Kathleen Hall

In reading this article I have been learning to combine close  reading and inference skills to analyse text to learn more about the qualities of people known as heroes or leaders.

Kathleen Hall was a New Zealand missionary nurse. Her missionary work started in Peking (which is now Beijing) and other large Chinese cities. Yet she knew the people without hospitals in the countryside were the ones that needed the most help. She gained permission to settle into the Hebi mountains near those kind of villages. Kathleen Hall was known as the “barefoot doctor”, because of the way she would walk to the nearby villages to visit and care for the sick.

Kathleen used her neutral citizenship to acquire medical equipment for the Chinese army. At that time it was the most dangerous mission of all. Before being sent back to New Zealand after being caught by the Japanese army, she boarded another ship and joined the Chinese Red Cross.

Miss. Hall believed in helping those in need.  Kathleen believed that even in war people should have the privilege to use medicine. She thought that people lacking medical help are the ones that need most attention. She detested war and the thought of taking sides. This wasn’t  just because she was a missionary.

She was a courageous and brave person. Kathleen showed this in the way she use neutral citizenship to help the Chinese. She was a compassionate person in the way she help and cared for the people in China. She showed perseverance  in the way she kept trying to help the people in need. Kathleen showed this in the way she was a missionary nurse, barefoot doctor, and provided the Chinese army with medical supplies.

Kathleen Hall was someone that put the needs of others in front of her own. She helped people as much as she could. Kathleen didn’t think about what’s in it for them but what more can she do for them. She put their own personal safety in risk to help others.

Kathleen Hall was more than a New Zealand missionary nurse, she was a hero. That’s why there's a marble statue of her in Song Family Village in China.