I have discussed the possibility of my going to the country field for a year and a half to help, but we have come to the unanimous opinion that it would be a big waste to do such a thing. My Chinese does not put me in a position to start straight in at all well, and although I see the big personal advantage of doing so, in that it would give me the best grip of the language that I could ever get, I think it is really a waste. The choice would really have to be—give up educational work altogether now, and I don’t feel a definite enough call to do that.[58]
Eric and Florence contemplated the move to Siaochang deeply but ultimately decided to decline the opportunity. The timing simply wasn’t right, and, as Eric would later explain to the LMS officials, he would go if he felt the calling, but he believed his work at the college was of better service. Even still, their final decision left Eric feeling out of sorts. He had always struggled with saying no when requests came to him. He had also been accustomed to much more free time as a single man. A married man’s life is different, he reasoned, as well as that of a family man. On top of everything else, their family would soon expand to three, and both he and Florence anticipated needing the precious time together.
Patricia Margaret Liddell came into the world in July 1935. The blonde, curly-haired child became a joy to everyone around her and gave a sense of life carrying on, even in troubling times. Eric proudly delighted in the added role of fatherhood and welcomed the few headaches from late-night cries and lost sleep.
The following year, a much-loved Patricia toddled at the beaches of Pei Tai Ho, playing on the very shoreline where her father had proposed to her mother. The Liddells were blissfully happy—they’d settled in well as young marrieds, their daughter was nothing short of a treasure, and to add to their joy, another baby was on the way, due in January of the following year.
But the world did not seem to share their bliss. Minor eruptions led by cultural upstart Mao Zedong continued. His communist revolution had gained a large following in opposition to the Chinese national government. Leaders ruled the main streets and capitals of China, but tension and uncertainty commandeered the side streets and alleyways. By late summer, the head of the Nationalist government Chiang Kai-shek was nearly overthrown by a group within his own government who urged him to unite the Chinese forces to evict the Japanese.
Talk of the inevitability of declared war increased over dinnertime’s rice bowls and mah-jongg tables.
Tientsin’s people grew worried. Stress mounted. Eric ministered and preached accordingly to his community. Not only did he have his own children to raise, but he also had his spiritual children in the faith to teach. He passionately continued to share Christ, develop relationships, and serve as a peacemaker, helping to settle disputes.
Eric continued emphasizing and reemphasizing freedom in the gospel that was disguised in the joy of adhering to God’s Word. His was a voice of soothing comfort as the community braced for an uncertain future. But no pastor escapes the ministry without having to pivot on a few ideas. Eric’s homiletic approach at this period in China contained more of a gospel-oriented delivery, which veered from the earlier law-oriented decision points he shared in D. P. Thomson’s meetings. In one surviving sermon outline, Eric describes focusing on one’s own work as irritating; however, when the eyes are placed on the work of God, the face is lit up. Eric’s sermon text, Romans 10:17, answers the great question, “Where does faith come from?” It is not manufactured in an individual’s heart by a decision, but “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
On one level, Eric preached this basic message to all hearers: that there is an emptiness in trusting in one’s own works of righteousness but a relieving richness in recognition of God’s righteousness working in and through humanity. A deeper consideration of Eric’s sermon may reveal that Eric had been alluding to his own experience, as any good preacher tends to do.
The rippling effect of the Oxford Group continued to turn heads and raise eyebrows in China. Will and Margaret Rowlands, LMS missionaries stationed in Siaochang with Rob, hosted a weeklong fall spiritual retreat there with a number of the London Missionary Society workers and Chinese pastors. Gardner Tewkesbury, a China-born missionary like Eric, led the retreat. The teaching points of the Oxford Group were implemented throughout the week, and the retreat was a powerful spiritual awakening for all in attendance.
Missionary men and women, foreigners, and Chinese pastors united under the Scriptures. Through quiet devotion times and Bible study, penetrating questions, soul-searching confessions, forgiveness, resolution of differences, and letting go of grudges revealed themselves at every turn. Many of the reports from the missionaries afterward alluded to the transformative effect the week had on them.
One missionary, Edith Owers, who had struggled with sharing space with other women in the group, said, “All this time, I had the privilege of living with the Bible-women in their new quarters, and none of us will ever forget that week. Life and work ever since has been on an entirely different footing.”[59]
Alec Baxter, a short-term missionary, had mental reservations and personal dislikes but expressed, “I can never be sufficiently thankful for the steps which led to a complete resurrendering of my life to God, and for the new life and vitality engendered by this in my own spiritual progress.”[60]
Will Rowlands summarized the experience
