Todd’s book chronicles extraordinary years in China

     In her second-story apartment, Martha Sue Todd sits surrounded by memorabilia collected over a decade as an English language instructor in China. A papercut of Jesus carrying a lantern and knocking at the door of the sinner’s heart was created by famous Chinese artist, He Qi, who Todd met in Nanjing. A pair of tiny red satin slippers dangling from a fringed sash was a gift from a girl Todd helped convert to Christianity.

     Each object has a story. In fact, Todd’s 13 years in the communist country are filled with so many rich and redemptive stories that she collected them into a book, “Never Too Old to Climb the Wall.”

     The title tells the circumstances of Todd’s response, at the advanced age of 67, to be a teacher/missionary to China. But Todd, now 87, said she was actually called much earlier, as a child in rural Duplin County.

     “How well I remember that night,” she says in the book’s opening chapter. “As I dressed my nine-year thoughts were on my need to accept Christ as Savior.”

     Todd didn’t make a public profession of faith until two years later, and then a talk given by a “real live” Baptist missionary convinced her that she wanted to serve as a missionary to China.

      The war intervened and Todd married and had a son. It wasn’t until the unfortunate death of her husband of 41 years, Carl Glenn Todd, that she was able to realize that dream.

     “God had not been idle during all of those years of my preparation and family responsibilities,” she said. “He had opened the door for me to become a missionary teacher in the land of my childhood dreams.”

     In 1988 Todd joined a program implemented by China’s Amity Foundation and supported by the Foreign Missions Board to teach English as a second language to Chinese students in Nanjing. She began teaching at Southeast University and transferred to Huanan Women’s College in Fuzhou. Todd joined the staff of Fujian Medical University in Fuzhou in 1995, returning to Huanan College a year before she left China in 2001.

     Over the years, Todd touched many lives in China, but perhaps the most inspirational story is that of an impoverished student, the owner of a single pair of socks, who was so determined to get an education he did his homework with a stick of lead supported by rice straw because he couldn’t afford a pencil. That boy eventually earned an undergraduate and a master’s degree from Southeast University and a Ph.D. from one of America’s most prestigious universities; and, with Todd’s influence, he became a Christian.

     “The Chinese are such endearing people, deprived and deserving,” Todd said. “All would come to the United States if they could. The ones who get here are the top five percent, but they are determined. They don’t give up.”

     Martha Sue Todd graduated from Campbell College in 1940. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education and psychology and two master’s degrees, in administration and supervision and elementary education, as well as a certificate in speech pathology from East Carolina University. She worked as a teacher, speech therapist and elementary supervisor in Bertie County and was an assistant professor of education at North Carolina Weslyan College in Rocky Mount. She currently resides in Buies Creek, where she is available as a volunteer to share her experiences with missions at Campbell University and at local churches.

     “Never Too Old To Climb Walls” is published by Trafford Publishing and will be available at Barnes & Noble Book Stores, Amazon.com, Powers.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Diesel.com and other outlets.


Photo Copy: Martha Sue Todd