know that Japanese aircraft are patrolling all the time? If they spot these children they will machine-gun them. Who are these children, anyway?”

“We are refugees trying to reach Sian.”

“Refugees! Then why did you not cross the river long ago?”

“We could not get a boat.”

“You did not expect us to leave boats for the Japanese, did you? But I will signal for one now.”

He made a long, low whistle, like a seabird, “Oo-oo-oo!” and raised his arm.

“The boat will be across at once. There is a village on the other side where you can get food.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“Are you looking after these children alone?”

“Yes.”

“But surely you are a foreigner?”

“Yes.”

“You have chosen a strange occupation.”

He had hardly finished speaking when the children cried out excitedly that the boat was coming. The first lot got in, and the boat went backward and forward until all were safely over.

Was this a manifestation of the Gift of Faith?

This was not a miracle as God used natural means to bring Gladys Aylward and the children across the river.

The Holy Spirit brought a scripture to the mind of the child – ‘Moses crossing the Red Sea’.

The Holy Spirit used what God had done in the past to bring faith for the present.

The scripture produced the faith to believe that God would provide a way across the river.

Gladys Aylward prayed.

The Chinese official came at that moment and he was able to provide the means to get across the river.

This was not a simple answer to prayer.

It was a hopeless situation.

Gladys and the children had no possibility of getting across the river.

God knew how to do it through natural means.

I believe this was the Gift of Faith in operation.