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What Every Expatriate Christian Serving in China Should Read


What every expatriate Christian serving in China should read.

Yes, those are bold words, but if you are newly arrived in China, have been here for decades, or are just beginning preparations to head someday to China, you need to read Mabel Williamson’s Have We No Rights?

Williamson went to China as a single American woman in the 1930s to join her two sisters as field workers with the China Inland Mission. She served in China until the Revolution, and then moved on to serve for another decade or so in other parts of Asia. In 1957 she published this very short book based upon her experiences in China, hoping that her stories would encourage her fellow cross-cultural workers to give up some of their “rights” that hinder effective ministry.

There are two reasons you should read this book. First, Williamson’s style is very readable and each chapter relies heavily on personal narratives of her early missionary life in China. These examples, despite the intervening years, are powerfully suggestive, ringing with truth that impresses the reader: this is all real. She writes as an insider, and her self-deprecating style is winsome and convincing, drawing the reader into her world.

Second, the subjects addressed in her book get right to the heart of cross-cultural witness. Chapter by chapter she brings up and then breaks down the expatriate worker’s explicit or more often implicit belief that I have “The Right to Privacy,” “The Right to My Own Time,” “The Right to a Normal Romance, If Any,” “The Right to What I Consider a Normal Standard of Living,” and many others—some obvious, others less so. As the book progresses, Williamson deftly leads her readers into a dawning recognition that cross-cultural service—if done faithfully and effectively—requires a real and repeated dying to one’s self. Our line of work demands that we not only chi ku ( 吃苦 experience suffering) but also chi kui ( 吃亏 experience loss).

These are hard pills to swallow, but this is medicine we all need to receive. Williamson manages to provide just the right dosage, and to do so in a winning manner that removes at least some of the sting.

May this little book help all of us learn to give up our rights for the sake of the gospel.

Have We No Rights? by Mabel Williamson is available on Amazon and as a free download on Internet Archive.

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Swells in the Middle Kingdom

"Swells in the Middle Kingdom" began his life in China as a student back in 1990 and still, to this day, is fascinated by the challenges and blessings of living and working in China.View Full Bio


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