Let the little ones come to me

But Jesus said, Suf­fer lit­tle chil­dren, and for­bid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the king­dom of heav­en.

—- Matthew 19:14

A Daugh­ter Born for Chi­na

Burling­ton, North Car­oli­na – a typ­i­cal South­ern town with gen­er­ous and hos­pitable peo­ple, reli­gious and tra­di­tion­al.  In the ear­ly 1960s, the Clark’s eldest daugh­ter was born.  The girl with blonde hair and blue eyes was named “Lau­ra.”  The Clarks were a typ­i­cal South­ern bour­geoisie fam­i­ly:  Laura’s father was an elec­tri­cal engi­neer, and her moth­er was a grace­ful and edu­cat­ed woman.  Lit­tle Lau­ra remem­bers mov­ing into a new home when she was five years old:  a two-sto­ry house with a gar­den, lush green lawn, and pic­turesque view.  Besides the crys­tal clear stream near­by, Lau­ra also remem­bers her favorite activ­i­ty in the yard – tree climb­ing.

Laura’s fam­i­ly was a tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian house­hold, and many rel­a­tives from both her par­ents’ fam­i­lies were faith­ful, God­ly fol­low­ers of Christ.  Right after she was born, Lau­ra start­ed going to church with her par­ents, attend­ing ser­vice, Sun­day school, and var­i­ous meet­ings.  To her, Bible read­ing and prayer were a mat­ter of course – just like eat­ing.  When she was in sec­ond grade, a teacher asked her kids what they would like to do when they grew up.  The sev­en-year-old Lau­ra replied that she will become a mis­sion­ary.  When she was nine, she had devel­oped the habit of read­ing the Bible every­day.  She was not tru­ly saved and reborn until she was eleven:  that year, her moth­er brought her to a new church that empha­sized the preach­ing and teach­ing of the gospel truths.  On one par­tic­u­lar Sun­day, hav­ing heard the pastor’s gospel ser­mon, she expe­ri­enced an epiphany; with silent prayer, she asked Jesus to come into her heart and for­give her sins.  The Bible was only a piece of head knowl­edge that she believed in, but now she has tak­en it to heart and received Jesus as her per­son­al Lord and sav­ior.  In recall­ing her tes­ti­mo­ny, Lau­ra said, “After I was born again there occurred a change in me – I eager­ly want­ed to spread the gospel.  Pre­vi­ous­ly I only acknowl­edged the gospel, but now I want to me involved with evan­ge­lism.”

Laura’s par­ents raised their chil­dren with all their love, but also with the word of God.  Accord­ing to Laura’s moth­er, there were two impor­tant fac­tors in Laura’s upbring­ing:  one is the Bible – the word of God – that took root in her life, and the oth­er was “obe­di­ence” – obe­di­ence to God and allow­ing Him to work in her life.  When the call­ing came to her, Lau­ra respond­ed with an obe­di­ent heart.

When Lau­ra was in sec­ond grade, her text­book briefly intro­duced her to Chi­nese char­ac­ters.  See­ing her inter­est, Laura’s moth­er brought her to the library and bor­rowed a book about Chi­nese writ­ing.  Draw a sun and add a dot, and you get the char­ac­ter for sun, “日”.  Draw a cres­cent moon, and you get the char­ac­ter for moon, “月”.  These pic­to­graph char­ac­ters were immense­ly fas­ci­nat­ing to lit­tle Lau­ra.

At sev­en, Lau­ra had a clear vision her heart:  when she grew up, God will send her to Chi­na.

Many years ago, Laura’s mater­nal grand­moth­er prayed for God to call her two daugh­ters into the mis­sion field.  God lis­tened to this elder­ly woman’s prayer of many years, but the two who were called are not her two daugh­ters.  Instead, among her grand­chil­dren, Lau­ra and her younger sis­ter were both called and became mis­sion­ar­ies.

Lau­ra grad­u­at­ed from the renowned Chris­t­ian sem­i­nary, Wheaton Col­lege, in 1983.  The apos­tle Paul said:  “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be par­tak­er there­of with you.”  (1 Corinthi­ans 9:22–23)  With a heart like Paul, so that more Chi­nese peo­ple can be lead to Christ, Lau­ra was sent with a mis­sion.  Before embark­ing on her jour­ney, the pas­tor from her par­ents’ for­mer church laid hands on her and prayed, “Lord, may You change her into a Chi­nese!”

God lis­tened to the prayer of this shep­herd.

A man lift­ed from dust

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his peo­ple.

—- Psalms 113:7–8

In the ear­ly 1960s, the sixth and youngest child of loco­mo­tive engi­neer Mas­ter Zhao was born.  The boy was named Zhao Jian An, and his fam­i­ly resided in the rail­road laborer’s dor­mi­to­ry of Xi’an Rail­way Admin­is­tra­tion.

When Jian An was four­teen, he was sud­den­ly strick­en with jaun­dice hepati­tis.  The dis­ease per­sist­ed after two hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, and Jian An was forced to take a sus­pen­sion from school.  All day long he grum­bled, “I’ll express my grat­i­tude in what­ev­er way pos­si­ble if some­one could just heal me.”

A neigh­bor came to vis­it one day dur­ing meal time.  As they chat­ted she said, “There used to be this sick­ly per­son in our rail­road east vil­lage [the strip hous­ing dor­mi­to­ry], and I hear that she was cured of every­thing after she believed Jesus.”  Of course the neigh­bor only men­tioned this in pass­ing, and she was not a Chris­t­ian.  But upon hear­ing this Jian An was very curi­ous:  What is this Jesus busi­ness?  Is this Jesus the name of a per­son, or the name of some place?  The next day he paid a vis­it to this “Jesus believ­er”, who turned out to be an old sis­ter.  She received him kind­ly and said, “The Lord has cho­sen you.”  Jian An didn’t under­stand what this meant.  “I’m here to see you, so why do you say ‘the Lord has cho­sen’ me?  I am dis­eased and I need prayer.”  So this old sis­ter took him inside a room, set a piece of brick on the moist ground, and had Jian An kneel on it.  She led him in prayer and taught him, “Just say Lord save me, Lord save me!”  After three days of pray­ing thus at the old sister’s house, Jian An went back to the hos­pi­tal for an exam­i­na­tion.  He was cured – and this con­fused him:  how is it that he was cured with­out using any advanced med­ica­tions or shots?  The old sis­ter attend­ed house church­es on Wednes­days, Sat­ur­days, and Sun­days, and Jian An went along with her.  As he lis­tened to the pastor’s ser­mons, his heart was filled with joy.  About a year lat­er he under­stood the truth; he prayed the sinner’s prayer and accept­ed Jesus as his sav­ior.

The joy of the Lord was with lit­tle Jian An, and he shared the gospel in school also.  The peo­ple who shared the gospel with Jian An also told him:  God can grant insight to man, for the fear of the Lord is the begin­ning of wis­dom.  The night before a par­tic­u­lar exam, he prayed earnest­ly for the Lord to give him wis­dom and under­stand­ing.  As his prayers con­tin­ued into mid­night, he seemed to hear a voice in his spir­it:  “Place it in the Lord’s hand, and give glo­ry to the Father.”  Instant­ly he felt all the stress relieved.  He did well in the Eng­lish exam next day, and his class­mates inquired:  How did you man­age to do so well?  He answered:  Entrust it to the Lord, believe in Christ.

The fol­low­ing occurred in June of 1979.  His teach­ers at the time found it far-fetched that a sev­enth grad­er could “believe Jesus” – and instead deemed Jian An as men­tal­ly flawed.  They felt that, for him to speak of God and dev­ils day in and day out, cred­it­ing all the good things to God’s grace and all the bad things to “the attack of Satan”, must be a sign of head prob­lems.  They noti­fied his father to come and pick him up; he was now expelled from school.

After leav­ing school in 1980, Jian An felt that it was a spe­cial grace from God – so he could attend more church meet­ings, and he was not at all trou­bled about not going to school.  Dur­ing that time, he attend­ed meet­ings at var­i­ous church­es, lis­tened to Chris­t­ian radio, went on house vis­its, and his joy and spir­i­tu­al life grew by leaps and bounds.  There weren’t many reli­gious read­ings avail­able at the time, so his spir­i­tu­al nour­ish­ment came main­ly from ser­mons and radio broad­cast pro­grams.  On one par­tic­u­lar pro­gram he was great­ly moved by Dr. John Sung’s love of the Lord:  how he threw his Gold­en Key and Medal of Hon­or, from an Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ty, into the ocean for the sake of the gospel.  Anoth­er pro­gram said, “If a man is will­ing to be a min­is­ter in rur­al vil­lages, then he is tru­ly delight­ing in Jeho­vah, rather than world­ly things.”  Jian An now under­stood that delight­ing in the Lord and draw­ing near Him is the best.  Their pas­tor taught, “The Lord is our suf­fi­cien­cy in every­thing, To be with­out sin is to be free of bur­dens.”  Jian An loud­ly said “Amen” to this.

After work­ing as a tem­po­rary labor­er with his father for some time, Jian An was employed by the city’s pub­lic trans­porta­tion author­i­ty in 1985.  As a tick­et­ing clerk on the Xi’an city bus­es, he was tak­en along six routes pass­ing through var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties.  Many col­lege stu­dents from schools such as the North­west­ern Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Col­lege, the North­west­ern Indus­tri­al Uni­ver­si­ty, and the Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion Insti­tute rode these bus­es, and Jian An took this oppor­tu­ni­ty to share the gospel with them open­ly; his zeal for the Lord was uncom­mon in Chi­na for the 1980s.  Often he would place a large black leather Bible on the tick­et­ing counter, and peo­ple would be curi­ous – the Bible was not wide­ly avail­able at that time.  If any­one hap­pened to ask, he would share he gospel with them, or pass out the gospel tracts he car­ried.

God is pleased with those with a sim­ple faith.  He was prepar­ing this young man so he could be used in the future.

“Your dyed hair is real­ly pret­ty!”

In 1983, the door to Chi­na is said to be open.  How­ev­er, for a for­eign­er to live and work in Chi­na it is still dif­fi­cult.  Thus, Lau­ra arrived in Tai­wan first, serv­ing in an orphan­age.

By chance God led her on a tour­ing trip to main­land Chi­na.  On that trip, Lau­ra was left with a strong impres­sion of Xi’an, and she felt that God was call­ing her to min­istry there.  Xi’an in the ear­ly 1980s was still rel­a­tive­ly closed, and for­eign­ers such as Lau­ra would be sur­round­ed by onlook­ers wher­ev­er they go.  On their last stop at a muse­um, the group of for­eign­ers, about ten, was sur­round­ed so much that they couldn’t get out.  One of them final­ly couldn’t stand it and asked in Chi­nese, “Why are you look­ing at us?”  One of the folks look­ing on loud­ly replied, “We would like to make friends with you!”  On hear­ing this Lau­ra shout­ed in her heart, “Wow!  This is great!  Xi’an is such a great place!  May God lead me step by step and open the door to Xi’an for me.”

Upon return­ing to Tai­wan, Lau­ra start­ed pray­ing for Xi’an.  She had start­ed read­ing the Chi­nese Bible by then, and each time she read “Zion” she was remind­ed of “Xi’an” in Chi­na.  She also prayed for a signed from God:  “Lord, if it is Your will for me to go to Xi’an, please lead me to some Xi’an peo­ple in Tai­wan!”

On one occa­sion, Lau­ra was mak­ing church arrange­ments for a child from the orphan­age who was grown and had already left.  When she vis­it­ed him, Lau­ra met his step­fa­ther and asked, “Where is your home­town?”  He answered, “Xi’an, Shaanxi.”  This was her first sign.  A few days lat­er, after ser­vice, Lau­ra met an elder­ly broth­er and asked about his home town.  He replied Shan­nxi and said, “In a few days it’ll be Jan­u­ary 8^th [of the Lunar Year], and we have a Fel­low Towns­man gath­er­ing in Zhong­shan Hall for folks from Shan­nxi and Xi’an; you should come and join us.”  At that meet­ing Lau­ra met two to three hun­dred peo­ple from Xi’an.  She said, Lord it’s enough, enough.  May you open the way to Xi’an for me, I’m will­ing to obey.”

After serv­ing in Tai­wan for two and half years, Lau­ra arrived in Chang­sha in 1986.  A few months lat­er she went to Xi’an.

Lau­ra has been study­ing Chi­nese since 1983, as well as learn­ing to serve and “be” a Chi­nese.  Cou­pled with her strong lan­guage skills, she was soon able to speak very flu­ent Man­darin.  When faced with the crowds in Chi­na, she did not feel at all out of place.  Her mis­sion and her call­ing were to Chi­na, so she felt instead a feel­ing of home­com­ing.  With a heart of “I am made all things to all men” and the Lord’s call­ing, she was able to over­come many chal­lenges by the grace of God.  The first thing she learned was to eat Chi­nese food:  bit­ter mel­on in Tai­wan, snake skin in Guang­dong, chili pep­per Hunan, gar­lic in Shaanxi – she adjust­ed to all of these.  Just like the aver­age Chi­nese, she slept on a hard board bed, rode the bus­es stand­ing, and rode a bicy­cle.  Even though these things were some­what dif­fi­cult for an Amer­i­can girl who grew up drink­ing Amer­i­can milk, liv­ing in a house with a gar­den, she said:  “When a dif­fi­cul­ty comes up, I must per­se­vere in the name of the Lord.  When I feel dis­tressed, God reminds me that a lot of peo­ple around me are in even greater hard­ship.  They’ve had to suf­fer things for so many years, and they were able to endure.  For exam­ple, when we take a bus or train, we often have to stand for many hours in a row.  Some­times, when I can’t stand any­more, I’ll get off and take a taxi for the rest of the way – if my sit­u­a­tion per­mits me to do so.  Unlike them, I don’t stand from start to fin­ish; I don’t suf­fer as much as the Chi­nese peo­ple.”

“Your dyed hair is real­ly pret­ty!”  A Shaanxi woman who saw her once said.  She took the blonde Lau­ra to be a Chi­nese, and praised her for “nice­ly dyed” hair.

But to Lau­ra, “I am made all things to all men” is not the goal, “being like a Chi­nese” is not a goal either:  her goal is to “by all means save some”, “for the gospel’s sake, that I might be par­tak­er there­of with you.”  Lau­ra took on the Chi­nese ways of liv­ing, but more impor­tant­ly she “kept in mind the things of oth­ers, let­ting the mind that was in Christ Jesus” be in her (Philip­pi­ans 2).  Her bur­den is to serve the orphans and waifs of Chi­na.

Jesus said, “Suf­fer lit­tle chil­dren, and for­bid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the king­dom of heav­en.”

Hav­ing been born into a Chris­t­ian fam­i­ly, Lau­ra was brought to Jesus since child­hood, raised up by the love of Christ.  She wished that all Chi­nese chil­dren could receive that same love, and to know the Lord Jesus from child­hood; she wished that she could be the con­duit for Christ’s love, pass­ing it on to all the chil­dren of Chi­na.

But where are the chil­dren of Chi­na?

Lau­ra paid a vis­it to the Xi’an Munic­i­pal Admin­is­tra­tion, request­ing a posi­tion in Xi’an’s Social Wel­fare Office (the orphan­age).  Not only was her request denied, she was even for­bid­den from vis­it­ing the orphan­age.  She also dis­cov­ered SOS Children’s Vil­lages in Yan­tai and Tian­jin, found­ed by inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, but they also turned down her appli­ca­tion because she was a for­eign­er.  So that she could stay in and serve Chi­na, Lau­ra twice applied for Chi­nese cit­i­zen­ship with the Min­istry of Pub­lic Secu­ri­ty; these were also denied.

The orphan­age appears to be a closed door, so Lau­ra set­tled for a teach­ing posi­tion in kinder­garten.  Just like the aver­age Chi­nese, she rode her bicy­cle time after time to the Xi’an Edu­ca­tion Min­istry, explain­ing her wish to serve in kinder­gartens.  After a long and fruit­less wait, some­one encour­aged her to inquire again.  As she rode her bicy­cle, she prayed with tears:  No on can close a door opened by God, no one can open a door closed by Him; she asked God to open a door for her.  Lau­ra cried all the way to the Min­istry and was told, “I’ve got every­thing set up for you.  You’ll be teach­ing in the affil­i­at­ed ele­men­tary school of Jiao Tong Uni­ver­si­ty, not kinder­garten.”

Lau­ra start­ed teach­ing a grade school Eng­lish class of 900 stu­dents.  But a year lat­er, the school told her that the uni­ver­si­ty divi­sion is still lack­ing a for­eign teacher, so she was trans­ferred to teach uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents.  Two years lat­er, she was again trans­ferred to teach at the Fourth Mil­i­tary Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty.  It would seem as if she is mov­ing fur­ther and fur­ther away from the “lit­tle chil­dren.”

How­ev­er, the call­ing of God can­not be mis­tak­en.

Pre­pared by God

In 1989, while Lau­ra was teach­ing in Xi’an, anoth­er Amer­i­can cou­ple also in Xi’an shared with her about a young broth­er.  He was zeal­ous and bold, and open­ly preace­hed the gospel on the bus­es.  Lau­ra said, Wow!  This is a great broth­er for whom we should pray.

In the fall of 1990, while she taught at The Fourth Mil­i­tary Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty, the broth­ers and sis­ters intro­duced Jian An to her — so she could know more mem­bers of the body and have more fel­low­ship.  When he first saw her, Jian An thought she was kind, sim­ple, and sin­cere — and she spoke very pleas­ant Man­darin.  At their first meet­ing, they talked of only God and the Bible.  As he got to know her more, he noticed that she does not like kid around, does­n’t watch tele­vi­sion, does­n’t read the news­pa­per or any books oth­er than the Bible.

As for Lau­ra?  Even before Jian An vis­it­ed her for the first time, she had already been earnest­ly pray­ing to God for a sis­ter who could read the Bible togeth­er with her ever­day; she felt that her spir­i­tu­al need was greater than what the once-a-week church ser­vice was able to pro­vide for.  As an afterthoguht she said to God:  Or, if my future hus­band would come and read the Bible togeth­er with me, then may Your will be done.  She was real­ly hap­py to know Jian An; he was an hon­est broth­er, and they could com­mu­ni­cate eas­i­ly because she under­stood all his Man­darin.  Unlike the Man­darin spo­ken in uni­ver­si­ty, Jian An did not use com­plex vocab­u­lary or phras­es that were hard to under­stand.  The two start­ed to read the Bible togeth­er often.

Back when she was in Chang Sha, some­one intro­duced a poten­tial spouse to Lau­ra.  She said that she had two mea­sur­ing stan­dards:  first­ly, of course, he must be a believ­er of Jesus.  Sec­ond­ly, he must be will­ing to go to Xi’an.  As it turns out, this per­son want­ed to go to Amer­i­ca with Lau­ra, so things did not work out.  While she was in Xi’an, there were plen­ty of mas­ter and doc­tor­al stu­dents, as well as tenured pro­fes­sors who inter­act­ed with Lau­ra.  For some time, Jian An felt that his own posi­tion was too infe­ri­or.  After more prayer, he felt it inap­pro­pri­ate to end the rela­tion­ship abrupt­ly, and so con­tin­ued the Bible stud­ies with Lau­ra.

Accord­ing to man’s stan­dard, it seems that Lau­ra was clos­er aligned to the acad­e­mia, but Lau­ra held a dif­fer­ent stan­dard.  The mem­bers of the house church­es with which Lau­ra had con­tact were most­ly labor­ers; it was com­mon that the wives were believ­ers, but the hus­bands were not.  Lau­ra fig­ured that if she too had a labor­er hus­band whose back­ground was sim­i­lar to those labor­ers, it would be more con­ve­nient for her to share the gospel.  She asked God to pre­pare a non-Eng­lish speak­ing hus­band for her:  she felt that if his Eng­lish was too good, then he might end up stay­ing in Amer­i­ca, unwill­ing to do gospel work in Chi­na.  In the few years she spent teach­ing uni­ver­si­ty, most stu­dents who came to her want­ed to study Eng­lish and go abroad.  In con­trast, Lau­ra want­ed to preach the gospel, and that is the cri­te­ria on which she select­ed her mate.  It appears that her rela­tion­ship with Jian An was pre­pared by God, and this was some­what touch­ing to her.

A Joy­ful Moth­er of Chil­dren

He maketh the bar­ren woman to keep house, and to be a joy­ful moth­er of chil­dren.  Psalms 113:9

In 1990, CCTV broad­cast­ed a dra­ma series titled “Yearn­ings.”  The sto­ry tells of a woman labor­er named Liu Huei Fong who took in an aban­doned baby.  The ups and downs of Liu’s life attract­ed many view­ers, and the prime time series was said to have glued entires towns to their tele­vi­sion sets.  A cou­ple of years lat­er, some local news­pa­pers in and around Xi’an start­ed to report the sto­ry of a “Yang* Huei Fong.”  Of course, what’s open­ly report­ed is the altru­ism of “Yang Huei Fong”, and her iden­ti­ty as a Chris­t­ian was cov­ered up.

*Trans­la­tor’s Note:  In Man­darin, the word for “for­eign” and the last name “Yang” have iden­ti­cal pro­noun­ci­a­tions.  The usage of Yang as Lau­ra’s last name takes advan­tage of these homonyms.  Sub­se­quent occurences of this last name are based on the same prin­ci­ple.

In fact this was the sto­ry of Lau­ra.  For­mal ophan­ages have closed their doors on her, but how can her com­pas­sion, a heart from Christ, be con­tained?  God gave her an inspi­ra­tion:  “Let the chil­dren come to me!”  She start­ed to fos­ter aban­doned chil­dren.  In Jan­u­ary of 1991, some­one gave her a baby girl aban­doned in the hos­pi­tal.  Lau­ra named her “Anna”, and took care of her with all her heart.  Even though Lau­ra was involved with the chil­dren’s min­istry since mid­dle school and had expe­ri­ence babysit­ting, look­ing after an actu­al baby 24 hours a day was quite dif­fer­ent after all.  She had to wake up in the mid­dle of the night, and lost a lot of sleep; for­tu­nate­ly the grace of God was suf­fi­cient:  an obste­tri­cian who was a believ­er taught Lau­ra how to care for infants, and many lov­ing sis­ters helped her out.

A few months lat­er, Jian An heard from his moth­er that, when she went to the doc­tor, she saw an aban­doned baby on the bench right out­side the hos­pi­tal — a baby with a tumor on the back.  Jian An told this to Lau­ra, and she said:  Take her in.  Many peo­ple cau­tioned:  But this child has a tumor on the back!  Lau­ra was heart­bro­ken:  A child with a tumor is still a child!  And thus, Jian An hand­ed Lau­ra her sec­ond daugh­ter, named “Tina.”

Many broth­ers and sis­ters were upset with Jian An; they said that broth­er Zhao was too young and had no clue about the dif­fi­cul­ties of child rais­ing.  He must think that car­ing for one baby is no dif­fer­ent from car­ing for two, and he’s adding to the Lau­ra’s bur­dens.  In fact, Lau­ra did not feel “bur­dened” at all, but con­sid­ered it a joy.  Jian An also felt “indebt­ed” and tried to make up by giv­ing more help to Lau­ra.

Two months lat­er, Anna and Tina suf­fered diar­rhoea at the same time.  As they exit­ed the hos­pi­tal, Lau­ra saw a boy aban­doned at the entrance.  It was the month of July, and this child was naked, skin­ny, and dehy­drat­ed — the boy was hand­i­capped.  There were many onlook­ers, and Lau­ra went straight to a sis­ter’s house to pray; she did not want peo­ple to see a “for­eign­er” tak­ing the kid away, so she asked this sis­ter to go and retrieve him.  After­wards, Lau­ra brought him to anoth­er hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.  Out of “man’s good inten­tions,” the doc­tor said:  This kid is on his last leg, and you should dis­pose of him before you grow attached.  Oth­er­wise, the treat­ment will be very cost­ly.  Lau­ra’s heart was once again pierced:  This is a life cre­at­ed by God, a child with whom the Lord Jesus is pleased!  She said:  This child… I want him.  Please save him; give him blood trans­fu­sion and flu­id trans­fu­sion.  This is the third child fos­tered by Lau­ra, named “Enoch.”

By fos­ter­ing these three chil­dren, Lau­ra was met with many dif­fi­cul­ties.  Not only was her employ­ment at The Fourth Mil­i­tary Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty dis­con­tin­ued, all the uni­ver­si­ties in Shaanxi for­bade her from teach­ing because of her adop­tions.  She moved out of the house and found a recep­tion house to stay in.  Of the three chil­dren she is rais­ing, two of them required med­ical treat­ment; she need­ed to know the path of her next step… she faced immense chal­lenges and pres­sures.  At times, when all three chil­dren start up cry­ing, she felt so help­less that she can only cry before God…

But God promised:  and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.  (Deuteron­o­my 33:25)  In her dif­fi­cul­ties, the grace of God was with her.  Many broth­ers and sis­ters in Christ gave her gen­er­ous help, and God even used many non-believ­ers to help her.  “She’s a for­eign­er and she’s fos­ter­ing the our aban­doned Chi­nese kids; we should help her when­ev­er we are able.”  Lau­ra also took this oppor­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness for the Lord and share the gospel.

In her most dire cir­cum­stance, God gave her the strongest help.  In the recep­tion house where Lau­ra stayed, there lived an edu­ca­tion work­er from Xuzhou.  She empathized with Lau­ra and looked for a posi­tion in a school of Xuzhou on her behalf.  See­ing as how Lau­ra was about to leave Xi’an, Jian An prayed repeat­ed­ly and decid­ed to pro­pose mar­riage.  He wrote a let­ter of pro­pos­al and explained:  This is not my will, but a guid­ance from God.  Lau­ra was not at all sur­prised, and her reply to Jian An was:  This is also the guid­ance God gave to me.

These two peo­ple, of com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al back­grounds, joined paths because of their fel­low­ship in the Spir­it and sim­ple love for the Lord.  They were became engaged in August of 1991.  The school posi­tion in Xuzhou did not pan out.  In order to get treat­ment for the kids, the five of them came to Shang­hai.  On Decem­ber 17, 1991, Lau­ra and Jian An held a sim­ple but solemn wed­ding in Shang­hai Huai Ren Church.  Accord­ing to a lat­er account by Jian An, his out­ft was quite shab­by at the time.  The pas­tor saw a broth­er stand­ing to the side wear­ing a suit; he said to him:  please lend your suit to the groom.  And so, Jian An had his wed­ding wear­ing some­one else’s suit.

After­wards, they stayed in Shang­hai for about one year.  Dur­ing this year, they were host­ed by ten dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies, and moved around ten times.  All day long they lugged their belong­ings around, stay­ing two months here, one month there.  Broth­ers and sis­ters always looked for places that were more remote and qui­et; in loca­tions that are more crowd­ed, they would have too many unwant­ed vis­i­tors.  On one occas­sion, they were host­ed by a broth­er in Pudong.  In those days, Pudong was still unde­vel­oped.  It was an old house, and there were mis­cel­la­neous junk like racks, tires, iron bar­rels, and hay.  Jian An thought to him­self, it’s doubt­ful that Lau­ra will live here; even I, grow­ing up in Xi’an, have nev­er lived in such a hor­rid con­di­tion.  But Lau­ra took one lok and said, this is good, just like Jesus’s manger!  The fam­i­ly moved in; they laid a lay­er of hay and a thin sheet on the ground as bed­ding, and it felt pret­ty warm when slept on at night.  In the evenings, Lau­ra held the eldest while Jian An held the sec­ond; they were out of hands for the youngest, Enoch, so they placed him in a cart.  When­ev­er Enoch cried, Jian An would rock the small cart with his feet; it was very con­ve­nient, and the child was easy to care for.  Broth­ers and sis­ters pre­pared a new house for the cou­ple, and sched­uled a rota­tion for babysit­ting so that they could go on a hon­ey­moon.  In the end, they returned to the house of the “manger” after a three-day hon­ey­moon, sinced Lau­ra missed the kids and broke down in tears.  Thanks to the Lord, the two kids with ill­ness­es were com­plete­ly healed, and grew up health­ily.

“Bethel Chil­dren’s Home”

As their three fos­ter chil­dren grad­u­al­ly grew up, God led Lau­ra and Jian An to serve more orphans and waifs.

In 1997, Lau­ra brought her three chil­dren to a fast food joint near the train sta­tion.  At the restau­rant entrance, there was a waif of about ten years of age — long haired and dirty — pick­ing up emp­ty bot­tles.  Lau­ra asked her where he stayed at night, and he replied the train sta­tion.  She then asked whether he’s had a meal, and he said no.  Lau­ra invit­ed him to eat togeth­er.  The three kids asked him many ques­tions.  He said that his father was a high school teacher, but was divorced from his moth­er.  His father went insane after the divorce, and his moth­er did not want him in her new mar­riage; thus he start­ed wan­der­ing the streets.  Lau­ra asked him:  Do you want to come live at my house?  He said yes, and was brought home by Lau­ra.

That was the day just before Jian An’s birth­day, and Lau­ra said to her hus­band, “God has pre­pared a birth­day gift for you, a ready-made son.”  Of course, Jian An glad­ly accept­ed this “gift.”  In truth, as ear­ly as 1987, Jian An had helped a waif and want­ed to fos­ter him.  His moth­er did not allow it, so he arranged for the child to stay at a friend’s house.  Now, unit­ed with Lau­ra, they start­ed this min­istry.  Dur­ing one par­tic­u­lar prayer, the Holy Spir­it moved him:  Go you to the train sta­tion again, look for chil­dren again.  He met with two street urchins right when he went out, and he also asked them if they would like to come.  They were will­ing to come.  Just like this, these waifs came in group by group, and the min­istry of “Bethel Chil­dren’s House” was now start­ed.

Through these years, under the sup­port and assis­tance of many broth­ers and sis­ters from the local church, Lau­ra and Jian An have tak­en in 150 waifs and aban­doned babies in total.  In con­trast to rear­ing an aban­doned baby, serv­ing the slight­ly old­er waifs was a brand new min­istry.  Many of these kids were ten years and up, and most of them were backed by mis­er­able fam­i­ly tragedies; a life on the streets not only impressed drift­ings and suf­fer­ings on their young hearts, but also bogged them down with many prob­lems.  The min­istry of “Bethel Chil­dren’s Home” is to recov­er these chil­dren, pro­vide them a cozy fam­i­ly, share the gospel with them, fill their hearts with the love of Christ, and rebuild their lives with Bib­li­cal truths.

When Lau­ra and Jian An first start­ed serv­ing them, they went through many haz­ardous sit­u­a­tions.  When a group of kids live togeth­er, all kinds of inci­dents arise if they can­not get along, and fights often break out.  On one par­tic­u­lar occas­sion, when Jian An went out to min­is­ter, one of the kids locked all the oth­er kids out­side.  Unable to sleep, these kids start­ed a bon­fire next to the garbage dump­ster out­side to keep them­selves warm.  When Lau­ra got up at one-thir­ty in the morn­ing to check, these kids were moments away from being burned.  One of the kids called him­self the “Snake King” and was very vio­lent… dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion popped up left and right.  When Jian An returned he made a firm deci­sion:  “You lit­tle ras­cals!  ‘Aun­tie Yang’ (this is how the kids addressed Lau­ra) spends so much effort to take care of you, giv­ing you food, giv­ing you drink, yet you still mis­be­have, still fight, hide knives, and do all these dan­ger­ous things.  Fine!  Let’s take you to the deten­tion cen­ter at the police sta­tion and have you edu­cat­ed.”  Jian An real­ly did con­tact the police sta­tion, and called for a taxi to bring all five kids there.  Lau­ra cried at home along with the kids.  Lau­ra said:  How can we send them there?  But Jian An insist­ed on going.  Orig­i­nal­ly Jian An want­ed to send in only the worst behav­ing kid.  But since they were all there, he thought they might as well all go in for some edu­ca­tion.  Sur­pris­ing­ly, the police sta­tion took them all in.  The police asked where they came from, and one naughty kid answered mis­chie­vous­ly.  In response, the police slapped him across the face and shout­ed, “Sit still!  You dare to mis­be­have here?  This is not your church shel­ter, talk­ing only about love…”  This dis­play put them in line imme­di­ate­ly, and all five of them went in at once.

Five days lat­er, all five kids escaped and returned.  The deten­tion cen­ter moved them to Weinan, about an hour away from Xi’an by car.  The deten­tion cen­ter in Weinan was loos­er and put the kids to work, pick­ing up bricks and things.  The secu­ri­ty was rather loose, per­haps a hint that they could run if they want­ed, but just don’t run towards Xi’an train sta­tion.  Upon their return they said:  “We were suf­fer­ing at the deten­tion cen­ter, and we got sca­bies.  We prayed, oh Lord, please let us go home, we still want to see our Aun­tie Yang, and we won’t ever mis­be­have or fight again.  We real­ly real­ly prayed… and after stay­ing five days in Weinan, we stole on a train and came back.”

All five kids came back, and Lau­ra was very hap­py.  The day they went to an out-of-town farm­ers’ vil­lage church, they returned to see a pile of clothes in front of their door, donat­ed by an unknown per­son.  Lau­ra said:  Look, God has pre­pared.  These clothes are just what’s need­ed.  These chil­dren were twice infect­ed with sca­bies, which is con­ta­gious.  They slept in a tun­nel, and were con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed one by one.  A doco­tor who worked in a tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese med­ical school heard about this and vol­un­tar­i­ly came with free med­i­cine, so the chil­dren were quick­ly healed.

The min­istry of “Bethel Chil­dren’s Home” grad­u­al­ly sta­bi­lized.  The “Chil­dren’s Home” was par­ti­tioned for aban­doned babies and wan­der­ing chil­dren.  The aban­doned babies that they fos­ter are most­ly hand­i­capped in some way, such as hydro­cephalus, deaf­ness, cleft lip and palate, con­gen­i­tal heart dis­ease, Down syn­drome.  Many broth­ers and sis­ters of the house church­es par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Lord’s min­istry, turn­ing many fam­i­lies into “fos­ter fam­i­lies,” each take care of one baby.  These babies are giv­en med­ical care first, then trans­ferred to the “fos­ter fam­i­lies.”  These “fos­ter fam­i­lies” became pow­er­ful helpers and cowork­ers to “Bethel Chil­dren’s Home.”  The waifs, who are old­er in age, stay in “Chil­dren’s Home” to study the Bible, sing hymns, do devo­tions, mem­o­rize Bible vers­es.  Each child had dif­fer­ing lev­els of edu­ca­tion; some have nev­er gone to school, while oth­ers have com­plet­ed sev­enth and eighth grade.  This made it dif­fi­cult for Lau­ra and Jian An to teach the chil­dren with for­mal edu­ca­tion mate­ri­als.  Some­times Lau­ra would have the kids teach each oth­er — old­er ones who had gone to school would teach the younger ones new char­ac­ters — or have them tran­scribe the Bible.  The meth­ods used were not rigid, but flex­i­ble and adap­tive.

Besides learn­ing from the Bible, Lau­ra put the kids to to actu­al prac­tice in serv­ing.  Some­times she would divide them into small groups to hand out tracts on the streets.  “Chil­dren’s Home” had a lot of cloth­ing donates by broth­ers and sis­ters, some of which are adult-sized.  Since Weinan had a high num­ber of home­less peo­ple, each group would bring some adult cloth­ing and food and look for the home­less.  Once found, they said to them:  “Jesus loves you!”  First they used the name of Jesus to sup­press their flesh, then they shared the gospel to them, giv­ing them food and cloth­ing.  Small groups formed by boys would also bring these home­less peo­ple to the bath­house for a bath.  Jian An said, some are lunatics, dif­fi­cult to share.

These chil­dren stay at “Chil­dren’s Home” for vari­able amounts of time.  With­in two three years of launch­ing, “Chil­dren’s Home” had sev­en­teen tran­sient chil­dren who brought the gospel to their home­land.  A major­i­ty of them were forced onto the streets because of par­ents’ divorce or impris­on­ment, and they now stay with grand­par­ents or oth­er rel­a­tives.  Some chil­dren often call back, and some even returned because they liked the Bible stud­ies and hymns — and they want­ed to belong to this big fam­i­ly full of love for one anoth­er.  On one occas­sion, they found the par­ents of four dif­fer­ent chil­dren.  When these par­ents came to pick up their chil­dren, they were all moved to tears.  “Only the love of God is the great­est and truest love in the world,” they said.  They were all will­ing, after they returned, to attend local church­es for ser­mons, and to study the Bible seri­ous­ly.

Some oth­er chil­dren con­tin­ued to grow up at “Chil­dren’s Home”, mov­ing out at seveteen to work for a liv­ing.  A few were sent to house church sem­i­nar­ies for train­ing.  All the chil­dren were very grate­ful for the amaz­ing grace of the Heav­en­ly Father; they could not have fath­omed that, a few years after los­ing par­ents, fam­i­ly, and wan­der­ing the streets beg­ging for food, they could belong to a warm fam­i­ly once more.  Fur­ther­more, those who had the chance to return to school espe­cial­ly thanked their lov­ing Lord from their hearts.  They said that after they grew up, they would be will­ing to active­ly help and empathize oth­er peo­ple.  A few boys also said that, once they grew up, they will run a big­ger orphan­age to help more home­less chil­dren.  Lau­ra and Jian An were tru­ly joy­ful and grat­i­fied to hear them with such enthu­si­asm for repay­ing the Lord’s grace.

The chil­dren also devel­oped deep sen­ti­ments with Lau­ra and Jian An.  Orig­i­nal­ly they called Jian An “Uncle Zhao” and Lau­ra “Aun­tie Yang.”  But lat­er, the child who stayed the longest in “Chil­dren’s Home”, clos­est to Jian An and Lau­ra, start­ed to call Jian An “father.”  After hear­ing this, the oth­er chil­dren fol­lowed suit and called him “father.”  After this child left, he often called back to inquire:  “Dad, how have you been?  Are you in good health?”  But they still called Lau­ra “Aun­tie Yang”, prob­a­bly too shy to use moth­er.  But in their hearts, the kids were clos­er to Lau­ra.  When the chil­dren had minor ill­ness­es or what­not, Jian An thought noth­ing of it; accord­ing to the child rear­ing meth­ods of the Chi­nese peo­ple, minor sick­ness­es were irrel­e­vant — just weath­er it out and the child will be fine.  But Lau­ra always took care of them per­son­al­ly, tak­ing them to the hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.  The sug­ary med­i­cines that were brought back were fought over by the kids:  “Aun­tie Yang, I have a lit­tle ache here too, I want to eat some med­i­cine too!”

On one occas­sion, the cowork­ers of “Chil­dren’s Home” gave an assign­ment — to write an essay about Aun­tie Yang — and the chil­dren wrote very sin­cere­ly.  A child named Zhang Bin was giv­en over to his father after his par­ents divorced, but his father was addict­ed to gam­bling.  Zhang Bin did not receive prop­er care, and was for­bid­den from going to his moth­er.  He record­ed “Aun­tie’s Yang’s” many-sided love:  “When I had a cold, or when my hands were infect­ed, Aun­tie Yang took me to the doc­tors.”  Last­ly he wrote:  “How I would like to call you ‘mom!’ ”  A girl named Zeng Huei said, every­day I saw my fel­low stu­dents being picked up by their moth­ers after school, but I did not a have a moth­er to pick me up.  The best thing in the world is to have a moth­er, but hav­ing some­one I can call moth­er is not a mat­ter of course.  Aun­tie Yang took us to the doc­tors and cared for us, and that’s very pre­cious.  She said we real­ly want­ed to call Aun­tie Yang moth­er in her pres­ence!

Over the past years, Lau­ra and Jian An also launched orphaned and home­less chil­dren min­istries in oth­er cities in addi­tion to “Bethel Chil­dren’s Home” in Xi’an.  They would pick up a few chil­dren, entrust them to broth­ers and sis­ers they are acquaint­ed with, and have them con­tin­ue the min­istries local­ly.

Let the Chil­dren Come to Me

Dur­ing the Christ­mas hol­i­days of 2003, on an over­head pedes­tri­an bridge in Guangzhou, a hand­i­capped lit­tle girl laid on the ground.  She was par­a­lyzed from the waist down, and her thin legs were cov­ered in wounds — bloody and hor­ri­fy­ing.  Peo­ple’s eyes shied away… the girl’s body shook in the bit­ter wind… even more shock­ing was that some­one cru­el­ly cut her wounds open again when they were about to scab over.

Some­one was forc­ing this girl to beg using this cru­el methond!

On Jan­u­ary 2, 2004, a Chris­t­ian cou­ple in Guangzhou, Broth­er and Mrs. Liu, along with anoth­er pair of Chris­tians, car­ried the girl from the side of the road to Guangzhou City First Peo­ple’s Hos­pi­tal.  After med­ical treat­ment she was brought to Broth­er Liu’s home.  The broth­ers and sis­ters of the church prayed earnest­ly, and the child start­ed to recov­er grad­u­al­ly.  This girl was named Gong Xuan Xuan.  She was twelve years old, and her moth­er already passed away; her blood father sold her to a per­son who forces hand­i­capped chil­dren to beg as a get-rich-quick theme.  Broth­ers and sis­ters shared the gospel with Gong Xuan Xuan, and she accept­ed Jesus Christ as her per­son­al sav­ior.  At the time, many major media report­ed about this event.  Broth­er Liu clear­ly iden­ti­fied him­self as a Chris­t­ian dur­ing inter­views, but the offi­cial report­ing only described them as “kind­heart­ed cit­i­zens Mr. Liu, Mr. Lin.”  After­wards, lit­tle sis­ter Gong Xuan Xuan was accept­ed by a wel­fare agency, while the per­son who con­trolled these hand­i­capped chil­dren was also brought to jus­tice.

Broth­ers and sis­ters in Guangzhou began to pay more atten­tion to this dis­ad­van­taged group.  They went to the relief shel­ters of the social wel­fare agency to help over 70 home­less chil­dren.  Through Chris­t­ian Life Quar­ter­ly, they also request­ed for broth­ers and sis­ters with expe­ri­ence in serv­ing orphans and waifs to go to Guangzhou and help them estab­lish this min­istry.

In Jan­u­ary of 2004, Jian An and Lau­ra arrived in Guangzhou to serve.  Thank God that some broth­ers have already donat­ed a hous­ing unit for their use.  In a recent prayer let­ter, Jian An and Lau­ra wrote:

“On many occas­sions in last Decem­ber, the house church­es of Guangzhou invit­ed us to come, because there were an exceed­ing­ly high num­ber of home­less chil­dren on the streets.  We have been here for less than one month, and we’ve had to bring three chil­dren to the hos­pi­tal for emer­gency treat­ment:  a five-year-old girl was dragged around on the streets by an old man from Anhuei to beg for mon­ey… anoth­er slept under the over­head pedes­tri­an bridge in the train sta­tion, and was crit­i­cal­ly infect­ed because of a leg injury from falling.  Lau­ra passed by at eleven p.m. and took him to the emer­gency room, where the doc­tor ordered hos­pi­tal stay for treat­ment.  He was only four­teen, came from Guangxi, and was recov­ered half month lat­er.  Dur­ing his hos­pi­tal stay, a num­ber of doc­tors and nurs­es who knew we were Chris­tians came to vis­it often, brin­ing milk and bread.  We took this oppor­tu­ni­ty to share the gospel with them and with oth­er inpa­tients.  The last child was a mute of 16 year-old; he was robbed by a few drug addicts and stabbed once, spilling his intestines.  His fel­lows called us for help, and after tak­ing him to the hos­pi­tal we also dialed for 110 to inves­ti­gate he inci­dent.  As a result, the hos­pi­tal expens­es were paid by the author­i­ties and we did not have to cov­er the costs.  We tru­ly thank the Heav­en­ly Father for con­tin­u­ous­ly help­ing us behind the scenes, allow­ing us to have bold­ness and faith in this work.  All glo­ry belong to the Father, for God set­teth the soli­tary in fam­i­lies.”

A spe­cial prayer request they have is for God to pre­pare three suit­able cowork­ers; because the orphan min­istry has a very heavy work­load, and because the waifs “were trou­bled and wan­der­ing like sheep with­out a keep­er.”…

When a baby is aban­doned on the bench in front of the hos­pi­tal, on its last breath, Jesus is in tears!

When a hand­i­capped child is put out on the streets, beg­ging with bloody wounds, Jesus is in tears!

When a hand­i­capped child is neglect­ed, abused, and aban­doned — because of blind­ness, cleft lip, or ill­ness — Jesus is in tears!

When a child is locked in a room and starved to death due to the adult’s delin­quen­cy, Jesus is in tears!

Jesus’s heart is full of com­pas­sion!

Jesus said:  “Let the lit­tle chil­dren come to me!”

Lau­ra heard Jesus’s call, and was will­ing to give up all she had for this call, will­ing to change into a Chi­nese, will­ing to use her whole life to com­mis­er­ate those whom Jesus com­mis­er­at­ed, to serve these weak and small wan­der­ers, and to bring lit­tle chil­dren to Jesus.

Jian An heard Jesus’s call, becom­ing the “father” of many home­less chil­dren and the best cowork­er for Lau­ra.

The broth­ers and sis­ters of Guangzhou heard Jesus’s call, tak­ing up Gong Xuan Xuan and bring­ing her into Jesus…

May every Chris­t­ian who has received sal­va­tion be will­ing to respond to Lord Jesus’s call, and become a con­duit for Christ’s love.

May every church that is filled by the Lord’s love be will­ing to respond to Lord Jesus’s call, sym­pa­thiz­ing and serv­ing those in need.  “Inas­much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

May the gospel in which we trust, through we who have been deliv­ered by the same, be spread to those liv­ing in the bot­tom tier of soci­ety — the poor and home­less peo­ple for whom Jesus shed His tears!

An Pu — from main­land Chi­na, and is cur­rent­ly serv­ing full time.