Wilhelmiina Arpiainen

Johanna Wilhelmiina Arpiainen (6 November 1859 in Pieksämäki – 13 February 1922 in Yongfeng) was a Finnish teacher, Christian writer, translator and missionary. She worked for 20 years in China as a missionary worker of the Free Church of Finland.

Biography

Wilhelmiina Arpiainen started school in Huutokoski and then continued at a seminary in Jyväskylä, graduating as a public school teacher in 1881. Following her graduation, she worked as a teacher in Säkkijärvi.

Missionary work

Arpiainen began missionary work in China in the city of Yangzhou in 1893 at a female missionaries' training center of China Inland Mission, initially studying the Chinese language. After that, she did missionary work in the city of Zhenjiang at the China Inland Mission mission station together with teacher Verna Hammaren and teacher Agnes Meyer until May 1896, when Meyer traveled to Finland. In November 1899, Arpiainen traveled to Hunan at Hudson Taylor's suggestion with the intention of establishing a Finnish mission station there, but due to the opposition of the Hunan people, nothing came of the project. The residents of Yongxin, Jiangxi province, wanted a CIM employee in their area and had bought a plot of land for a chapel. Arpiainen started missionary work there at the suggestion of Orr-Ewing, the leading missionary of the province. After the Boxer Rebellion, Arpiainen was called to Finland. In Finland, she started to distribute missionary literature to different parts of Finland and served for a short time as the acting director of the Helsinki Bible Home.