This week in Christian history: Bob Jones University exonerated, missionary nurse martyred

Josephine Desmond martyred in China – July 21, 1900

This week marks the anniversary of when Josephine Elizabeth Desmond, an American missionary nurse, was killed for her faith during the Boxer Rebellion in China.

A native of West Newton, Massachusetts, Desmond first served as a missionary among Native Americans in South Dakota before traveling to China in 1898 via the China Inland Mission.

“I have been to several of the outstations this spring,” she had written in a letter in June of that year. “The people came in crowds and listened well. In one place an old woman believed from the first and stayed with us until she had learned a prayer. It is such a joy to find the ‘other sheep’ in these out-of-the-way places.”

When the rebellion broke out, Desmond was in the city of Quzhou. A missionary couple was summarily executed before her eyes, then she was murdered shortly after.

“The gentry of the city and the officials who had witnessed the killing then sent town criers throughout Quzhou, announcing that if anyone was caught sheltering foreign or Chinese Christians they would be killed for doing so,” recounted the ministry website Asia Harvest.