Born into privilege on a Virginia plantation, Charlotte Digges Moon was a smart, forceful woman who could have achieved most any goal. But God’s call focused Lottie’s life on sharing Christ’s love with China’s lost masses.
For 37 years she endured hardship and danger in a land oppressed by famine, disease and war. In the end, she loved the Chinese people more than life itself, giving her own food to starving neighbors – eventually dying of starvation herself.
Why is Southern Baptists’ international missions offering named for this early missionary?
Throughout her career, Lottie wrote numerous letters home urging Southern Baptists to greater missions involvement and support. One of those letters, excerpted below, triggered Southern Baptists’ first offering for international missions in 1888 – enough to send three more missionaries to China.
“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.”