A MISSIONARY IN KALGAN, CHINA

A Missionary Life:
Rev. J. Wesley Day
China, Malaysia, Indonesia

Chapter 2. Kalgan, China

Methodist missionaries on furlough invited me to join them for a couple of years as a teacher in our school, Kalgan (in Chinese "Shang Zhia Kou"), China. What better preparation could there be for a pastor of a mission-minded American church? So I went out in 1932. But I did not come home after two years. Forty-two years later I was retired.

Methodist Protestant Eastern Conference leaders agreed to raise my support but proposed I go to Seminary one year while they raised the money. During this time a man in Indiana offered to support a missionary, and agreed to support me. I studied at the Oberlin (Ohio) Graduate School of Theology, where I had Chinese and Japanese classmates. I served on the Oberlin-Shansi Student Committee, which chose two graduating Seniors to teach in China.

I spent the 1931 school year at the "College of Chinese Studies" (Language School) in Beijing. The school boasted they could teach anybody Chinese - and they made good.

A new language means a new name; J. W. Day becomes Dai Ray Wan
This name stamp, stamped in many of Wesley's books of the period, was copied from the front page of one of his Oberlin texts: Buddhism in India, Ceylon, China and Japan.

Near disaster struck me in '33 when a streptococcus arm infection put me in the hospital one month. Then shortly after, I was in the hospital another month with the dreaded typhus. This was before the advent of antibiotics. The hospital was the Rockefeller-supported Peking Union Medical College. Thank you, Mr. Rockefeller! And thank you to the people in China and America who prayed for my recovery.

Photo taken just after the illness.

Even then, illnesses cost money.

In Kalgan I taught English and was Adviser to our Boys' and Girls School and made a number of country trips, with the Williams as senior advisers, and Chinese coworkers to towns a hundred miles south and west of Kalgan. Travel was by cart (20 miles a day) or bicycle (much more). By 1936 unpaved motor roads were appearing, and the Maryland Conference sent us a car.

Side Trip: A Trip to Hanoi, January 1937

July, 1937, undeclared war broke out between Japan and China, - both friends and trading partners or the United States. It began between Kalgan and Beijing, and moved slowly toward Kalgan. Our Senior Missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. Carl G. Soderbom, were on furlough. Rev. and Mrs. Horace S. Williams and I were in Kalgan. Using the new mission car, "Green Glory", we escorted refugees to places of immediate safety West and then Southwest, from Kalgan. At Hankow the Williamses were called home for overdue furlough, and I was authorized to do as the situation required - return to Kalgan, or come, home. I returned to Kalgan by Free China train from Hankow to Tsingtao, by British ship to Tientian, then by Japanese controlled train to Beijing and later to Kalgan.

Side Trip: Green Glory

Arriving in Beijing I reported to the American Consul. He said, "A German merchant arrived today from Kalgan. He has had news of the Methodist Mission. Call on him."

The news was indeed bad. "The Japanese think you are spies. They have put your leading Chinese into prison and are torturing him."

The words were as ominous as could be, but as he spoke them an inner voice was saying: "Have I not commanded you, do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)

The next day I could not go to Kalgan. It was a closed city. I asked senior missionaries for their advice. One said, "call on Rev. Shimizu. He is a Japanese missionary. He has helped others. Maybe he can help you." Rev. Shimizu conducted a school for poor children, who learned to work while they studied.

I called, taking autographs of my Japanese classmates at Oberlin.

He: "What was your school in America?"

"My last year before coming to China I studied at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology."

"Oberlin, that is my school. Tell me all about it."

I told him what I could, and showed him the autographs of my friends.

"This man I sent to America. This man I sent to Oberlin. This man I encouraged to go to Oberlin." He had sent most of my Japanese classmates to Oberlin. "There must be some reason you have come to me. What can I do for you?"

I told him the situation at Kalgan, the false accusation, the suffering of our Chinese leader.

"I believe I can help you. When the Japanese commander took Beijing he did not want to destroy the ancient city. He arranged with the Chinese commander not to fight within the walls, and thus to spare the city. I was the go-between who made the arrangement. He is now Commander at Kalgan. He will do anything for me."

On two name cards, one addressed to the Commander, the other to his English-speaking Secretary, Rev. Shimizu wrote, "Introducing my good friend, from my college in America."

Next day Kalgan was no longer a closed city, and I was on the train. Arriving at Kalgan, I met our office manager, no longer in prison. He said, "I was beaten daily, and tortured other ways even worse, but I never confessed to what was not true. One day I said, "Jesus knows I tell the truth. I can tell nothing else." They half believed me then. Norwegian missionaries in the city pleaded for his life. One day he was freed.

In Kalgan I was given every courtesy till I left, December 1938.

<--- The Call | War Years --->