Lillian Dickson (1901-1983)

From 100 Christian Women Who Changed the 20th Century
By Helen Kooiman Hosier

“Let’s go where there is the greatest need.  We have only one life to live.”  Lillian LeVesconte wrote those amazing words to her husband –to-be, Jim Dickson, in response to a letter he wrote outlining their options after marriage.  So they were off to Formosa, honeymooning their way across the Pacific to Shanghai in mid 1927.  From there they headed across the Formosa Strait, landing in Formosa, east of south China.  A ten hour train trip brought them to Taipei, then fifteen miles northwest to Tamsui, where there was a mission house. Lillian was homesick for America for the first seven years, but after that she selflessly gave of her strength and resources through typhoons, floods, and wartime bombings to establish hospitals, orphanages, schools and churches and fulfill the “greater need.”

In those first few years of their marriage, Lillian and Jim brought two children into the world, both of whom were buried on the island.  “Missionaries in China lose two out of five,” the doctor said, seeking to comfort her.

“I have lost my two,” Lillian said sadly.  “Now I should be allowed to keep the next.”  The baby garments didn’t come down from the shelf until Ronald was safely born in 1931.  A year later, Ronny’s sister, Marilyn, arrived.

Jim Dickson was principal of the big middle school at Tamsui and later of the theological college.  But at every opportunity, and as the Japanese permitted, he went into the mountains to do evangelistic work.  He also held many conferences and missionary meetings at the Dickson post.  Sometimes as many as sixty people needed meals three times a day, in addition to the students from the school who often seemed to be around at mealtimes.  When someone asked Lillian, “And what do you do for the conference?” it gave her pause. “I am the innkeeper’s wife,” she replied.  At the outset of their missionary work, Lillian kept busy in this way and also mothering and teaching their children.

By 1940, the Japanese secret police were monitoring every move of the Dicksons, and it became imperative that they evacuate.  Formosa had become a key base in the South Pacific. They escaped to Hawaii, slipping into Pearl Harbor on Thanksgiving Day 1941.  Jim immediately sought out American officers to warn them that the Japanese were not to be trusted.  “I have lived with them.  I know how they think, what they think.  They’re going to fight America and win.”  They heard him out, and when he had finished they said, “Nice of you to come.”  The Dicksons shipped out almost immediately, before that fateful day, December 7, 1941,when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  They left their children in the care of relatives in the states while they went on to Canada to report to their mission board at Toronto.   The mission board requested that they go to British Guiana, and five of their children’s most impressionable years were spent there.   In studying about the country, Lillian reported to Jim, “It seems to be a wild and woolly place, not very civilized.”  They found themselves in plantation country, with as many as three to ten thousand workers on a plantation.  The laborers from East India were mostly Hindus and Muslims.

Five years later, they were back in Formosa and found themselves up against Chinese communists.  Taiwan had become a province of the Republic of China.  In Taipei, bomb damage was evident everywhere, but fortunately, no bombs had fallen on the mission compound.  It was risky, dangerous; they were under martial law.  “But now we have freedom of religion,” Lillian reminded her husband.  “We didn’t have that under the Japanese.”

Lillian wanted to contribute to their work in some way. “I’ve got my Martha work organized, but I want to do some Mary work, too.”

“Go for it!” Jim said, with an encouraging smile. From that moment on there was no stopping Lillian, who earned the title “Typhoon Lil.”  All around her she found unbearable poverty, leprosy, head-hunting, tuberculosis, the selling of little girls into prostitution- people without hope until she brought it to them-and government corruption.  At one point someone said to her, “Where are your projects going to stop?”

“Why should they stop anywhere?” Lillian demanded. “Do we think that God can supply two dollars and not three dollars? Or that, when we see a hungry or sick child, He may say, ‘you don’t need to care about that child-you’re doing enough already.’  Is any need, anywhere, beyond the love of God?  And if it is His concern, should it not be ours?”

“You can’t take on the whole world!” people argued.

“I can’t,” Lillian agreed, “God can.”

Lillian never learned to say no to need.  Since it was God who supplied the money, physical strength, and emotional competence, she insisted there was always more where they came from.   When she tried to explain to those who marveled at what was taking place, she said, “It’s just that sometimes I feel as if I’m being pushed – sometimes into trouble, sometimes out of trouble.”

Someone responded, “Woman’s intuition.”

“Or an angel at my shoulder,” said Lillian.

Dr. Kenneth L. Wilson lived with the Dicksons in Taipei, and from that capital city traveled throughout the region with Lillian to record the story of her life, told in the biography Angel at Her Shoulder.  This moving story tells of Lillian at work bringing medical care and food to thousands in isolated mountain villages, helping lepers regain dignity and the courage to go on living, rescuing thousands of babies and little children, always ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of uncounted thousands of unfortunates.  She established orphanages and leprosariums.  She visited prisons.  At the urging of Eleanor Doan from Gospel Light Publishing, who visited the Dicksons and saw the work firsthand, Lillian formed a board and incorporated her work, calling it Mustard Seed, Inc.

“It will take faith,” Lillian said, “faith as a grain of mustard seed.  ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you’ (Matt. 17:20).”

At one point, Lillian organized a mobile clinic.  On every trip the doctors found dozens of cases of tuberculosis.  Only rest, proper hygiene, and good nutrition could help, and these were beyond the means of the mountain people.  Lillian went to the American Aid office for guidance. “The problem is as big as the sea,” she was told.  “Anything you can do would be like taking out only a bucketful.

“But because I am a Christian,” she said, “I must take out my bucketful.”  Such is the legacy of Lillian Dickson.