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Other than Brazil, Texas Baptist missionaries volunteered in largest numbers to serve in China, a far more alien culture to Texans than any in Latin America. The Southern Baptist Convention lists foreign missionaries by state of birth rather than the place they were living when they were sent. By those records, Texas women volunteered to serve in the following places before and including 1920: China, 25; Brazil, 15; Mexico, 7; Japan, 2; Africa, 1; Chile, 1. See Carroll, p. 603-605. Not just the poor and uneducated Chinese and not just Chinese women were of heathen status—all elements of eastern life save its beauty and respect for tradition were difficult for missionaries to understand and accept. Danger lay in their remaining aloof and patronizing while giving their lives in service to a

works-righteousness
goal among those they neither understood nor respected. Irwin T. Hyatt, Jr., describes the life of one Southern Baptist missionary to China, T. P. Crawford, who manifested this attitude of allegiance to a legalistic system rather than to the people he lived among for forty-eight years. See Hyatt, pp. 3-62.

Most females who volunteered for the China mission field were influenced by the correspondence and example of Charlotte (Lottie) Moon, a Virginian of high breeding who gave singular service in northern China from 1873 until her death in 1912. Her well-publicized pleas for organized support for missions among Southern Baptist women led directly to the formation of convention-wide women's organization in 1888. She pioneered the practice of "itinerating," the Chinese equivalent of circuit-riding, or traveling from village to village for weeks and months at a time, a practice that won her the accolade, "the greatest man among our missionaries." Proceedings of the SBC, 1890, p. xxxvii. Hyatt, pp. 93-136, contains an excellent character study of this complex woman.

The lure of China was felt by several Texas women late in the nineteenth century; among the first to answer a call to that field was Annie Jenkins, whose papers and correspondence are preserved in the Baylor University archives. Miss Jenkins had a peerless Texas Baptist pedigree. She grew up in Waco near the Baptist university (later Baylor) whose campus had been donated by her grandfather, J. W. Speight. Another grandfather, Judge J. R. Jenkins, was a founder of the Republic of Texas and of Baylor University at Independence. Her uncle, Rufus Burleson, was a longtime president of Baylor, and her father, Judge W. H. Jenkins, served on its board for fifty years. Her church membership was at powerful First Baptist of Waco where B. H. Carroll held sway, and her oldest sister married the most influential Texas Baptist pastor of them all, George Truett.

Annie Jenkins was a sensitive, garrulous child who was baptized when she was eleven years old. A sister recalls that she traveled with their father to teach at mission Sunday schools in Waco while she was still a teenager.

Hallie Jenkins Singleton, A Glimpse Into the Christ Filled Life of Annie Jenkins Sallee, Missionary 1905-1945 (n.p., n.p.), p. 1.

By the time she finished her bachelor's degree at Baylor in 1897, she was feeling the urge to embark upon a religious vocation, a significant enterprise:
I do feel in my heart that I must do something in the world. I do not care for honors for myself. O that I might be an honor and bring honor upon the Lord's name:
Annie Jenkins Sallee, Diary, entry dated June 6, 1897, Jenkins-Sallee Papers, Texas Collection, Baylor University, Waco, Texas. The occasion was her graduation day from Baylor University. During the following year she came closer to interpreting her urge as a "calling," but as a woman it was not clear to what end such a call would be directed beside teaching in a Christian school and that did not adequately fulfill her needs. A month apart in 1898 she wrote the following entries in her diary:

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Source:  OpenStax, Patricia martin thesis. OpenStax CNX. Sep 23, 2013 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11572/1.2
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