Gladys Aylward was a housemaid in London, with no apparent gift for languages, when she felt the call to be a missionary in China. The agency training her dismissed her because of her struggles with Mandarin. She did not give up: she saved what little she had and decided to go on her own.
In 1930, she boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway alone, bound for China, crossing a region caught in conflict between Russia and Japan. She was detained, escaped with the help of strangers, and completed the journey by sea. In Yangcheng, she began working with the older missionary Jeannie Lawson, housing muleteers at an inn and telling gospel stories at mealtimes.
Life alongside Lawson was not always easy: the two disagreed over tasks, and Gladys, stubborn, at one point considered leaving the mission. She stayed, and after Lawson’s death took over the inn and the work in the region on her own.
The Chinese government appointed her inspector against foot binding, a practice that mutilated young girls. She walked from village to village, facing resistance and distrust, until she won the families’ confidence. After single-handedly calming a riot at the local prison, she came to be called Ai-weh-deh, the virtuous one. In 1936, she became a Chinese citizen.
In 1940, with the Japanese advance threatening the region, she led more than a hundred orphaned children on a days-long trek on foot across the mountains, wounded and feverish. She arrived at their destination exhausted and never fully recovered her health.
Years later, a book and a film made her story known around the world, though she herself was troubled by the inventions of the film version, especially a fictional romance. She preferred to be remembered for what she actually lived, not for Hollywood’s plot.
She settled in Taiwan in 1958 and founded a new home for orphaned and abandoned children, where she served until her death in 1970. Her life shows that willingness matters more than credentials: she used to say she may not have been God’s first choice, only the one who was willing.