Background
Alden Matthews was born in Chicago in 1921.
麻安德
Alden Matthews was born in Chicago in 1921.
Alden attended North China American School and in 1937 he returned to the United States to receive higher education. Later he graduated from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa, and Chicago Theological Seminary.
He acquired Mandarin Chinese as his first language and spent his childhood in Beijing, Dezhou of Shandong Province, Tianjin, and Fenzhou of Shanxi Province. As a young man, he served in the Navy and Naval Reserve as a chaplain. At first he worked in Changle, where his job was to help strengthen the churches in that area.
In 1948, he moved to the West Gate of Fuzhou city to teach agricultural engineering in Union High School.
Situations became difficult when Fuzhou was taken over by the Communist regime in August 1949. However, Alden chose to stay to continue the mission work, but it wasn"t long before he realized that the presence of the foreign missionaries had been counter-productive.
On November 1, 1986, Alden officially retired from United Church Board for World Ministries, but lived in Japan until 1995. In 1996 Alden married again to Sallie Parks, a lady he met in Japan in 1986, who was then also working there.
In 2007, Alden published his autobiography My Three Worlds (), where he tells his inspiring stories in China, America, and Japan.
He died of respiratory failure on the early morning of October 8, 2014.
During the long period in Japan he was a member of the League of Women Voters, a Rotarian Emeritus, and member of Crystal Beach Community Church, as well as serving on many prestigious boards in Japan.