The China Mission

A spellbinding narrative of the high-stakes mission that changed the course of America, China, and global politics—and a rich portrait of the towering, complex figure who carried it out.

The story of Irish missionaries in China between 1920 and 1954, at times of political chaos, famine, floods and war

When the Reverend Halvor Ronning, his sister Thea, and fellow missionary Hannah Rorem set out in 1891 to found a Lutheran mission and school in the interior of China, they could not have foreseen the ways in which that decision would ripple across generations of the Ronning family. Halvor and Hannah would marry, and their son Chester, born in Hubei Province in 1894, would spend over half his life in China as a student, teacher, and a Canadian diplomat.