Lottie Moon: The Missionary Who Starved to Feed China

She weighed just fifty pounds when they carried her onto the ship. Lottie Moon, four feet three inches tall and fluent in five languages, had given away all her food and money to starving families during a famine in China. She had spent nearly forty years pouring out her life on the far side of the world, and now her own body could not go on. The younger missionaries put her on a ship bound for home. It was too late. On Christmas Eve, 1912, in the harbor of Kobe, Japan, Lottie Moon slipped away at seventy-two. She whispered the words of a child's hymn she had loved since girlhood: we are weak, but He is strong. Here is the part she never knew. For years she had written the mission board, letter after letter, begging for more workers. The letters had planted a seed. The women of her church started a small Christmas offering, and after she died they put her name on it. That offering, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, has now raised more than five billion dollars to carry the gospel around the world. Five billion. Lottie never saw a single dime of it. A five-minute reminder that the seed you bury in faith is never wasted. It is simply being planted. Scripture echo: John 12:24 Key figure: Charlotte "Lottie" Moon (1840-1912), Southern Baptist missionary to China, namesake of the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering Read or listen on the blog: https://rodneycoe.com/lottie-moon-last-christmas/ Five minutes. Pull up a chair.

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They had to carry her onto the ship. She weighed fifty pounds, a tiny woman, barely four feet three inches tall, so frail now that a strong wind could have carried her off. Her name was Charlotte Moon, though everyone called her Lottie, and for nearly forty years she had poured out her life on the far side of the world. Now a famine had swept through her corner of China, and Lottie had done the only thing her heart would let her do. She gave away food. She gave away her money, and when her fellow missionaries finally understood what was happening, they discovered that the woman who had fed so many was quietly starving to death herself. Stay with me. You're gonna want to hear the rest of the story. I'm Rodney Coe, and today a tiny woman, a terrible famine, and a seed that fell into the ground and would not stay buried. Lottie Moon was not what anyone in 1840 expected. A Virginia plantation girl to become. She was brilliant. She earned one of her first master's degrees ever granted to a woman in the South. She was fluent in five languages. She could have done almost anything with her life, and what she chose to do was sail to China at the age of 33 to tell people about Jesus. And she never really came home again. For nearly four decades she taught, she spoke, she translated, and she loved the people of China as her own. And she wrote letters, letter after letter back to the mission board in Richmond, begging them to send more workers, more support. The need was overwhelming and the workers were few. But the board was buried in its own debt and could send almost nothing. Her pleas seemed to vanish into silence. Then came the famine. People were dying in the streets all around her. So Lottie opened her own pantry and emptied her own purse, and she gave until there was nothing left to give, including her own meals. Her worn out body finally gave way. Alarmed, the younger missionaries put her on a ship bound for home, praying the journey might save her. It was too late. On Christmas Eve of nineteen twelve, in the harbor of Kobe, Japan, with a missionary nurse at her side, Lottie Moon slipped away. Through the last long night she kept rousing to whisper the words of an old children's hymn We are weak, but he is strong. At the very end she lifted her thin hands in the Chinese greeting she loved. She smiled and she was gone. She was seventy two years old. And here is the part she never knew. Those letters she thought had fallen on deaf ears, had quietly planted a seed. The women of her church had started a small Christmas offering to fund missions, and after she died they put her name on it. That offering, that Lottie Moon Christmas offering, has now raised more than five billion dollars to carry the gospel around the world. Five billion, and Lottie never saw a single dime of it. Jesus once said something that explains a life like hers. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. A seed has to be buried before it can even multiply. Lottie Moon was that seed. She fell into the ground on Christmas Eve far from home, perhaps wondering if her work had amounted to much at all. And out of that one buried life came a harvest she could never have imagined. So whatever you are pouring out today that feels unseen and unrewarded, take heart. God keeps a different set of books. The seed you bury in faith is never wasted. It is simply being planted. And that, friend, is how God lives up your day.