Mildred Cable: Adventure on the Silk Road
Born and bred in a quiet Surrey town, Mildred Cable was no ordinary Victorian. During her teens, she realised that God was calling her to serve Him in China.
This article was written by Mary Perry. Mary is a writer and proofreader based in the Scottish Borders and is the author of Mildred Cable: Adventures on the Silk Road.
Born and bred in a quiet Surrey town, Mildred Cable was no ordinary Victorian. During her teens, she realised that God was calling her to serve Him in China, and spent the rest of her life dedicated to this call. Mildred had a powerful love for China’s people, breathtaking scenery and remarkable culture – but most of all, she had a deep love for the God who had called her there, and relied on Him to see her through.
Having arrived in China in 1901, aged twenty-one, Mildred spent twenty years teaching a girls’ school in the city of Huozhou, northern China. During this time, she struck up a lifelong friendship with two fellow missionaries: Eva French, an unflappable prankster, and her gentle sister Francesca French. Together, they formed a remarkable trio, determined to follow God’s call wherever He led.
Later, Mildred Cable and her two companions travelled from Huozhou to the ruggedly beautiful Gobi Desert. Together, they faced sandstorms, blizzards and even captivity under the harsh rule of a rebel general. Through it all, Mildred retained her reliance on God and her lively sense of fun: she was still rolling down Gobi sand dunes in her fifties!
But how did all these adventures begin?
The following extract from Adventure on the Silk Road describes the months when everything changed: after two decades in Huozhou, Mildred Cable realised that God was calling her to venture into the unreached mission field of Gobi Desert.
As the summer heat drove Mildred indoors one day, her stomach jumped. There was a yellowed map pasted to the wall, and her eye had been caught by that vast unexplored space – twice the size of Spain, and four times bigger than Britain – marked THE GOBI DESERT.
During a teachers’ retreat in summer 1922, a passionate appeal had been made for missionaries to go to the Gobi Desert – and Mildred, Eva and Francesca had felt their hearts stirring.
Back in Huozhou that autumn, as a blackbird hops towards a patch of shade, Mildred found herself studying the map in every spare moment. In winter, as a pet dog goes to curl up in the heat of a fireplace, Mildred drifted towards the map in the hallway.
Before dawn on Christmas Day, wrapped in padded jackets, Mildred and Eva studied the map by moonlight. A red line indicated the Silk Road, an ancient trade route winding through the Gobi Desert. In Mildred’s imagination, it all came alive: vast plains of bare rock … camels trekking through sand dunes … carters in blue cotton smoking their pipes by the roadside.
Eva adjusted her spectacles. ‘Imagine how many thousands of families occupy that space on the map … and each one needs Jesus.’
Mildred looked down at the blue veins standing out on the back of her hands. ‘Would they let us go? You’re fifty-three now. I’m forty-four. We aren’t exactly spring chickens.’
Eva grinned impishly. ‘Speak for yourself, sister. Give me a wall and I’d happily climb it.’
That afternoon, the courtyard filled with happy voices. Over their well-cooked Christmas chicken, at a long table of laughing missionaries, Mildred shared a glance with Eva and Francesca. They each knew what the others were thinking. Someone must go to the Gobi … could it be us?
For twenty-two years, Mildred had taught classes of girls who already knew and loved Jesus. But in the new year of 1923, as the students came laughing into class, Mildred thought of the little girls in the Gobi Desert. Most of them would never be educated, but would be married far too young to older men. They were treated as worthless objects, but in God’s eyes they were precious: they needed Jesus, just as little Mildred, having nightmares in the nursery, had needed Him.
Rumours flew about the mission courtyard. Did you hear about the three thrill-seekers? Bored of teaching, are they? They’ll die out in a Gobi sandstorm, no doubt, and then of course we’ll be the ones blamed! Well, there’s no fools like old fools!
At church, the three ladies often got icy glances, and that cut deep – but each felt the fire of God’s call deep down. After lots of prayer, they wrote to the mission headquarters and volunteered to become travelling evangelists in the Gobi Desert. And their request was accepted.
During the long weeks as their mule-drawn cart rumbled into the unknown, Mildred snapped a tendon in her leg and poor Eva broke an arm. The devil tempted them to doubt their decision, but – as Francesca said while bandaging Eva’s arm – ‘God’s guidance isn’t like a lantern lighting up the whole path. It’s like a glimmering oil lamp, showing us only the next step. We just have to trust Him with the rest.’
Finally, the mule-drawn cart rumbled towards an outpost of the majestic Great Wall of China – Jiayuguan! Mildred gazed up, wonderstruck. At the foot of the wall, blue iris flowers grew scattered in the grass. Up above, the high brown wall loomed, and far beyond, purple snow-capped mountains glimmered in the distance.
‘They call this tower the mouth of the desert,’ the Chinese carter called out over his shoulder, while also puffing on his tobacco pipe. ‘Beyond is desolate country.’
Mildred knew there would be vast stretches of bare rock and sand – not a shred of green grass, not a chirping bird, not a scuttling ant. But in the desolation and the stillness, she thought, God is there.
Then Eva broke the silence.
‘That looks like a highly climbable wall,’ she announced. Never mind the dust coating her eyelashes; her face looked exactly like that of a child outside a sweet shop. ‘I have been sitting down like an old lady for far too long, and—’
‘Sit down, Eva.’ Francesca was fighting a smile. ‘We’ve had enough broken bones. Don’t use up all my bandage supplies!’
Eva plucked a tick off her hand as easily as you would pick a daisy. ‘I’ll do my best.’ She grinned cheekily. ‘But no promises, sister!’
Forgetting the stabs of pain in her leg, Mildred threw her head back and laughed. Relief washed over her. Deep down, she knew God’s peace – He had brought them this far and He would see them through.