Isobel Kuhn

Isobel Miller was born on December 19, 1901, in Toronto, Canada. She grew up in a middle-class family and was educated in the public schools. As a girl, she was a lively and imaginative child with a love for books. In her teens, she was caught up in the doubts of the age and lost her Christian faith. She went to the University of British Columbia, where she studied literature and became an agnostic. She was a promising student and had her eyes set on a career as a writer.

In her second year at university, she went through a deep spiritual crisis. She was troubled by the emptiness of life and the lack of a purpose. She turned to the Bible and began to read it with an open mind. After a period of struggle, she gave her life to Christ. The change was dramatic, and she felt that God was calling her to the mission field. She went to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where she studied for three years. There she met John Kuhn, a young man who was preparing to go to China.

She and John Kuhn were married in 1929 in China, after she had completed her studies and had been accepted by the China Inland Mission. They were assigned to the Lisu tribe, in the mountains of Yunnan province, in the southwest of China, where they joined J. O. Fraser. The Lisu were a hill people, mostly illiterate, who were then experiencing a mass movement to Christ. The Kuhns lived in a simple house and worked with the people. Isobel learned the Lisu language and taught the women and children. She also began to write about the work.

The years in the mountains were hard. They faced the cold, poor food and disease. In 1934, their daughter Kathryn was born. The family also lived with the threat of bandits and war. She had to face the experience of separation, as her husband was often away traveling among the villages. She wrote of her loneliness and of how she learned to depend on the Lord. She described how she was tempted to give up and how God gave her the strength to continue.

In 1950, the Kuhns were forced to leave China. They moved to Thailand, where they continued to work among the Lisu people who had settled there. They also served in other parts of Southeast Asia. In those years, Isobel took up her pen and wrote a series of books about her experiences. By Searching, published in 1957, is her spiritual autobiography. Other works include Nests Above the Abyss, Ascent to the Tribes, In the Arena, Stones of Fire and Green Leaf in Drought. Her books were widely read, and they have inspired many to take up missionary work. They were marked by honesty and a sense of humor.

She also had a gift for describing the inner life of a missionary, with all its doubts and struggles. She wrote about her fear and failure as well as her faith. She did not claim to be a saint, and her readers loved her for it. She also worked at a heavy pace, and she suffered from ill health.

She was diagnosed with cancer in the 1950s. She continued to work and write as she was able. She died on March 20, 1957, at the age of fifty-five. Her husband carried on the work. Her life shows how a person who has doubted can come to faith, and how a gifted writer can use her gift to bring others into the story of God's work.