Leila Cooke – Fish Four and the Lisu New Testament

Leila Cooke and her husband Allyn served for 25 years among the Lisu Tribe of Yunnan Province in China. This book which tells her story appears on-line by kind permission of the OMF International-UK. My thanks also to Redcliffe College for providing me with a copy to scan.

Leila R. Cooke [?-1943], Fish Four and the Lisu New Testament. London: China In Inland Mission, 1948. Pbk. pp.94. [Click to download in PDF]

Contents

1. The Offering
2. The Prize-Winner
3. Fish Four’s Preparation
4. Fish Four’s Call and Appointment
5. The Growth and Establishment of the Lisu Church
6. Early Days at Stockade Hill
7. His Trip to Chefoo
8. His Fall
9. A New Field
10. Life at Luda
11. His Ordination and His Illness
12. His Home Call
13. He Being Dead Yet Speaketh

From the Flyleaf

Leila Cooke came from Colorado Springs, U.S. A., where her father was a physician and her mother, a woman greatly beloved. Early she learned to make the doing of God’s will the supreme motive of her life.

With study at Los Angeles Bible Institute, she continued her musical education, becoming an accomplished pianist. But there was no piano in Lisuland. The long, long mountain trails over which she travelled into that country as a gospel messenger were hazardous enough without any but the most essential burdens. For Christ’s sake Leila made her choice, but how many hundreds throughout the mountains and valleys of the Salween will join in heaven’s music because she was willing for sacrifice.

Under the direction of J. O. Fraser, Allyn and Leila Cooke laboured in the gospel among the Lisu Tribe. Long periods of separation from her two boys proved a trial to be cheerfully borne for His sake as all who knew her can testify. Hardship and loneliness only served to beautify that life yielded to God. She herself made frequent and distant itineraries for evangelistic work and many months were spent in translating the Scriptures into Lisu.

These labours, including the continuous care of many sick and needy, filled the large part of her twenty-five years of missionary career. In her final illness she was carried back from the village where she had gone to teach, and on May 7th, 1943, from a rudely constructed Lisu shack God’s missionary heroine went in to see the King.

It is no wonder that many younger missionaries declare that in Leila Cooke they see their “ideal missionary”. [Continue reading]