"Here's a little girl for you," the Chinese water carrier called to Ruth Hitchcock, who was cleaning up in the aftermath of a bombing raid during the Sino-Japanese War. "You'll take her, won't you?" the woman asked. And she let a child slide from her back, one who was more like a skeleton than any living person Ruth had ever seen. Looking spellbound into the child's deep, sad eyes, Ruth could only reply, "Yes, we'll take her." Years before, on shipboard watching a sunset over the North Pacific, Ruth, a 20 year old Stanford University student, saw her plans to be a successful businesswoman fade away. She began to sense that God wanted her in China. Ruth and her associates gathered orphans and opium addicts, the handicapped and the mentally ill, to give them a new lease on this life and a hope for eternity. Raised in Santa Barbara, CA, Ruth Hitchcock became interested in China through the stories of visiting missionaries. When she decided to work in China, her parents formed Hebron Mission and provided the major portion of her support form the proceeds of their store. After leaving China in 1949, Ruth spent much of her time in Hong Kong where she taught in the Christian & Missionary Alliance Bible School. In 1971 she returned to Santa Barbara.