Erwin Raetz was born in 1898 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA. He trained in the ministry and was ordained.
He married Florence Meeker and they had two children.
Raetz was appointed director of the South China Boat Mission in Canton, China, and Florence worked with the Door of Hope Mission there, working with 25-30 former slave girls, victims rescued from the practice of mui tsai.
In 1936 the Raetzs returned from furlough in the USA bringing a new worker Elizabeth Warner. Because of the Sino-Japanese War, they decided to transfer the Door of Hope Mission to Hong Kong* in 1937. There the Mission attracted other girls in mui tsai or similar unhappy circumstances, and when numbers grew to about 50 a move was made to a large house in Taipo.
When the Japanese invaded in 1941, Erwin was in Canton and Florence in Taipo, but the Japanese controlled both areas and kept them under a kind of house arrest, only permitting outings for food and provisions. They were both repatriated in June 1942.
In 1946 Raetz was General Superintendent of China's Children Fund in China and as such was chosen to sit on the Fanling Babies' Home Advisory Committee, which was formed in that year. CCF supported 54 Fanling girls at that time, aged up to ten.
After the War, Raetz was speaking in a church in Canton where he met and talked to Rev Verent Mills, who at that time had 700 children in orphanages in China desperate for rice. Raetz suggested he write to Dr J Calvitt Clarke, founder of China’s Children Fund in the USA. Two weeks later, Mills received a cable from Clarke, agreeing to take on all 700 children. It was an amazing answer to prayer. Mills went on to join China's Children Fund and he eventually succeeded Calvitt Clarke as director.
Raetz served as missionary for 6 years in Korea, before taking furlough and being appointed to head up the overseas ministries of World Vision Inc starting in 1961.
He died in 1975.
*First year was on 'an island' (Cheung Chau?) then Taipo.
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1942 Arrival on the Gripsholm
The arrival of the Raetz family in the United States is mentioned here in The Daily News Times, Neenah, Menasha, Wisconsin on 26 August 1942.