A History of Faithfulness

Dr. George Worth (ca 1935)
(1867-1936)

“In April, Worth announced his engagement to Emma Chadbourn, a childhood friend who also had made a public commitment to foreign missionary work. They were married in the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington at the end of July 1895, and two days later, they left for China with the farewells of the congregation ringing in their ears.”
                                                                                                     Lawrence Kessler 

Can you imagine how George and Emma felt as they sailed away from everything and everyone they had ever known!  Can you imagine the courage it took to wave goodbye to family not knowing when or if you would see them again?  Can you imagine the commitment that they had at such young ages!  This is the history and foundation we stand on as we travel to China in 2018 to continue the relationships begun long ago by two young Christians from our church.

In 1895 Dr. George Worth and his wife Emma left Wilmington, North Carolina left for Jiangyin, China to help establish a school, hospital and church. Many wonderful things were accomplished but then there were many years of silence between the China church and Wilmington First Church. In 2005, after this silence, a young member of our church wandered into the church in Jiangyin and saw a display about FPC Wilmington, NC.  God does work in mysterious ways!

Rev. Ernie Thompson and Walt Conser set out to reestablish this historic partnership and engaged the help of the Outreach Foundation of the Presbyterian Church.  Since then numerous congregants have traveled to China to continue our relationship with the Chinese Church.  We have also enjoyed visits to Wilmington from our Chinese friendsI  One memorable event was the sermon preached by Chinese Pastor Mary who learned English so she could speak to us. It was a remarkable moment!

On October 15th, members of our church will join with the Outreach Foundation and fellow Christians from other parts of the US to travel to China.  The Outreach Foundation theme for the trip is “Remarkable Faithfulness and Growth”.

We solicit your prayers as we travel and meet our Chinese brothers and sisters. We pray that our faith will grow and that we can be an encouragement to them as well.

谢谢
Marvin Hage 
Elder,  First Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, North Carolina

p.s.  Future blogs will we written by other members of the delegation.  Stay tuned.



References:

Kessler, L. D. (1996). The Jiangyin Mission Station: An American Missionary Community in China, 1895-1951 (The James Sprunt Studies in History and Political Science). p. 30 The University of North Carolina Press.

Bays, D. H. (2011). A New History of Christianity in China (1 ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

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