Isobel Miller Kuhn

Isobel Selina Miller Kuhn, born Isobel Selina Miller, aka, "Belle" (December 17, 1901 – March 20, 1957), known as Isobel Kuhn, was a Canadian Christian missionary to the Lisu people of Yunnan Province, China, and northern Thailand. She served with the China Inland Mission, along with her husband, John, as a Bible translator, church planter, Bible teacher, evangelist and authored nine books about her experiences. Isobel Selina Miller was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and moved with her family to Vancouver, British Columbia, when she was eleven years old. She was called "Belle" from the time she was a child. Her father was a roentgenologist and a Presbyterian lay preacher at a rescue mission, and her mother was president of the Women's Missionary Society in the Canadian Presbyterian church for many years. Her grandfather was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Kuhn was raised in a loving Christian home although, in her words, it was without having "a direct confrontation with [the] living Savior" herself. After experiencing a "pitying sneer" from a skeptical University of British Columbia English professor, Kuhn decided that she did not need to know or seek the God her parents had been teaching her about. She became an agnostic, like many of her peers. A vivacious and popular young woman who did not drink or smoke, Kuhn was taught by her parents to do what was respectable and to "marry well," which meant she was to marry a man with a good education and social status like her own. While at the university, she had gained a lifetime membership in the coveted college drama troupe as a freshman, which was a rare honor. Even though she had abandoned Christian teachings, she was still "considered a good girl, even a 'Christian'!," by some of her friends and acquaintances Yet after a crisis in which she discovered that the man to whom she was secretly engaged not only was unfaithful to her but also told her to expect the same treatment in their marriage, she was on the verge of taking her own life.