The Parlour Maid Nobody Thought Fit for China

In 1930, Gladys Aylward stood before the China Inland Mission board in London and heard words that stung like a slap: she was too old at twenty-seven, too uneducated, too ordinary. A parlour maid from Edmonton with no seminary training and no prospects. The board saw a small woman with limited schooling. God saw something else entirely.

Gladys refused to accept their verdict. She saved every penny from her domestic work, bought a one-way railway ticket across Europe and Siberia, and arrived in Yangcheng, China, with almost nothing. The locals called her Ai-weh-deh — "the Virtuous One." She opened an inn for muleteers, learned Mandarin, and eventually led over a hundred orphans on a harrowing trek across the mountains to safety during the Japanese invasion.

The mission board looked at Gladys Aylward and asked, "Can anything good come from a servant's quarters in Edmonton?" They measured her by credentials and pedigree, much as Nathanael measured Jesus by His hometown. "Nazareth?" Nathanael scoffed. "Can anything good come from there?"

But Jesus had already seen Nathanael sitting under the fig tree before Philip ever spoke His name. The Almighty does not evaluate the way committees do. He sees the heart beneath the résumé, the calling beneath the circumstances. He knew Nathanael. He knew Gladys. And long before you ever turned toward Him, He saw you too — and called you by name.