Someone to Be With Roxie: The Life Story of Grace Reed Liddell Cox Missionary In China 1934-1944

by Miriam G. Moran

From a box of old letters and memorabilia, Miriam Moran constructs the remarkable life of her mother, an American missionary in war-torn China who died before her children could remember her.

Grace Liddell Cox was a strong-minded farm girl from Iowa who early dedicated herself to the spread of the gospel in China. A civil war was underway when she arrived, and war with Japan was brewing. Yet, with a steady trust in her heavenly Father, she made the long journey to her post in Yunnan province, crisscrossing the country again in her faithful service with the China Inland Mission. Her letters home detail her experiences with the people she came to love, her interactions with fellow missionaries, her own marriage and children, her harrowing escape from the Japanese army, and her undiminished confidence in God in each new circumstance.

Someone to Be with Roxie shares the fascinating life story of a young missionary who gave her life to God for service in China, and found him entirely worthy of her trust.

251 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 8, 2015

Reviews

[RAW · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing life of a missionary to China. Going over as a single women to serve the tribes, meeting her husband there, escaping Japanese invasion, and returning for furlough to find she had cancer and dies! Loved the authors style of using excerpts from letters combined with lots of research of the times.

“What ere my God Ordains is Right”

“She had needed no introduction. The passage of time had not dimmed her Savior’s memory, the fog of war had not reduced her to an anonymous someone. Her name had been written on his hands since before the beginning of time, and she heard his glad welcome, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” pg.254

[Barry Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly Wonderful

So beautifully written. An account carefully researched and translated from historical hand written letters. A truly amazing account of a truly amazing young woman.

[Cindy Marsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard my friend Miriam once tell of how her missionary parents had fled China with her when she was a baby, but I had no idea just how harrowing a journey it was. This book tells the story.

The title is puzzling, but I like what it ultimately conveys--that Grace Liddell Cox was a quiet servant of God, following her calling to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Miriam Moran has curated boxes of correspondence and notes to share the story of her mother, giving an account of how a midwestern farm girl could light out in faith to live most of her adult life on the other side of the globe until war forced her young family along the Burma Road and in a harrowing flight over the Himalayas to safety. Grace and her British husband then went home again to her family in Iowa, where she died of cancer far too young, but confident in God's care of her and her loved ones. Although the story is told with the distance and formality of one who wants to get all the details right to give a true account, Moran reveals surprising glimpses of the personality of the mother she lost when she was a preschooler.

Knowing of the vitality of the Christian faith in China after almost a century of oppression, I wonder how many believers there can trace the heritage of faith through to what Grace Liddell Cox did for a decade or so among the Chinese in the 1930s. This story captures a quiet history and teaches us a little something about the significance of each life.