Bill Wallace M.D. (1912-1951): Medical missionary to China
“I have always thought of Africa, but I will go anywhere I am needed.”
“I have always thought of Africa, but I will go anywhere I am needed.”
It was in 1934 that this young, single medical doctor from Knoxville, Tennessee, penned the above words in his initial letter to the foreign mission board of his denomination to volunteer his services on the foreign mission field. The board had just received an urgent request from other medical missionaries in China for another doctor to be sent. There was the need, and here was the doctor. Bill Wallace applied for missionary service, was approved and went to China in 1935, and served the health needs of thousands of Chinese people for the next 17 years.
In 1951, Bill Wallace was arrested by the communist government for false political charges, was then imprisoned, starved, abused, tortured and finally died after being a prisoner for 53 days. He had remained faithful to his Christian calling until his martyrs death at age 39. But, he is remembered.
During this chaplain’s last overseas tour in Korea (1976-1977), he visited the southern city of Pusan and there saw the hospital named the Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital. At and through the hospital “missionary doctors, inspired by Bill Wallace’s life, minister in the same spirit” (see the book “Bill Wallace of China” by Jesse C. Fletcher, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn. 1963). The good legacy of this man of God lives on. He was faithful to God’s call to go where the need was great.
What kind of legacy will you and I leave for those who come after us? Remember this: God has a plan and good purpose for every life … for your life and for mine. Let us surrender to Him and seek every day to fulfill that Divine purpose. This sketch of Bill Wallace closes with the words of a song of faith:
So Send I You
So send I you, My strength to know in weakness,
My joy in grief, My perfect peace in pain,
To prove My pow’r, My grace, My promised
presence,
So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.
As the Father hath sent Me, So send I you.
Words by E. Margaret Clarkson
Music by John W. Peterson
Author
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