In grainy 1934 photos, missionaries John and Betty Stam stare at the camera through tortoise-shell glasses. Betty's hair is pulled back, and John wears a dark suit. The faintest hint of a smile rests on their innocent, perhaps even naive, faces.
Yet the pictures deceive. They mask the singlemindedness within, a resolute courage that drove the couple apart, then reunited them to serve in war-ravaged China until an untimely and gruesome death.
In the late 1920s, foreigners in China found themselves caught in the vice of civil war. Many missionaries were murdered, so in 1927, half of all foreign missionaries were evacuated. Two years later, when the head of the China Inland Mission (CIM) asked for 200 new recruits, 89 men and 111 women volunteered. Among them was Betty Scott, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to China and new graduate of Moody Bible Institute.
While at Moody, Betty attended CIM-sponsored prayer meetings and Bible studies, where she first met John Stam. He, too, had his heart fixed on China. With so much in common, the two were immediately attracted to one another. It seemed God was pointing their future in the same direction.
But they balked at marriage. John knew he would be asked to work in areas "where it would be impossible to take a woman." Nor could he ask her to wait for him—he still had a year to go in school. Missions, not matrimony, would come first. So Betty, without John, left for China in 1931. They did not expect to see each other again.
United forever
Following his graduation from Moody in 1932, John sailed for Shanghai. In a twist of fate, Betty, after a year of missionary work in the country's interior, became seriously ill and returned to Shanghai for medical care. There she and John had an unexpected reunion that resulted in their engagement. Within a year they were married, and in September of 1934, Betty gave birth to a baby girl, Helen Priscilla. The Stams were sent to Anhwei province, where there was "no danger of Communists in the area," the local magistrate assured the CIM.
But within two weeks of their arrival, the Stams were arrested by Communist soldiers and placed under heavy guard. John wrote CIM headquarters and relayed their captors' demand: a $20,000 ransom. He closed with, "The Lord bless you and guide you, and as for us, may God be glorified whether by life or by death."
The soldiers also discussed how to dispose of their baby, since she would be a liability if they had to flee. A local farmer heard of their situation, and stepped forward to plead for the baby's life. The soldiers said it would be his life for hers. He agreed, and he was killed on the spot.
The next morning, as Betty was bathing Helen, soldiers suddenly burst in and ordered them to leave the house—without baby Helen. John and Helen were stripped to their undergarments and paraded down the street. A crowd gathered as a soldier read their death sentence.
A Chinese doctor, a Christian, made a last-minute plea for their lives; without hesitation the Communists condemned him to death. John begged for mercy for the doctor, but to no avail. Then John and Betty were ordered to their knees, and in quick succession, both were beheaded.
Thirty hours later, a Chinese evangelist found baby Helen abandoned in a house. He concealed her in a rice basket and made a dangerous journey over hundreds of miles of mountainous terrain and delivered her to her grandparents, the Scotts.
Helen, raised by her grandparents, became a school teacher and eventually settled in the eastern United States.
Though the Stams' missionary assignment was cut short on earth, their influence was long lasting. Over the next decade, hundreds of young men and women volunteered for missionary service as the result of their resolute courage—a courage concealed by tender faces.
