“Gospel Valley” Part II: The Cookes Among the Lisu

by Tony Lambert, OMF China Researcher

This is the second part of an extended review of the book Gospel Valley written by Lin Ci and published by the Hebei Educational Press, 2003. In this part I continue with a translation of a large part of Chapter 4 which provides graphic detail of the work of the Cookes, who were CIM missionaries among the Lisu in the 1930s and 40s. It is very valuable, as unlike most records which are written from the foreign missionaries' perspective, it records the memories of the local Christians 50 years after the missionaries had died or left.

In 1933 the Cookes, with their helper Wang Li and his wife, finally arrived in Liwudi village in Fugong County in Nujiang Prefecture. They built their home on a terrace. The old people still remember it was facing the sun. The western room was the bedroom; the middle room was the guest room and their workroom. The kitchen was to the east and outside there was a pharmacy. Opposite the terrace there was a garden surrounded by a bamboo fence. In the garden they grew cabbage, onions, garlic, peppers, spinach and strawberries. As the soil was good and well-cared for, the vegetables all flourished. The Lisu at that time had no tradition of growing vegetables, but when they saw how well they grew in the pastor’s garden they asked him for seeds and learned how to grow them. The Cookes gladly gave seed to everyone and patiently passed on the knowledge how to grow them; thus the people of Liwudi learned how to grow vegetables.

Shi Fuxiang was a boy for whom Leila Cooke was the midwife, and he later became the head of Fugong County. He recalls that although the Cookes had been sent and supported by the CIM, once in Liwudi they lived a self-sufficient life. This couple were not like those missionaries who were inwardly worried and always concerned about money; they were faithful to God and were not lacking in the love and patience needed to face the sufferings of the real world. They wanted their lives to be examples and to have an effect on the Lisu. They introduced many fruits and vegetables for the first time such as tomatoes and eggplants. They also raised a horse, several milk-sheep and chickens to meet their everyday needs. The old people recall that it was as they observed their joy-filled life that the Lisu began to trust them and wanted to get to know them.

Very few people in Liwudi can now recall the Cookes’ English or Chinese names. They use their own language to call Mr. Cooke “A-yi-da” (Respected Elder Brother) and Mrs. Cooke, “Azida” (Respected Elder Sister). In their eyes Azida was talented and artistic and most approachable. She often accompanied her husband (who played the violin) on the organ and loved painting and sewing. She was also a gynecologist and pediatrician and treated the local farmers. Before their wives were about to give birth, she would visit their homes, and then personally deliver the baby. This was her own way of evangelism.

The Lisu were used to sacrificing animals to appease the spirits and drive away disease, but those who were healed by Azida and became Christians naturally said goodbye to their superstitious past. When Shi Fuxiang was a boy, his tongue was malformed affecting his speech, but Azida performed a simple operation which restored him to normal. She also introduced both written and physical culture to the Lisu. Both her sons, David and Joseph, were born among the Lisu.

To translate the New Testament, the Cookes learned Lisu exhaustively. Mr. Shi wrote in his memoirs: “Whoever they met—young or old, male or female—if they discovered a word they did not understand they would not let it go, but would ask again and again and note it down. They would learn from those who were skilled in folk arts to enrich their vocabulary.”

There were two elderly women who could sing the Lisu tunes. At first they were very shy, but eventually sang boldly for several days and the Cookes noted it all down. After carefully collecting and arranging the Lisu tunes, the Cookes felt that they were particularly suited to the psalms and proverbs in the Old Testament. So they produced a hymnal and also a booklet with extracts from the Bible.
In their second year at Liwudi, the Salween Valley saw the erection of the largest building in its entire history—the great church at Liwudi which could hold several hundred people. It was a place for evangelism and a schoolroom, utterly without ornamentation except for a wooden cross on the roof. As we can see today, it became the model for all the other churches scattered across the Salween Valley.

The Cookes evangelized, living all the time among the Lisu sharing their medieval agricultural life. A great love developed between them and the simple tribal people of the borderlands, so that when they went to America or even to Kunming, the provincial capital, both sides felt the time went too slowly. Modern means of communication were almost non-existent, so the Cookes and their Lisu assistants often used to walk back from Kunming to their home on the River Salween. It took 10 days from Kunming to Dali, then 8 days from Dali to Baoshan and another fortnight until they finally arrived in Liwudi.

The work of translating the Bible and the hymnbook went on continuously, with both joys and unimaginable sorrows. First, a girl the Cookes were fostering died of sickness. This blonde girl only left behind her Lisu name as she was known to the villagers as “Atuma.” She loved singing and dancing and to wear Lisu skirts. She would go with the villagers to pick wild berries in the mountains. She had no sense of superiority for being the pastor’s daughter—nor sadness at being an orphan. She and the other adopted daughter would sing together with Mrs. Cooke. Just when she was 17 the god of death took her. She was buried by the villagers in a corner of the Cooke’s garden.

Then their dear Lisu co-worker, Wang Li, had a serious accident when he lost his footing when he was out cutting bamboo. For days and nights the Cookes helped the villagers carry him on a stretcher out of the valley to the nearest clinic. But he deteriorated on the way and died in much pain. The Lisu and Nu Christians all wept bitterly as Mrs. Cooke closed the eyes of Li Wang, who had taken the name of Moses and not long before been ordained as a pastor. Taking the dead man’s hand she cried: “This is the hand of Moses who for so long was writing out the New Testament in Lisu!”

As the translation work continued, further bad news came from outside. In September 1938 the Cookes’ mentor, J.O. Fraser, died in Baoshan. The Englishman had spent many unforgettable times with the Cookes in Liwudi.

But their trials did not end there: in Shi Fuxiang’s Chinese memoirs we read the following sad page:

“Mrs. Cooke was a loyal pastor’s wife and a good doctor who could speak fluent Lisu. Every Sunday she was very busy as the believers needing treatment were particularly numerous. But she never got flustered and would treat each one patiently. Those with serious illnesses or wives about to give birth also called on her, so day and night she would go to their homes. She had a mother’s heart for the children, and every year would assemble the heads of households to give their children injections against smallpox. She never asked for any reward but served the masses freely, receiving their deep respect and love. She frequently held a women’s training class at which she taught hygiene and home-making skills. But this highly esteemed pastor’s wife developed a fever on her way to preach at the Nananjia church as a result of the arduous journey and exhaustion. She was carried home, but as her husband was away, in April 1944 she died. He only returned in time for the funeral. Mr. Cooke and the local people buried her alongside Atuma in the garden, with hearts full of grief. In 1947 her elder son David came to Liwudi to visit his mother’s grave.”

The villagers remembered how she had mourned Li Wang, but now the entire village was in mourning for her. The Christians called her Lisu name and even the non-Christians were saddened.

Now Mr. Cooke continued the translation but in loneliness and darkness. The completion of the Lisu Bible was his mission in life and his covenanted promise to his wife. He had originally planned to give the Lisu a simple translation of Bible extracts as he feared a literal translation of the Hebrew Bible would be difficult for them to understand. But after the translation of the New Testament, the Lisu Christians called for the translation of the entire Bible. In 1947 he left China, but the translation work was continued by the Lisu pastors he had trained until the 1960s. In 1968 the entire Bible in Lisu was published in Hong Kong and was hailed as a milestone in the history of Lisu culture. Allyn Cooke had revised and edited it in America.

When he left Liwudi, about 10 percent of the village were Christians. But half a century later, in most of the villages along the Salween, that percentage had risen to 70 percent! In the villages of Chixidi and Atasiduo, with which I am familiar, all the people are Christians—apart from those in business, as the Lisu Christians still believe that Christianity is opposed to business. But the names of the translators are not printed in the Bibles they carry—only in Liwudi is the story of the Cookes passed on by word of mouth.

When in his twenties Allyn Cooke started to translate the Lisu Bible, the Sinderwood Company made a Lisu typewriter for him which he still used when he was 90. Before his death he asked someone to take it to a Lisu brother on the Burma border to express his concern for this little-known tribe.

I first heard the name “Azida” (Leila Cooke) from the mouth of a Lisu in 1998. On a narrow path two kms from Liwudi, I met 50-year-old Niyanmei and her granddaughter. She told me the location of the “Azida Church.” “Have you met Azida?” I asked.

“They left before I was born. Grandfather Apujia was Azida’s pupil.” Seventy-year-old Apujia took me to the remains of the Cookes’ work in the village. The “Great Liwudi Church” which was so famed throughout the Salween Valley is now changed beyond recognition through numerous repairs. It looks identical to countless other village churches throughout the Salween Valley. There is no trace of the house the Cookes lived in. Although the villagers’ reverence for them continues to grow they have no concept of keeping “artifacts.” They are collecting money to renovate the church in the future.

Apujia has warm memories of his childhood. When still under twelve years old he herded cows during the day and at night went to Azida’s night-school. There he studied Lisu, arithmetic and English. Azida encouraged the children to memorize their lessons. If successful they would earn a sweet or a pencil. His memories corroborate those written down by the old County Head, Shi Fuxiang—the Cookes lived and ate with the people of Liwudi and they loved each other.

Apujia said: “No foreigners could live in Liwudi for decades like they did. When they came they had already decided to grow old and die in Liwudi. There will never be anyone like them again.”