Isobel Kuhn

From Doubt to Dedication

Isobel Kuhn (杨宓贵灵), born Isobel Selina Miller, was born on 17 December 1901 in Toronto, Canada. In 1922 she graduated from the University of British Columbia. For the following year she taught in Vancouver while boarding there, and also began taking evening classes at the Vancouver Bible School, forming the habit of reading the Bible daily. During this time she gradually learned to trust God's faithfulness and his willingness to hear prayer. Later, at a Bible conference, she heard James O. Fraser (富能仁) describe the condition of the Lisu people of Yunnan, a people bound by fear of demons and spirits, and heard his solemn call. She turned his words over again and again and finally gave herself. Her father supported her, but her mother could not accept it. Her mother, president of the church's women's missionary society, feared that her daughter would never marry once she went to the field, feared that having to raise money from people would make the family lose face, and feared that she was throwing away a bright future and a secure life.

Moody and John Kuhn

She went to Moody Bible Institute for training. There she met John Kuhn (杨志英). Through praying together with other students who had committed themselves to overseas mission, and through time spent in the company of good friends, their friendship gradually deepened into love. At first she was still not sure whether God wanted her to marry him, and she prayed about it for a long time. John Kuhn had already gone to China ahead of her; in 1928 she too came to China, and in 1929 the two were married in Kunming.

The Nujiang Grand Canyon

After their wedding they first went to Chengjiang, and in 1930 moved to Dali, where they established themselves, studying the language while hosting missionaries passing through, and also helping 10 newly arrived China Inland Mission couples to settle in. Toward the end of their first year in Dali Isobel found she was pregnant; on 10 April 1931 their daughter Kathryn was born, and she gave her the pet name "Linna" (凛娜). After this the couple went deep into the Lisu mountain villages of the Nujiang (Salween) Grand Canyon. The Lisu lived scattered across steep mountains, and reaching one village from another often took days of travel. Isobel learned the Lisu language, lived in bamboo houses and traveled the mountain paths on circuit, carrying on the work James O. Fraser had pioneered.

The Rainy Season Bible School

The most important initiative of Isobel and her husband was the Rainy Season Bible School. In the rainy season farm work in the Yunnan mountains stops, which made it the right time for concentrated training: Lisu young people trekked in from the villages to receive several months of intensive Bible teaching. This became the high point of each year and the foundation for the Lisu church's independence; group after group of students finished their studies and went back to pastor their own villages. Isobel gave thanks for this, and also grieved over students' failures. She also took part in translating and copying the Lisu New Testament, typing out the Scriptures passage by passage so that students would have the text in hand to read in class. On weekends the students went out in pairs, despite the continual rain, to preach in the surrounding mountain villages.

The Last Three Years

In 1950, as the situation changed, Isobel left China. Her husband John Kuhn was escorted out of the country at bayonet point in 1951, and then went to northern Thailand to survey the areas of the mountain peoples along the border with China; the China Inland Mission had by then been reorganized as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship and was planning to send workers to those peoples who had not heard the gospel. In 1954 Isobel was diagnosed with cancer and returned to the United States for treatment. In the last three years of her life she pushed far ahead the writing she had begun during earlier furloughs, producing Ascent to the Tribes, Green Life in Drought Time and other books; By Searching tells of her early years, and In the Arena of her missionary life in China. These books have influenced hundreds of thousands of readers and have carried the story of the Lisu people around the world. On 20 March 1957 she died in Illinois, aged 55.