Hedley Bunton, son of a mission minded pastor, married Peggy Paton in November 1932.  Peggy came from a family of mission minded folks, so going into mission work was a natural thing for this young couple.  

After their honeymoon, they headed to China to found their first mission house in Canton.   They had five children over the course of their marriage.     Part of his job was to train native people to be able to go out into villages to spread the gospel.  First he had to learn the language, something that took him three years to learn.  

In 1937, Peggy was on a trip out of China, when the Japanese invaded China.  She was not allowed to return but needed to stay in Hong Kong with the two children she had taken along with her.    Living under Japanese occupation was a very difficult time for Bunton, he had to learn to rely on God to supply his every need since the Japanese simply wouldn't.  Chinese Christians helped to supply him with food.   Overtime he took a furlough, retrieved his wife and children and went back to Australia.   When the furlough was over his wife remained in Australia while he went back to Canton. 

Pearl Harbour happened.   He ended up in a refugee camp.   He ended up being traded for a Japanese prisoner.     He ended up working in a Melbourne Church until the end of the war and his ability to safety return to his work in China.  He served there from 1947-1950 when increasing tensions forced him to leave China again.   He worked in for a good while in Australia until he was invited back by the Chinese church to assist in their work in Hong Kong.   

The Bunton's lived by the motto "Where God guides, he provides".   

Sources

wiki
google news
google book.
harmonic life.
snipView,

I find it interesting reading through some of the histories of missionaries.   I have two friends, single women, who are missionaries and I never thought about how changes came to be that they were allowed to go out on the mission field.

When missionary work first started, most organizations (or perhaps all... I haven't been able to check) sent out ordained men, and if married, their families.     Single women weren't allowed to go.

Charlotte White was one of the first single women missionaries... she helped to carve the way for my friends today who are out of the mission field.

I couldn't find a great deal of information about Charlotte White.

I know she was single, she married shortly after she got to the mission field.  This was back in 1815.

She sounded like an interesting woman.  Widowed.  Insisted on being sent to India and bribed her way there by donating land to the mission agency!  (source)
She had to pay her own way.  (source)
She was sent out only as a helper, not as a missionary in her own right.  She was a helper to Henry Hough.

She believed her life was a set of trials and they won't stop just because she was on the mission field (source)

Her husband, Joshua Rowe, was a widower with three sons who died a few years after their marriage. He worked with a different mission agency, and after they married,   They married in 1816.  Charlotte transferred to that agency.   Together they had three children.  Mr. Rowe died in 1823.   She stayed in India for three years after his death before returning to the states with the children in 1826.

The work the Rowe's did in India was to manage mission schools.   Charlotte wrote a Hindustani language primer for children.  (source)

Sources:
Baptist Magazine.
Those Good Gertrudes.
Center for Baptist Studies.
Wiki.

James Blair, Anglican missionary.   Lived from about 1655 to 1743.   He worked as a missionary to the Colonies of Virginia.  Over the period of his life he started and ran a college "College of William and Mary", rebuilt the school after a fire; housed an Indian school, chapel, library, and president's house; drafted the first college statutes; hired the first full-time faculty; and transferred the original charter to the president and masters.

As I studied the life of James Blair he struck me as a man with strong ideas and the will to see them through.    Fight he would when the time was right and no backing down either.

 He wanted a school and when the first was destroyed he managed to get another one.  He argued and discussed until he accomplished.

There are two frames of thought about Blair.  One that he picked battles with folks and therefore alienated people, and the other that he set out to provide school for the colonists and succeeded, wanting only the best.  

He did tend to side with the laity (people of the church) rather than with the clergy.  This caused enmity among the clerics.    His strong opinions and unwillingness to back down was both a thorn in his flesh and a boon.  It helped him to stick through battles so he could rebuild his school and face up against opposition, but at the same time, it caused hard feelings among his peers and made his job more difficult to do. 

He did accomplish his task of reviving and reforming the church in colonial Virginia.

Sources:
encyclopedia Virginia.
Encyclopedia.com 
Infoplease.
wikipedia.

Today I welcome Beth to my blog.   She writes over at As He Leads Joy.    She has done up a lovely post on Robert Morrison.    Thank you Beth for guest posting for me. :)

China has been a love of mine for years. It comes from having lived in Asia and within the Chinese culture for many years. Even though now we live in England our mission focus is still the Chinese students and scholars. 

  When I think of those missionaries who have gone before, those that pioneered the work in China, I think Robert Morrison, Karl Gutzlaff, Samuel Dyer, Hudson Taylor and others.

Robert Morrison is considered by many to be the first Protestant missionary to China. Robert Morrison was born in 1782 in North East England, the youngest of eight children. His parents were Christians and raised the children to know the Bible. Robert was converted at the age of 15. His dream was to be a missionary. He spent time learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as well as studying the Bible.

Going overseas was difficult with many obstacles. His mother did not want him to go overseas. He honored his mother’s desire and did not go until after her death. He was 20 years when she died. After some further studying, he was ready to depart for China in 1807. He could not sail directly from England to China, as the policy of the East India Company was not to transport missionaries. Finally on September 4, 1807 Robert Morrison arrived in China. His problems were not over rather they were continuing. At that time it was forbidden for a Chinese to teach a foreigner the language and the only foreigners that could stay in China were those that there for purposes of trade. He was able to find someone to teach him Chinese and began work on translating the Bible.

Because of his language ability the East India Company hired him as a translator. It was not something that he necessarily wanted but in order to stay there he needed that.

Robert Morrison spent 27 years in China. His accomplishment was translating the Bible into China as well as a few converts. He died in China and was buried in the small Old Protestant cemetery in Macau. The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau was one of our favourite places to visit during a trip to Macau.

 As Robert was on his way to China, he was asked if he expected to have any spiritual impact on the Chinese. His response, “No sir, but I expect God will.” Robert Morrison knew that he needed to be faithful and leave the results to God.

Howard Widdoes was a missionary in a small Christian Mission in Bawang.      He had a small congregation that regularly sang worship songs.  This drew the attention of a wealthy, well employed young man named Juan Leones.  The music drew him in, the teaching encouraged him, and so he became a believer.   After being baptized in a rushing river Juan eagerly told his family is his new found faith.

This cost him his family as his father tossed him out.   His fiancee broke off their engagement.    He went to his pastor friend and said "for the sake of Christ, I have lost my inheritance, my parents, and the girl I love.   Since I have paid so much for my faith, i want it to be worth all it cost.  I have decided to resign from the government service and to enter the ministry right away."

He ended up going among the Igorots... a fierce mountain people who fought and killed their way through life.   Living among these fierce people for two years changed them completely, leading most of the people to Christ and from there Juan asked for a new mission.  He wanted to work among the Kalingas as well... head-hunters and a fierce people that only groups of soldiers would approach.

He took his wife Lucia and so another group of Filipinos was changed.

The faith of one man changed two groups of people for the sake of the Lord.

Source:
Missionary Hero Stories.

Helen Kim was born into a Christian home at a time when in Korea there were very few Christian families.   Not only that, her parents made the neighbours laugh as they were determined to send their daughter to school (when girls were normally not educated).

She was a bright student who attended the town's mission school and later went to Seoul to attend Ewha College.       She graduated from her college with honours, enough so that she was sent to the USA to finish her education.   She lived during a time of the Japanese occupation of Korea.

Helen studied with the intent to learn as much as she could in order to fulfill a promise to her father "that she would never forget Korea and would study how to help teach the women of her country".   She believed that Kora needed women well educated in a variety of things.   She was a bright cheerful girl who liked to have fun, make friends and satisfy her curiousity.   She was kind and helpful with those she met.

She became "an educator, stateswoman, churchwoman, and feminist intellectual"
(source)

One of the things I found interesting about her, is on the voyage over she was curious all the different foods offered, that she would order different things from the menu every night so she tasted a whole variety of cuisine.    I would find it hard to be that brave.  :)

Upon finishing her education (getting her doctorate at Teacher's college at Columbia University) she returned home to become a professor at Ewha collage.    When the USA entered the war to fight against Japan all the American missionaries had to leave Korea.  This left Helen as the leader of the college.  She found it a difficult challenge to continue to run the college as a Christian college and not get the Japanese upset with her.     She simply didn't leave the college day or night and she kept it open throughout the war.  

When ordered to take a Japanese name she chose "Amagi" as meant 'heavenly city' and she wanted that daily challenge to live as a citizen of heaven.

In 1954, Columbia's Korean alumni gathered at a ceremony in Seoul to mark the University's bicentennial. The New York Times reported that Kim, the only women among the 30 attendees, was praised by her fellow alumni "for perpetuating the traditional policy of free inquiry, free speech and free press."  (source)

Sources
Book: Missionary Heroes
Columbia
Boston University.

Michi Kawai, the daughter of a Shinto priest, was born in Japanese and educated at a missionary school by Miss Smith.

She was a strong-minded, intelligent girl who later went on to be educated at the Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia.

She returned to Japanese to do two things.

1. Start a YMCA.  She wanted to foster good friendships among girls that she saw established at the Y in the States.   She worked at the Y for 20 years, developing life-long friendships with people world-wide.

2. To start a school for girls.  At this school she taught not only the normal Japanese subjects but also Faith in God and vegetable and fruit tree propagation as well.   Her goal was to establish faithful Christian believers who were well-rounded in their education, and able to take care of themselves and their families.    She maintained her school and it's focus throughout World War II despite government disapproval.

She was a firm advocate for good Japanese-Western relations.   She had a firm love for her students and only wanted what was best for them.

Sources:
Missionary Heroes
Silver Bay Blog
Child Research Net.
Wiki.