Jennie V. Hughes

A Girl from the Salvation Army

Jennie V. Hughes (胡遵理) was born in March 1874 into a minister's family in Newark, New Jersey, in the United States. Her parents had five children, and she was the youngest. The whole family were devout Christians, and when her brothers and sisters grew up they all gave themselves to missionary or church-related work. In her youth she was a member of the Salvation Army in America. In 1905 the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York sent her to China.

Meeting Mary Stone While Fleeing

In 1906 she arrived in Nanchang, Jiangxi, intending to begin her work there, but she ran into the "Nanchang Incident" (南昌教案), in which several Western missionaries were killed, and she was forced to flee from Nanchang to Jiujiang. It was in Jiujiang that she came to know Mary Stone (石美玉), a Christian woman doctor who had returned from her studies in America. From then on the two were close co-workers, supporting each other and as close as sisters. For the next fourteen years (1906–1920) she served as principal of the Knowles Bible Training School (诺尔斯妇女圣经学校), a Bible school for training adult women, in Jiujiang, run by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She managed the school and taught the truths of the Bible, educating young people while preaching the gospel. In 1907, her second year as principal, she had to set her work aside to take Mary Stone, who was ill, by way of San Francisco to Chicago for treatment, and she cared for her at her bedside until she recovered. While in America the two visited churches in many places to promote the work in China, and their visits made a great impression; those connections and that influence later became a strong backing for the Bethel work. After Mary Stone recovered, the two returned to Jiujiang.

Thrown Thirty Feet

On 7 October 1915 Jennie Hughes and Mary Stone were in a serious car accident. She was thrown more than thirty feet and badly injured. So that her mother would not worry, she hid her injuries and said only that she was not seriously hurt. Because she had to stay in bed to recover and could not bear the strain of travel, she reluctantly cancelled all her visits and mission trips, and not until May 1919 did she again have the chance to return to America to raise funds for the work in China. For the sake of the gospel she was not opposed to working across denominations: although she was a Methodist Episcopal missionary, she had worked together with Baptists in theological education.

Leaving Her Mission Board

In 1920 Jennie Hughes resigned from the Methodist Episcopal Church, leaving the mission she had served for many years. Mary Stone and her younger sister, Dr. Phoebe Stone (石志成), decided to go with her, and the three left together to start afresh. They moved to Shanghai, where Jennie Hughes was responsible for education and Mary Stone for medical work. In 1920 the three formally founded the Bethel Mission (伯特利布道会), which would have a far-reaching influence. It was run mainly on the gifts of brothers and sisters in America.

Bethel on Twelve Acres

The Bethel work grew wider and wider and was no longer limited to medicine and education. Through medical work they brought the gospel to the patients who came to them for treatment, and they also opened a cotton mill in order to reach more women: the mill gave women work by which they could support themselves, and also a chance to hear the gospel. As the work expanded, with gifts from American Christians Bethel bought twelve acres of land and put up sixteen buildings, among them a hospital, primary and secondary schools, a theological training institution, two nursing schools, an orphanage, a printing press, and dormitories for teachers, students and staff. They also formed an evangelistic team, the Bethel Bands (伯特利布道团), with Andrew Gih (计志文) and John Sung (宋尚节) as the main speakers; the other members were Frank Ling (林景康), Lincoln Nieh (聂子英) and Philip Lee (李道荣). In the 1930s this team traveled through more than twenty provinces, cities and regions across the country, including Hong Kong, and led thousands upon thousands of people to the Lord. After the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the seminary and some of the orphanage moved south to Hong Kong and settled on Carpenter Road (嘉林边道) in Kowloon, where the work continued to grow. Jennie Hughes died in 1951.