The facts in the life of Charlotte “Lottie” Moon are easy to list Born in Albemarle County, Virginia. On Dec. 12, 1840, to a family of wealth, she grew up never knowing hunger. Surrounded by money and servants, self-willed and headstrong, opposing the faith of her parents and rejecting the Gospel of Christ, it would seem that the course of her life was set.
At less than five feet tall Lottie Moon may seem like a most unlikely hero of the faith but Lottie would prove that God chooses the time, the place, and whom He wants to accomplish His purpose and to do His will. Lottie attended Albemarle Female Institute in Charlottesville and would become one of the few women in the south at that time to receive her masters’ degree. Lottie lost her father at the age of 12 she and her 6 brothers and sisters were raised by their mother, a Godly woman who taught her children the word of God. The Bible tells us in Prov 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Lottie’s mother lived by faith and her children saw that faith in action each and every day that faith and training would help Lottie hear God calling. Even more important than the master’s degree she would earn in college was the faith she would find when she gives her life to Jesus at a revival while attending the University. After graduating Lottie became a teacher in Danville, KY. She would later come to Cartersville female Academy as teacher and co-principal. During the next few years, Lottie would be lead to do whatever she could to help with people that were in need in her area. Psalms 37: 4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” God had changed the desires of Lottie’s heart and was about to give her the desires of that changed heart. Feeling an ever-growing love for God and pull to do more to help in 1873 Lottie went to hear a missionary speak, whose message was on the John 4:35“35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. She would hear the call to go to China and was appointed to missionary service in the fall of 1873 Lottie would leave for China. With her great passion for the word of God and her love for the people of China she taught as a missionary, ministered to the sick and hurting for the next 39 years. Lottie’s commitment, love, and integrity would earn her the respect of the people that would come to know Jesus as Lord and even many others that would not come to know Him. Nothing Illustrates better how this respect affected the whole region and its people than the time that Lottie had made a long and very difficult journey to assist at a damaged hospital. After finishing at the hospital, Lottie longed to return to the school she ran and to the people God had sent her to. Between the time Lottie had started her journey and the time she had finished her work, a terrible civil war erupted and Lottie was caught in the middle. Lottie insisted that she return to her village but was told that the fighting was so bad in the area that they needed to pass through; it would be suicide to try! However, Lottie walked with God and had a job to do, she was undaunted and unafraid, she insisted on going back. As they approached the war zone the word went out that the beloved and respected missionary Lottie moon was passing through, both sides silenced their weapons and held their ground, allowing Lottie to pass before once again returning to the fighting. Lottie would spend 39 years serving God by serving the people of China when famine swept the area. Lottie tended the sick comforting even giving her rations to the starving she would grow weaker and weaker when her home mission board got word of Lottie’s condition they ordered her back to the United States. Not wanting to leave but wanting to obey those in authority, Lottie boarded a ship home. Lottie would never reach the United States. On the 24th of December 1912 off the shore of Kobe, Japan, Lottie would go home not to the United States but home to the God whom she loved and served, the God who changed a diminutive headstrong girl into a great woman, into a giant and hero of the faith.
