Thursday, June 11, 2026

It is the 11th of June 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Ok- so I did some extra research- Diana Ross was technically a “Supreme,” but Gladys Knight was not a “Pip”, similarly Martha was not a “Vandella,” but Patti LaBelle was a Bluebelle. If none of that makes sense- let it go… but I bring this up today to introduce you to a group of female missionaries at the turn into the 20th century- sometimes referred to as “the Chinese Trio” (ironically they were not Chinese) or Mildred Cable and the Chinese Trio… but Mildred is one of the trio- it was her, Eva French and her sister Francesca French who are perhaps the most impressive missionary women of the last century that you may have never heard of.

In the authorized biography of the women, written by a friend and missionary, William James Platt, presents their bona fides as travel writers and fame across Western China. The British adventurer and soldier Peter Fleming wrote that “their description of Central Asia was the best and most brilliant I have ever heard”. He goes on to note a “grey-haired Living Buddha from Mongolia remarked: ‘Of course, I know about these three women. They are unmarried, they travel everywhere teaching their religion and doing good”

They traveled the Silk Road, traversed the Gobi Desert, spent time with Muslim adventurers and Chinese merchants in the service of the Gospel under the auspices of the China Inland Mission. They would be hosted by the crown for tea at Buckingham Palace, awarded medals named after missionary David Livingston and British author T.E. Lawrence. This is their story.

Evangeline French was the first to go- born to cosmopolitan parents in Belgium, she went to school in Geneva and was, by her own account, something of a nihilist in her early years. After hearing an evangelical sermon in London in the early 1890s, she decided to join the Chinese Inland Mission as a missionary and moved to Shanxi, where she lived during the Boxer Rebellion. She helped many women to safety and then returned to help rebuild the mission.

Meanwhile, Mildred Cable also had a conversion experience while studying to be a pharmacist. She and her fiancé had decided to become missionaries to China, but with the news of the Boxer Rebellion, he backed out. Mildred broke the engagement and, in 1901, sailed to Shanxi, where she met Evangeline at the mission. Francesca, Evangeline’s sister, joined them around 1908 after caring for their widowed mother.

The trio ran a school for women, teaching them to read and write, offering job training, and arguing against the policies of foot binding and the abandonment of baby girls. BY the early 1920s, the school was successful and spawned imitators amongst the indigenous Chinese. It was the model of the China Inland Mission to help build institutions, but then to hand them over to the indigenous community. And so, the trio decided to take the gospel into Western China- an ungospelled desert. And so it was on this, the 11th of June in 1923, that Mildred, Eva, and Francesca, the Chinese Trio, departed Shanxi for Gansu- roughly 1500 miles over a few months with a tent, kettle, frying pan, sleeping bags, and a box of Bibles. They would enter market towns and give away scripture, offer to teach, and offer medical services. Crossing the Gobi 3 times over two decades, they preached to Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and the Han Chinese.

They were eventually forced back to England in the mid 30s with increasing violence and political instability in China. The three would live together and speak and write about their work and travels. “The Gobi Desert” became a classic not only as missionary literature but for its descriptions of an almost unknown land to many westerners, thus the earlier praise from Peter Fleming (and yes, he was the brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming). Mildred’s personality made her the “face” of the trio, but all three helped popularize missionary work in the far east, and as work suitable for evangelical women. Mildred would die in 1952, and the sisters both in 1961.

Amidst the turmoil of the Boxer rebellion, starting a school in Shanxi and running it for 20 years before taking off across the Gobi Desert on this day in 1923, today we remember the Chinese Trio- Mildred Cable and the French sisters Francesca and Evangeline.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Hebrews 3:

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,”bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 11th of June 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose own Boxer rebellion led to a new kind of brief- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who assures you that Captain Geech is in fact not one of the Shrimp Shack Shooters- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.