Florence Young was born in New Zealand in 1856. She was of English heritage and her father had been a judge in India before moving back to England to get married and then moving all the way to New Zealand to become a farmer. She began to take her faith seriously while in her late teens. It is during this time that her family moved to Australia. Her brothers started a sugar plantation, which employed many workers from all over the Pacific Islands. At the age of twenty-one, Florence began teaching the workers the Christian faith. Soon after, she expanded the ministry to other plantations, sending out letters to churches soliciting their financial support. She did not care which churches sent the money or sent volunteers as long as these volunteers, regardless of denominational affiliation, were "true and faithful followers of the Lord Jesus, and willing to work with other Christians on the common ground of faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." This willingness to work with all kinds of Christians is called "ecumenism."
In the 1890's, Florence handed over direction of Queensland Kanaka Mission to coworkers and moved to China to serve as a missionary. She was a pioneer in doing as a woman what the church had told her and many others could only be accomplished by men. Her time in China came to an end as a result of the Boxer Rebellion, which was a widespread and extremely violent uprising of Chinese peasants with the ultimate goal of chasing all foreigners out of China, especially Christians of European descent. Feeling she had more work to do, she chose not to be martyred and moved back to Australia. She expected to resume her work with the ever growing Christian communities of Pacific Island workers on the plantations. This was not to be, however. In 1901 a law was passed that expelled all Pacific Islanders from Australia and deported them back to their ancestral homelands. This created great fear and hardship among the workers because they had left their homelands on purpose as there was no work to be had back home (sound familiar?). Also, they'd been in Australia so long (many for multiple generations) that they often did not live by many of their ancestral ways. It would be a tremendous culture shock to go back now. Plus, thousands had become Christians and they feared being persecuted or even put to death when they returned to their native lands. They were also quite young in their Christian faith. They'd have no guidance to help them grow into spiritual maturity. The situation broke Florence's heart.
Many of us would say, "That sounds tough. I'll miss you." Not Florence! She and a few others bought a yacht (not what we think of as a yacht) and began sailing throughout the Pacific Islands to supply and support the more than 2,000 Pacific Islander Christians that had been deported from Australia. She did not see it as her mission to try to share the gospel with the native population herself. That should be done by the Pacific Islanders themselves. Her mission was to teach and support the Christian Pacific Islanders so that they could share the gospel. For years she lived on the boat, called Evangel, going from island to island, teaching and praying with and for the Pacific Islander Christians. Eventually she moved to Sydney, Australia and took on a more administrative role in what had come to be known as South Sea Evangelical Mission. She died in 1940.
As a person who is often too lazy to get up early enough to have a morning devotional time and who thinks I've gone a long way to do God's work when I have to drive to Columbus, I am awed by Florence's commitment to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others.
