Roberts - The Life and Times of Charles A. Roberts

Professor Cheng Ghi-Kwei, had a heart attack and died. He left a wife and six children (five girls and a young son). Rev. Cheng had translated the Scofield Bible Correspondence Course into Chinese. and a large number of students were enrolled in the courses. His wife, Mrs. Cheng. took over this great responsibility and did all she could do to continue her husband's work for the next 20 years! She herself was a very bright student and a graduate ofNanking university for Women. At the same time she assumed responsibility for educating her children which proved difficult under wartime difficulties when Changsha would be invaded and fought over 4 times! In June of 1940, the British officials notified all women and children to leave Hong Kong immediately as the Japanese were threatening. Grace immediately left Changsha for Hong Kong traveling faster this time through Japanese lines with 4 friends in only 11 days. Within 72 hours she and the 3 girls sailed from Hong Kong on the last refugee ship for Los Angeles. Twenty thousand British and American families had left their fathers in China. Fifty thousand women and children in one week alone were evacuated by the British. Charles received a telegram by radio message from the ship that his wife and daughters had left for the U.S. It was a sad time for him the next few days--utterly alone again and for how long? In September 1940. Charles received word that his daughter Miriam. who had just graduated from Wheaton College, was to be married in Glendale to John P. Lee. His oldest daughter, Faith, was to be married to George Kraber the next year in Boston, after completion of her nursing course at Massachusetts General Hospital. Charles' family was growing up, and he felt a terrible loss at missing his children's activities, weddings and graduation in China. He had experienced three years of war between China and Japan, and now Germany was pounding England. His German doctor friend, Fritz Eitel, and he listened together each evening to the BBC radio news and discussed the future. Both had loyal roots to their homelands.

Dr. Eitel had decided to go to Switzerland for a furlough with his wife (a Swiss) in 1938. The German Mission Headquarters were in Basel, Switzerland. While in Switzerland,

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