Mission and Revolution in Central Asia - Svenska Missionskyrkan

Kashgar 182 . With the station in Jengi-Hessar the mission field was united into a geographical
unit.
During these years, the missionaries had plans of extending the Mission to other places. In
1908, Törnquist made a trip northwards in order to explore whether there were possibilities
for Chinese mission. With the exception of the China Inland Missionary, Mr Hunter, who had
occasionally visited these areas, there was no Christian Mission there. 183 The plans
concerning the extension northwards however came to nothing. A couple of years later there
were again new ideas about extension, but this time southwards. Khotan was considered well
placed as a mission station. Furthermore Karghalik, just by Jarkend could become an outpost
of Jarkend. 184
No churches were built during the first phase of the new stations. They came later.
Worship services were held in small halls during the first years. However, hospitals were built
at all three of the Muslim mission stations. It is quite evident that medical care was the
priority. And thereby we touch upon the institutionalized Mission that was now founded and
which remained predominant for the Mission in this country the whole mission period out.
Among the institutions were also Children’s Homes, literature work and schools. Medical
care was however the most extensive and maybe the most important branch.
In Kashgar, medical mission work received its baptism of fire during the violent riots of
the Revolution 1911/12. The work done by the missionaries during that period earned them
goodwill for a long time ahead.
Through medical care, the Mission however acquired a kind of imbalance. Back home in
Sweden, the Board was worried about the development of the Mission. Sjöholm writes to
Raquette, the grand old man of the medical mission,
“You have a lot to do in the hospital. But you will have to solve that problem yourselves. Hilda Nordqvist
will be joining you, but she should be doing evangelical work. That must be a priority, even before
medical care, for instance.” 185
This letter caused disappointment in Kashgar. The hospital was undermanned and Hilda
Nordquist was a qualified nurse. The missionaries were irritated by the constant veiled
criticism of their work. The Eastern Turkestan Mission was becoming too humanitarian in its
work according to Stockholm. In letters, newspaper articles and lectures, the missionaries
tried to defend their cause. In a lecture held in 1913, Raquette described the foundation of the
medical mission. The missionaries started out helping the sick on a minor scale, but soon
things had gone so far that circumstances began to govern the missionaries. He continues,
“And that is how it came about that we were standing there trilling pills, preparing ointments and dressing
wounds the whole day long. We often said to each other at that time, ‘How will this end? We came here to
preach and teach, and now we have time for nothing else but smear and plaster these poor wretched
bodies.’” 186
Later on in his lecture Raquette quotes the mission doctor David Livingstone. “God had but
one Son, and he was sent into the world to be a mission doctor.”
Helping the sick became the most important part of the work. Högberg writes, “…I have
never had the courage to wave away a patient, where there was still some kind of hope for his
182 Palmaer, 1938, p. 112.
183 Törnquits and Albert Andersson to Waldenström, July 25th, 1908.
184 Oskar Andersson to the Board, May 27th, 1911.
185 Sjöholm to Raquette, March 17th, 1914.
186 SMT, 1913, p. 85 f.
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