Lottie Moon

Missionary to ChinaIMB photo

Charlotte Digges Moon, affectionately called “Lottie,” was born December 12, 1840 in Virginia.

She was one of seven children.

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Lottie grew up at Viewmont, the home on the family’s plantation. At Albemarle Female Institute, Lottie studied Latin, history, literature, and moral philosophy.

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After graduating from college, Lottie worked as a governess and teacher.

She taught at the Danville Female Academy in Kentucky, and at a school for girls in Cartersville, Georgia.Microsoft Clip Art photo

In 1873, while attending Cartersville Baptist Church, Lottie applied to be a missionary with the Foreign Mission Board.

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In October of 1873, Lottie arrived in Shanghai.

She was one of the first single women missionaries appointed to serve.

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Lottie diligently learned Chinese.

She was committed to sharing the gospel.

Lottie Moon in a rickshaw. IMB photo

Lottie faithfully taught and ministered primarily in Tengchow and Pingtu.

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The “Little House at the Crossroads” was her home in Tengchow.

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Eventually, Lottie realized that wearing Chinese clothing was one way to open doors to share the gospel.

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She made cookies for the children. The children brought their mothers to meet “the foreign devil,” as she was called at first.

Many women came to know Christ because of a cup of tea and some cookies. WMU photo

She wrote hundreds of letters documenting her experiences and asking for more missionaries to come and serve.

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Time and again she wrote urging the organizing of Baptist women for the support of missions.

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In 1888, the newly formed Woman’s Missionary Union collected its first Christmas offering for foreign missions. They raised over $3,300.

The offering was named for Lottie Moon in 1918.

For 39 years Lottie served as a missionary to China. She came home to the US only three times during those years.

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As the years wore on, the difficulty of traveling and other stresses began to take their toll on Lottie.

Constantly she pleaded for more missionaries to come and work with her beloved Chinese.

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By 1912, China was experiencing great famine.

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China was embroiled in war and famine. Miss Moon’s health began to fail.

By November of 1912, she was seriously ill.

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On December 20, 1912, Lottie was carried aboard the USS Manchuria to begin a journey home to recuperate. She was said to have weighed about 50 pounds!

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On Christmas Eve, 1912, while the ship was docked in Japan, Lottie died.

Her ashes were sent home to her brother and buried in the church cemetery.

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“How many there are . . . who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God, and so aid in bringing the answer to the petition our Lord taught his disciples: Thy kingdom come.”

—Lottie Moon, Sept. 15, 1887