First, I waded through some ugly reading. Americans have often exploded with violent racism against the Chinese living among them. Chinese have been treated as sub-human. Newspapers have written of them as a scourge. Destruction of the Chinese immigrant community has even been embedded in laws that allowed men to work in the U.S. but made it very difficult for them to bring their wives and children.

Chinese men, across the world from their homes, without family, and living among people who hated them, drifted painfully towards opium addiction and gambling – and prostitution. Girls and young women were abducted, sold or coerced, brought from China to the U.S. to feed the prostitution market. The younger girls became household slaves; the teenagers lived in brothels. Many were treated brutally and died young.

It was dark.

Then I stumbled across a beacon of light – Miss Donaldina Cameron’s description of a little piece of Chinatown left standing in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake: “Amidst surrounding ruin, on one consecrated spot stands a solid brick wall, unshattered by earthquake shock and unblackened by the breath of flame.” This was the Presbyterian Mission House, chartered in 1882 to rescue Chinese girls and women from abuse. This “consecrated spot” clothed, fed and taught the girls after rescuing them from torturous abuse. It was a refuge that brought them love instead of hatred, God’s protection instead of abuse, and hope and life instead of hopelessness and death.

Donaldina Cameron (1869-1968) managed the home for years. Writing about the days following the earthquake, she described the procession of about 60 babies, girls and young women that made its way through the wrecked, fiery streets of San Francisco to a ferry and across the bay to refuge at a seminary. Donaldina’s writing reveals her warm esteem and love for the girls.

Living in the midst of a culture that despised or, at best, tolerated Chinese immigrants, Donaldina loved these girls. She risked her life for them, and not just in the aftermath of the earthquake. Pulling girls out of abusive slavery is dangerous. Donaldina and a sympathetic police officer raided brothels and homes at night, sometimes finding girls cowering behind trapdoors and in hidden rooms. Much of Chinatown was controlled by gangs, some of whom would have been glad to kill this “white devil” who interfered with their lucrative business and way of life. But God protected Donaldina and the home, which was soon rebuilt after the earthquake.

And then God gave her the grace to persevere at her hard and dangerous work for decades longer. Night after night of raids, day after day of court battles, decision after decision about how to manage a large house and best serve the people under her care.

Donaldina Cameron is thought to have rescued nearly 3000 girls. She is credited with breaking the back of the Chinese slave trade in America.

What a heroine.

Our God, thank you for sending Donaldina Cameron to bring hope to the despairing in San Francisco’s Chinatown and beyond. Thank you for bringing her safely through all the dangers, toils and snares. Thank you for all the girls she rescued and nurtured, each one a precious soul; thank you for their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are alive today because of her work.

Oh, God, we ache because the work is not done. Around the world, girls are still kidnapped, sold and abused. Their hope and joy are extinguished and their lives are brutally cut short. We know that you see them. Our God, won’t you pass on to us some of the passion, courage and persevering grit of Donaldina Cameron?

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