The Value of Suffering II - A Funeral in Spring

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The Value of Suffering II - A Funeral in Spring

by Bro Jonathan Wang, Recounted by Jonathan, Written by Luke

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"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)

"...But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)

My Father's Death
I cannot begin to tell you how my father's death shook our family and our church. It was like a ship losing its helmsman while plowing through unknown, stormy waters. Deep grief consumed my family. I felt as though my world had suddenly come to a standstill. Time stopped in the early morning of April 1, 1993, when my father left us for good.

Recalling these days, I feel that I have many things to recount. As my father's life drew to an end, I served him at his bedside. There, I witnessed first-hand a person committing his past and future completely into God's hands. I also witnessed how he, as pastor, husband, father and friend, finished carrying out his responsibilities. It was a witnessing of life and death, which brought new meaning to my daily walk with God.

On March 8^th, while on a business trip in Shanghai, I received a telephone call from my mother about my father's grave condition. My mother had had a dream about my father's memorial service and she said she could still remember the singing in the dream. Although my family didn't say much, I felt the anxiety and heaviness in their voices. On my part, I simply could not believe that my dear papa, who had thoroughly tasted the bitterest of human suffering, could be overcome by mere illness. Rather, I imagined Papa, tall and slight, thrusting out his bony chest to face any affliction.

My father had waded through enough blood and tears in his lifetime. He had stood fast in his faith in God through suffering. More than that, he had passed on this faith to his children. My father had never stopped praising God. Whether on one spring morning years ago, when our family had absolutely nothing to eat or in the darkness of the night when a storm destroyed our dilapidated home, exuberant hallelujahs were always flowing through our veins. These became treasured memories from those months and years of suffering. It is said that children are a gift from God. Is it not also true that a good father is God's best gift to us?

No, my father would not leave his beloved church, wife and children at this time. I was sure that my papa would recover, just as he had done before. It would just be another fearful moment for our family - it would pass. He would be like a bird that, at the brink of exhaustion, would suddenly spread its wings with renewed strength to soar up into the heavens. I hoped that the coming Sunday, Papa would, as usual, stand at the pulpit to lead us in praise to God with his frail, raspy voice. Yet even with all my earnest hope, I could not dispel the dark clouds in my heart. I knew my father's condition all too well.

In China at that time, just as in the Early Church, to bear the title of 'preacher of the Gospel' meant catastrophe, suffering and humiliation. In the 1950s, preachers had to battle spiritual starvation due to lack of fellowship with other Christians. They also suffered poverty for lack of adequate financial support, as well as countless persecutions and humiliations before crowds of people during the constant succession of political campaigns. They truly became the filth of the world, the scum of the earth. (First Corinthians 4:13)

My earliest childhood memories were all associated with hunger. On the afternoon of December 23, 1969, our whole family was sent out to a remote village almost fifty kilometers away, to live in a door-less and tumbledown shack. The villagers were told that we were spies, counter-revolutionaries and traitors. Therefore, nobody was willing to give us even the husks that their pigs ate to fill our empty stomachs. Once, a primary school teacher in the vicinity gave us some dried sweet yams from his school. They had obviously been stored for some time, however, since they were now rotting in a thick, green layer of mold. My parents took the greatest care in washing and scrubbing so that we could feed on these tart and bitter yams. When we had no wood for fuel, we chopped up the few small wooden stools in our home, and later burned up our clothes and shoes. In this way, my father led our whole family forward, walking the fine line between life and death. Those horrifying days consumed my father's youth and health. As a bruised reed and a smoldering wick, he would have died long ago were it not for our heavenly Father's grace and care. He carried on through incredible physical weakness, persevering from morning to sunset, day after day, year after year. Although the song of his life was already nearly over, Papa still strove to sing each note as perfectly as he could.

My heart cried out, "Papa, your children still need your loving care. Your young daughter you love most dearly has not yet found a husband. Your church needs you to lead them on. Your beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord need you to provide them their daily spiritual food. Oh Papa, if you let go of all these responsibilities and leave us now, who could take over the tremendous burden? My beloved Papa, when you ascend Mt. Nebo as Moses did, to whom will you hand your staff? Who will be your Joshua?"

I was devastated by all these thoughts and worries. And as the train brought me nearer to home, my heart grew heavier and heavier. I could hardly begin to fathom what would await me upon my return.

Only after I rushed through our front door did I realize that Papa's illness was far more serious than I had imagined. During the few weeks of separation, he had become another person altogether. Leaning back against the bed, he seemed exceptionally drawn as the last rays of the sun crept in. Although his deep-set eyes were still smiling, hidden in that faint smile was the sadness of an imminent departure.

That day happened to be my parents' wedding anniversary. From the time that they first met, while serving at the Ling Liang Church in Hangzhou, to the time they fell in love and married, it had been a good forty years. Papa lay there, gazing with deep affection at Mama, who was sitting by his bedside. I knew that there was much he wanted to say. Stroking her hand, Papa said, "Jing Rong, you have suffered a great deal in your life because of me. I feel so sorry." "Please don't say that," Mama said, as she leaned towards Papa's chest, gently repeating his name over and over.

Witnessing this scene, I could no longer hold back my tears. I knew that this was their final parting. In their short and simple dialogue was a love and affection beyond words. In the second year of their marriage, Papa had been arrested and imprisoned. In the forty years that followed, all they had was bitter hardship and none of the usual romance of married life. What they had was the way of the cross, strewn with thorns and many afflictions. In 1956, Papa was sent to a labor camp in the northwest. Left homeless, Mama took my older brother away with her, wandering from Beijing to Shanghai and then to Xian, surviving those difficult days step by step through the Lord's leading. In order to comfort Mama, Papa risked his life to have a letter delivered to her, encouraging her with God's Word to persevere. During the Cultural Revolution, every time Papa returned home, he was weary and sad after being paraded before the crowds of people wearing a dunce cap and a placard around his neck. Mama dressed his wounds with Mercurochrome and comforted him. Suffering deepened their faith and enabled their love to blossom. They loved each other through the years as God loved them, using their unique language of romance to show their children and the present world the rich emotions of the former generation of preachers of China. And now the time had come to part.

Oh, "till we meet again...till we meet again..." -- these were the words that Mama had heard being sung in her dream. The Lord had told her of this parting in advance. She stroked Papa's hand lightly, enjoying the moment of tender love that the heavenly Father had given them.

My siblings and I were extremely moved as we watched our parents' sweet and tender intimacy at this parting in death. We were amazed that forty years of trials and hardships had not destroyed their love for each other. And choking with emotions, we sighed at the fact that enduring forty years of bullying and oppression had not at all poisoned the seeds of love in their hearts. On the contrary, we were very impressed by their show of affection for each other. As we watched this scene with tears in our eyes, the Apostle Paul's description of love in First Corinthians Chapter 13 softly echoed in our minds.

How fortunate we are to have had parents who were so in love with one another! As children of preachers of the Gospel, we were of a different kind. Our very birth into this world brought suffering upon us. In childhood, my brother and sister and I grew used to other people's condescending looks. Once, when I was on my way to school, a group of classmates covered my head with a bag and beat me up. People used to abuse us simply because our parents were Christians. We grew up constantly bullied and teased. We were called "dog fleas." Our tender hearts were completely filled with wounds. In winter, while other children wore pretty padded jackets, I shivered in the cold, north winds in tattered clothing, unable to do anything but swallow my own tears.

During the times of greatest suffering, we did cry out to our heavenly Father, but I mostly murmured and doubted. My older brother also vowed in his heart that if God gave him another chance, he would definitely not choose to be born into a preacher's family. This thought never left him completely, even in adulthood.

As we looked at our parents bidding one another farewell, however, our hearts were filled with happiness and pride. A wealth of emotions made us forget pain and insult. We could see God's presence in our parents' love for each another, and we began to have a whole new understanding of everything in the past.

Sitting up in bed, Papa looked at the family: his children, as well as the brothers and sisters of the church. Loving concern filled his eyes. "Oh Papa," I asked in my heart. "Is there something else that you are worried about?"

Our family worship service began in September 1982.

After ten years of calamity, all was still in China. Some people made a wild boast that Christianity had totally disappeared from China, and they certainly had reason to say so. From 1966 onwards, all churches were closed. Religious facilities were occupied or torn down, and church workers and preachers were imprisoned in hard labor camps. Cruel persecution drove most people to abandon their faith. Those who dared to publicly confess that they were Christians were few and far between. In the city where we lived there was an old preacher who signed an agreement to deny his faith so that he could stay on in the city rather than be forced to live in remote mountainous or rural areas. It was a very disheartening incident. Nowadays, I read in many books and testimonies that brag about how people in those days persevered. The authors all claim to be speaking with certainty but we wonder how much truth is in them. In fact, God has led us to see that the efforts of the churches in China in the last century have not been able to withstand the fiery testing of the Po Si Jiu (Breaking the Four Olds) Campaign.*

* Footnote: Chairman Mao ordered the eradication of what were known as the Four Olds: old culture, old customs, old ideas and old habits

In What Do We Boast?
In 1979, the biggest miracle since the world began happened when God revived His own church overnight in the desolate land of China. Faced with God's mighty power, many people remembered the Lord's Word in their hearts and wept bitterly in contrition.

The shortage of qualified workforce created by ten years of stagnation showed itself in all aspects, especially critically in the church ministry. China's Christian seminaries had been closed since the mid-1950s. Even seminaries well known in the Asia-Pacific region such as, Jin Ling Xie He Theological College, existed in name only. They were no longer recruiting new students. In the early 1980s, those who stood at the pulpits in newly reopened churches across the country were mostly white-haired, elderly men. The church lacked the manpower to carry on the work of proclaiming the Gospel. At that time, most middle-aged and young men and women did not even have the chance to read the Bible, let alone understand why salvation was needed. To deal with this crisis, some seminaries haphazardly admitted new students. Many Christians today would really be tickled if they could get hold of a set of the exam papers from those days and read it. The undergraduate exam papers from the theological colleges at that time were no more difficult than today's Sunday School materials. For example, "Do you know Who are the three Persons in the Trinity?" Although this was the case, very few people could answer those questions.

In 1982, worship services began at our home. At first, only our family members attended the service, but the number of people grew. My papa, a disciple of Pastor Jia Yu Ming, preached. Young people came to him with their problems. Papa's co-worker was Mama. It was eleven years after our family worship began that Papa fell critically ill. During these eleven years, Papa was the only person who preached. Even when he was sick at times, he did not dare to slacken. But working so hard had taken its toll on his health.

Who Would Succeed Papa?
After I returned home from Shanghai, Papa's illness gradually worsened. On March 15^th, Papa was admitted into hospital. In fact, on the first day at the hospital, the physician-in-charge told me privately that Papa's condition did not seem optimistic. From the first day he became sick, Papa had trouble swallowing even water. After March 15^th, he was put on oxygen. Being a doctor himself, he understood what all this meant.

Knowing that his whole life's service will soon come to an end, what is the Christian's attitude in finishing the very last part of the race? We saw that, in his last days, Papa was like a skillful and emotionally charged performer, singing his best aria with all his might just before the curtain falls. He led our whole family in singing songs of praise while lying sick in bed. Papa never forgot his mission as a preacher of the Gospel, even at his final hour. In those few days, whenever his mind was alert, he would preach the Gospel to the patients in his ward and testify to God's mighty power.

What touched us even more was Papa's intimacy with God and his thirst for Him in these last moments. He was almost continuously calling on the Lord's Name day and night. He breathed in deeply and loudly, shedding tears while praising God. Everybody who witnessed how he, a dying man, crossed over from life to death sensed the reality of God.

The time Papa had left was truly limited. The hourglass of his life had already started to empty. Around March 20^th, Papa suffered serious internal bleeding. On that very day, he shouted loudly saying, "I see the heavens opening! The Lord is coming to take me to Himself!" Then he leaned against my chest and it was as though he was making a final dash towards his home in heaven.

After some years, my mother recollected the days after my father's death. She said, "My sorrow was unspeakable. I lost not only my soul mate but also, more importantly, my beloved co-worker. Through four decades, we depended on each other for survival and stood together through thick and thin. We fought side by side, united in heart and mind. Only after he passed away did I feel the dreadful loneliness, and the weight of church responsibilities. I asked myself: 'Who would be able to share my burden? My children were still very immature. Who could co-work with me?'" I think Mama was probably considering these problems when Papa was lingering at death's door. Indeed, when on his deathbed Papa instructed us on how to handle some matters after he was gone, it stirred in Mama, memories of the old hard times. From now on, however, who would share with her the joys and sorrows of life?

Could My Elder Brother Fill Papa's Shoes?
My elder brother was born on January 8, 1955. It was exactly the day that Papa was excommunicated from the church because he stood firm in his faith. From then on, my brother spent his whole childhood with Mama drifting from place to place. Our family's misfortune and the social injustice we suffered ate into my brother's soul, making him stubborn, fiery and forthright. A famous line from a poem by Gu Cheng, a contemporary Chinese poet, which became popular throughout the country overnight, epitomized the soul of my brother's whole generation: The dark night gave me dark eyes!

My brother was, unfortunately, born into a doubly dark night. Even though he was very young, he was the eldest son, and therefore our frontline soldier. He had to be prepared to enter the battlefield at any time - when his younger brother and sister were bullied and humiliated by others, when his parents were called names. He was therefore first in the line of fire. In the village, because of Papa's constant weak health and chronic illnesses, the responsibility of the entire family's livelihood fell on my brother's shoulders. He, a city boy not yet of age, had to take on the same strenuous burdens as the grown men in the village. He worked with them in the heat of the scorching sun and in the bitter cold. This being the case, was it just his young and delicate shoulders that were crushed and wounded?

For my brother, the end of 1970 was bleak. That winter, every family in the village had to send a strong young man to excavate the river. The 'strong laborer' in our family was my brother, who was fifteen at the time. He had to carry big baskets of river mud from the very deep river valley up to the land level. Many stronger men could not stand this grueling labor. As a result, he sustained back injuries that still give him trouble today.

One night, my brother woke me up suddenly and asked me to pray with him. I was only seven. We knelt on the bed in the dark. I did not know what he said but I could feel his acute distress. To me, my brother was like a chess pawn who was expected to function as the castle, knight and bishop all rolled into one. He was only a child. Yet, as the Chinese proverb goes, "One wrong step makes every step wrong." Because of our Christian background, we were banished to the village and blacklisted. And this delayed my brother's marriage. He hastily found a wife in his thirties, and the relationship was a failure. All the more, his grim outlook on life and society was reinforced.

My brother was filled with hatred! He hated everything. He felt that everyone owed him a big debt and gradually he developed a rebellious character. As the saying goes, "The sword has been tempered for ten years, and yet the frosty blade has not yet been tested!" He rebelled against the family and the church. Although he attended church worship and sang songs of praise, he explained, "That's only for Papa and Mama to see because I don't want them to be sad." Of course, Papa knew all about this. In the critical hour of his illness, Papa told us soberly, "Among you children, I worry most about your eldest brother. If he can't change his outlook on life and come genuinely before the Lord, even his second marriage would still face a crisis." My father, however, did not know that what happened to my brother was no mere individual case. The Cultural Revolution had created a lost generation -- a generation with no beliefs, who walked aimlessly in pain and confusion. At the time, an essay I heard, narrated with musical accompaniment, reflected the heart condition of that generation. I cannot remember the title; I can only remember that out of the melancholic background music, a young, distant voice spoke: At twenty, I climbed out of the marsh of youth, like a battered guitar echoing a fading theme...." The voice was telling us about a terrifying nightmare, a boundless marsh, a bottomless pit, and a hopeless struggle. What can we say when faced with such a generation? What can we say?

Until now, I often recall that night in my childhood. Why did my brother ask me to pray with him? I tried to understand him from the picture in the above-mentioned narrated essay. I worried about the conflicts and complexities in his heart. And more and more, I could feel the reason for Papa's anxiety. As Papa's illness worsened, this deep worry gnawed away in my heart.

While Papa was gravely ill, my sister was working in Guangzhou. Before this, she had been working at an import and export company in our hometown. In 1992, after this company declared bankruptcy, she went to Guangdong province on her own to look for a job. Though we are siblings, she is more than a dozen years younger than my elder brother, and so she belongs to the so-called 'new generation.' This generation has no memory of the Cultural Revolution. They are interested in neither politics nor ideology, but are extremely career-minded. My father had always been worried about his young daughter. He told us all, "I have been drifting from place to place throughout my life, and have lost contact with my own parents and siblings. I don't want this to happen to you. I want all of you to be together."

Perhaps because my sister did not want us to worry about her, she rarely talked about her situation in Guangdong. But from the little she said, we could feel the hardships of survival and competition she was going through. Even for a university graduate majoring in English like herself, it was not at all easy to earn a living in a coastal city saturated with talent. What comforted my parents was that a tough environment and the loneliness of staying single did not shake her faith in God. At work, God also led my sister to meet many brothers and sisters who loved the Lord.

Her first job was at a bakery owned by a brother and she also assisted the brother in leading the church. Early each morning, they prayed and read the Bible together. They worked in the morning and went out to evangelize in the afternoon. My sister later recalled that serving God at this bakery marked a new beginning for her. From there on, under the Lord's leading, she changed several jobs. What distinguished her from other people was that each time she changed jobs, it was so that she could serve better in the church and not because of higher pay. By the time she left the bakery to work in a garment enterprise, she had already begun to lead a church on her own.

At that time, she had already reached an age where she should be seriously considering marriage. The Chinese regard marriage as a very significant step in life. Every man and woman should marry when they are of age. The Confucian culture has this to say: "When a person reaches the age of thirty and has not yet married, it is no longer becoming for him to marry. Likewise, when a person reaches forty and has not yet become a government official, it is no longer deserving for him to become one." When Papa was alive, he was very concerned about my sister's marriage. As preachers of the Gospel, Papa and Mama had both hoped that she would find a husband who loved the Lord. This was certainly also her heart's desire. But as time went by, this desire gradually turned into a heartache. She had to face a decision: to love God or to marry.

One day in July 1995, she told me over the telephone that a brother-in-Christ was interested in her and that she had a good impression of him. Of course I understood what 'having a good impression' meant. But we did not know whether this was the Lord's will and so we prayed about this matter. A certain preacher had earnestly warned young brothers and sisters that marriage was the greatest challenge to their faith.

During the final moments of his life, Papa said to her, "When I was living, I had so hoped to see you married to a brother who loves the Lord. Now, this seems such a foolish thought, because marriage on earth is but transient." Through the words of exhortation of a member of the older generation, God helped her to better understand the Christian view of marriage, in order to prepare her to face the challenges ahead. What happened later showed precisely that she had slid into a very serious emotional crisis.

She met her boyfriend at a church meeting. He was a young and very bright professor. This was most probably why she greatly admired him. In their courtship, however, she realized that his faith was in question. Yet, by that time, their affection for one another had reached the stage where it was difficult to part. When she talked to me over the phone, I could hear the pain and weakness in her voice. So I decided to visit her immediately.

I should say that she was very honest regarding her marriage. After I talked to her boyfriend, I told her that he was only a Christian by name. At the same time, the frank and God-fearing pastor whom my sister worked with at the bakery also sped back when he heard about her situation. The three of us prayed together, begging the Lord to give her enough strength to handle this matter. I told her, "As God's children, we need not be anxious about marriage. Just commit it to the Lord, single-mindedly seek Him and build a much closer relationship with Him. If you love the Lord and mature spiritually, whoever He will prepare for you is bound to be a brother who loves Him. This person would respect you and pursue you. If you do not love the Lord, then you will certainly attract those who do not love the Lord and those who are immature. In that case, you would be extremely unfortunate." When we put this matter before the Lord, she finally had the courage to terminate the love affair. When she submitted to the Lord in this testing regarding her marriage, her faith was strengthened, and it prepared a springboard for her future spiritual breakthrough.

We three siblings stood before Papa's deathbed as he gazed at us compassionately and lovingly. I knew Papa had a lot to say. He was very weak lying there, breathing hard and coughing. The hospital ward was very quiet. And I wondered, "Papa, is there still anything that you want to say?"

Papa's illness came to a crisis when there was bleeding in his digestive system. What was most worrying was that the local hospital could not find the cause of the bleeding. During those few days, they used various kinds of medicine to stop the bleeding -- all to no avail. The hemorrhaging made Papa look deathly pale, and he almost fainted because of the loss of blood. Only then did the doctors tell us that a blood transfusion was needed urgently. That was the only medical approach they could use at that point in time.

Where could Papa get blood? Our entire family prayed together and came to a decision: we would give him our own blood. We three siblings had the same desire. We would give him our blood no matter how much blood Papa would need. We wanted to save Papa with our own lives. We wanted to use our warm blood and love to chop off the evil claws of death that were clutching at Papa. We were surprised to discover that my brother and I were both of blood type 'B', and that only my sister-in-law, my sister, my wife, my niece and some sisters in the church, a total of seven people were of blood type 'O', the same as Papa's. But this was really not what we had expected at first. So the heavy responsibility of donating blood to Papa fell on these few ladies. My sister was the first donor and I was very concerned for her health. To begin with, she has anemia and tends to get sick easily. Apart from that, she had not had enough rest since Papa's condition worsened. I was worried that she might faint in the process of donating blood. Because Papa had lost too much blood, my sister provided more than 900 cc's of blood in two days. My wife provided more than 800 cc's. My niece and some sisters in the church also donated. Within a week, because of Papa's continuous hemorrhaging, seven people donated altogether 4000 cc's of blood. This attracted the attention of the whole hospital. People who witnessed this scene were very touched and commented that this kind of affection and closeness was truly rare in modern China.

I was teary-eyed when I came out of the blood bank holding bags of warm blood, fresh out of their donors' bodies. Through the contact of these bags of body-temperature blood with my arms, I could feel the life they carried. Quietly, I blessed all these dear children of the Lord in my heart. And I prayed that all this precious blood given out of their love could restore Papa's health. Just as we had hoped, Papa immediately regained some vitality after receiving blood. His lips, which had been as white as a sheet, gradually turned reddish. This increased our confidence and we prepared ourselves to continue giving Papa blood. The doctors were not as optimistic as we were, however. They admired our action but lost no time in asking, "How much blood do you have?" In this roundabout way, they were trying to tell us that the blood transfusion was only a matter of expediency. They had already come to their end in trying to cure Papa's illness.

On hindsight, Papa seemed to be perfectly clear about his own condition. Sitting up in his bed, he grabbed every minute, indeed every second, to say words of farewell to his family members. I knew what Papa was most concerned about at this time. Among his children, Papa loved me most and also expected the most from me. I also realized that I had to make a promise to him. I needed to reassure him that I would certainly guard my faith no matter how much difficulty lay ahead. Papa was comforted that by the Lord's compassionate grace, I had already won a critical spiritual battle that had caused him much anxiety and agony.

Victory in a Period of Doubt and Crisis
When I speak of the discouraging days of my father's death, I must also review the stage when my faith had just begun to bud. It was during the time when our whole family was banished to the farming village, and I was in elementary school. At that time, it was illegal to hide a Bible in the house, and my parents' Bibles had all been confiscated after a house search. My mother asked an elderly sister for a few tattered pages of the book of Psalms and some hand-copied songs of praise. At night, when we huddled around the only kerosene lamp we had to do our homework, Mama would begin reading the Psalms. Mama's hair had turned completely white, although she was only in her forties, and it was very eye-catching as it shimmered in the dim kerosene light. All this left an indelible picture in my memory. Through Mama's storytelling, I had a faint idea of the characters in the Bible.

One summer night, I lay alone on a string hammock by a pond, thinking over the beating and humiliation I had suffered during the daytime. My heart was filled with unbearable torment. Who was my help? Who could I rely on? Gazing at the star-filled sky, I began to pour my heart out to God. Then, the story of the boy Samuel came to my mind. How miraculous! I could not help but yearn for God to choose me just like He chose Samuel. I could not imagine that God would give such importance to a child's voiceless prayer. Twenty years later, that is, one night, two months after Papa had passed away, God called me. That scenario was almost identical to that in the book of First Samuel Chapter 3.

It was around four in the morning on June 6, 1993. I was awoken by a very clear voice. Someone was calling me by my name. I hurriedly woke my wife up and then climbed out of bed. I ran to the bedroom window, opened it and shouted downwards, "Who's calling me? Who's calling me?"

It was very quiet everywhere in the deep night. My wife said, "Did you hear wrongly? Was it your imagination?" I was sure it was not my imagination and so I prayed, "O Lord, if it is You, please help me to know."

On the night of June 11^th, I heard that voice again, calling my name like the first time. I finally understood it was the Lord! Immediately, I knelt down to pray, "O Lord, please tell me, what should I do?" Miraculously, a voice seemed to speak in my heart, saying, "Offer your body as a living sacrifice." I knew this was from the Bible but I could not remember exactly where it was from. So I sat down, opened the Bible and found it in the book of Romans 12:1, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship.

Outside the window, numerous stars and a bright moon shone in the sky.

Because of the huge amount of blood that Papa received, he finally regained some energy. He seemed to be trying to make good use of the time to say some important things to us. On an exceptionally dark night when the whole ward seemed hushed, all the whole family sat around Papa listening to him talk about his life of following the Lord. As he talked, he coughed, but nobody said a word. Time seemed to have stood still.

He said, "My life has been a tough one, like that of a tumbler doll. Each time I felt I was going to topple over, it was God Who brought me through. Your mother and I have gone through thick and thin together. But from now on, we will no longer be able to comfort, encourage and uphold each other. I thank God that He has allowed me to see how much you love your own mother. Now, I hand her over to you, and more so, I hand her over to God, asking Him to watch over her." Then, Papa began to pray. He prayed to God for the church, for Mama and for his children. He seemed to know that there was not much time left, and his prayer was extraordinarily intense. In his prayer, he handed over to us the heavy responsibility of preaching the Gospel. His heart was very heavy while he prayed, and he shed tears pleading with God to remember his prayer that night.

All the while, I sat by his bedside, quietly observing him and reflecting on how his whole life had been quite dramatic. He had been born into a wealthy family and became a playful bachelor at the Bund, the Shanghai harbor area. He had his own sedan -- something rarely seen even in Shiliyangchang. And yet God led him to his present stage. When he asked us on his deathbed whether we could love God wholeheartedly, all of us could assure him that we would do so because we all saw what God had done in his life. In the final years of his life, Papa constantly paid close attention to our faith. He prayed for us and God heard him. At the critical moments of our lives, God carried us through.

There was a period of time in the early 1990s when I was spiritually very weak. That was my most successful stage in life from a worldly point of view. After I graduated from university with a major in electrical engineering, I was employed by a prestigious research institute. There, I felt valued by my employer. The irony of life, however, is that only when a person achieves his own goal does he realize that all is but vanity. And so I began to indulge myself in worldly enjoyment. I went to dance halls and I asked a dance instructor to teach me. I tried to cover up the agony and uneasiness in my heart with the music and rhythm of dance, but I found this very difficult. Upon leaving the dance halls late at night, I always found that my heart had grown heavier. I could not put my finger on why I was unwilling to go home. I was like a lonesome soul wandering along the pitch-dark streets. The days passed in this way for a long time.

At the end of 1991, God marvelously arranged for me to meet a person, and God used him to help me break free from the dance halls. He was a British man named David. From David's life, I saw faithfulness and devotion to God. David was very talented and dynamic and came from a well-to-do family. Yet for the sake of preaching the Gospel, he left home willingly to taste loneliness and poverty. You would not be able to imagine how David could live in a little room with wind coming through the four walls during a Northern winter in China. There were neither tables nor chairs in the room -- only a single bed, and all his possessions were but one knapsack. The contrast between his family background and his present environment was so vast that I was shocked. That morning, in that poor and cold little room, David led us to worship the Lord. His singing and prayer, his warmth and self-denial helped me to experience intensely the power of worship and the glory of God's presence. Perhaps Brother David himself did not realize how deeply his life had influenced mine.

My friendship with David caused me to seriously examine my own faith. The world that had so attracted me previously now lost its hold on me. I determined to distance myself from dance halls, never to allow this kind of worldly pleasure to poison my soul.

Another gain that resulted from my friendship with David was that I could understand the Bible when I read it. Let me pause to explain what I mean. It was because of the Bible that I came to know David. He was teaching English at a university, and I happened to meet him in a classroom at another university. He was teaching the Parable of the Sower from the Gospel of Mark, which surprised me because teaching the Bible at Chinese universities was absolutely impermissible. The Dean objected vehemently when he discovered what David was doing. But David insisted that he had only made preparations to teach the parable so that if he were not allowed to carry on, the class would have to stop.

The university could only reluctantly compromise. As soon as David finished class, I stood up and walked right up to the lecturer's desk from the last row at the back, and every student was taken aback, wondering what had gone amiss. I stood in front of David and said, "I am a Christian. What about you?"

He probably felt somewhat unprepared, but nodded and said, "Certainly."

I said, "I would like to talk to you." While strolling around on campus, David said a lot but his pace of spoken English was too fast for me so that I could hardly understand him. But when I showed my parents the English name he had given me and written on my palm, Papa exclaimed in surprise, "Wow! Jonathan! He wants to be your good friend." David is indeed a good friend that God has given me. I have learned a lot from him.

As I looked at Papa on his deathbed, I thought of David again. God is so amazing! He raises up so many servants of different backgrounds, different characters and different cultures in order to edify His children, to build up the faith of His saints. Suddenly, I felt an urge of wanting to enter into His service. I just had to share this thought with Papa!

Since the doctors could not diagnose the cause and the location of Papa's internal bleeding, the bleeding could not be stopped. The massive blood transfusion only temporarily alleviated the crisis. A Red Cross sign was still hanging in front of his bed to indicate his critical condition.

While Papa was racing against time to arrange various matters before he left us, he also strove to recall whether or not he had neglected anything. One day, he asked for Mama and his three children to come to his bedside, and then he told us about an incident. As Papa spoke about this, his inner anguish and restlessness showed. This event happened while our family was banished to a rural village. One of my aunts (Mama's elder sister) knew of our hard life and sent us a sum of roughly five hundred yuan (Chinese dollars). She also wrote in her letter that two hundred yuan was to be given to my uncle (her brother) out of this amount. But since our family desperately needed the money for our living, we spent the portion that should have been given to my uncle. The payment to my uncle was subsequently delayed and then forgotten. Papa said, "I have felt extremely guilty, ashamed and have been pained by this. I've done your uncle an injustice and more than that, I am shamefully indebted to the Lord." He earnestly and tirelessly warned us, "Without holiness, no man shall see God!" He gave us an amount of money and told us to repay our uncle two-fold, and to do so as soon as possible. We were also to apologize most sincerely to our uncle's family and to ask them to forgive and forget.

In my recollection, Papa's attitude towards sin was very serious. During the Cultural Revolution, he would rather have died than kneel before Mao Tze Dong's statue. I witnessed first-hand how he was kicked and punched by a revolutionary gang. They pushed him to the ground while forcing his arms backward. Even though wounded by their blows, he still refused to kneel.

Another time, during our exile in the village, Papa was selected to work in the co-op hospital because he was a qualified doctor. One day, the wife of the Secretary of the co-op was hospitalized. All the other people said she did not need to pay but, as the doctor, Papa insisted that she be charged the standard fees. This provoked the Secretary's anger and Papa suffered immensely for this. He was sacked and sent from place to place to be criticized in public with a placard around his neck. He lived as a Christian in a dangerous environment and often encountered unexpected calamities. Yet Papa endured them without a word, and repaid those who did him harm with compassion.

Once, a critically ill patient was seriously delayed in getting medical help so that by the time he arrived at the hospital, it was already too late to save him. Papa tried everything he could, but to no avail. That day, the patient's family beat him up until his face was covered with blood. Papa did not hit back and would not allow us to hit back either.

What Papa did astounded us, sowing deeply into our young hearts the seeds of righteousness, integrity, love and goodness. These became the standard for our moral principles in the future. These prevented us from being trapped by sin when facing the various temptations of the world. When I first joined the research institute, I was in charge of electrical circuit maintenance and electricity bill payment. I discovered that a senior engineer, who was considerably favored by the Director of the institute, was tapping electricity for his own use without wanting to pay for it. Such dishonesty was something I would not condone. So, when I refused his request to cover up for him, he framed me. He also instigated my boss to fire me. The institute took away my housing benefits and I was asked to evacuate from the house where I was living. I was also threatened that if I did not admit to the false charges the senior engineer had brought against me behind my back, I would be fired.

That afternoon, anger and revenge raged within me. And yet, that engineer had the impudence to come and ask me to repair his television set. God gave me a most painful decision to make and a most difficult test indeed. I really could not face the insincere smile that camouflaged my colleague's wickedness. As I paced the room, the Holy Spirit did not order me to go but simply asked me, "Are you unwilling to go because of hatred?" So, I took up my toolbox and went to my colleague's house. I placed this injustice against me before the Lord. Half a year later, he was fired because of adultery. And then my boss, the Director, began to trust the character of a Christian and decided to entrust important tasks to me.

At that time, the research institute needed to purchase a few million yuan's worth of equipment and spare parts from Shanghai. This procurement job was full of problems relating to corruption, as kickbacks and other forms of bribery were rampant in the marketplace at that time. Almost none of the buyers would let go of the benefits that were handed them. The Shanghai merchants also constantly threw tempting baits at these greedy souls. The loser was undoubtedly the research institute and the Director was wracking his brains about this. The electricity-bill-payment evasion incident suddenly made the administrators realize that in dealing with such temptations, it is the Christians who are truly the gems.

One day, the Director looked me up, and asked me to go to Shanghai to handle a purchase deal. To me, this really was the biggest challenge and temptation in all of my life. First of all, as the buyer, I needed to carry up to a million yuan on me every day. Then, of course, the biggest allurement came from the sellers. In China, due to the absence of a structured supervisory system, one could do as one pleased in the business arena. The sellers would offer their buyers money, pretty girls, limousines, houses - anything short of nuclear bombs -- "until your heart pounds," as the popular saying went in those days.

Did my Heart Pound?
I should thank the brothers and sisters in Shanghai because I often met with them to pray, study the Bible and worship God. Therefore, I had support and strength to resist temptation. As a Christian employee, I conscientiously gave my all to the responsibilities of my job. I have to honestly confess that if it were not for God's protection, I would have succumbed to bribery masked by friendship and smiles. I well understood the insidiousness and deceitfulness of temptation. The businessmen who knew that I was a Christian questioned me time and again, "Can there be anybody who is not greedy in this world?

Temptations in the business world are like strong winds blowing across the sea, causing wave after wave of attack. I met a young female entrepreneur whose interpretation of love reflected the right-to-the-point, fair and fast pace of the business world, doing away with the tactful, elegant dignity and restraint of the conventional school of thought. She told me directly that she loved me. I had already seen through her intentions earlier on and told her that I was already married. But she chose to ignore what she heard. Then, her father invited me for dinner and tactfully said that his daughter would not mind at all that I was already married. By a young man's intuition, I perceived that this was not a commercial snare but that this girl respected me for who I was.

One night, while I was reading in my room, she walked in and came up to my side abruptly. Then she embraced and kissed me. I was flabbergasted by this sudden "attack"! Thank God that this ardent expression of emotion did not stimulate my passion. I was only filled with the fear of God. I stood up, struggled free from her hold and rushed out of the room quickly. Having been banished to the countryside for over a dozen years, I had become a country bumpkin! For me to suddenly face Shanghai with its dazzling array of delights made me feel like a sheep facing a pack of wolves. Though there were no sharp teeth or howling cries, or even blood stains that night, I could have been finished! Precisely at this critical time, God led me to a brother and a church, and I entered into a completely new stage of life.

The period when Papa was critically ill was actually the turning point of my life. The greatest decision of my life was conceived at his deathbed. During the days I attended to Papa, I decided to be a preacher of the Gospel like my father after a period of contemplation. I shared my thoughts with him and asked him to pray for me. Papa pondered for a while and then smiled at me and began his prayer. However, just as Papa began to pray for me, I felt a sudden, unspeakable fear and trembling. Why was this so? Only at that time did I realize that deep down in my heart I had a fear of the cost that preachers of the Gospel have to pay. I could sense that from the day I decide to become a preacher of the Gospel, my family and I would be trudging the long and wearisome path of suffering. My parents' tragic experiences would be replayed in our lives. The Lord had said, "In the world you have tribulation" (John 16:33). But how could I face the jeering of my relatives and friends? How would I face the tears of my wife and child? When these difficulties materialized in the days ahead, could I imitate the Lord to bear them silently and even rejoice over them?

My father, however, had already opened his mouth to pray for me.

I knew the Lord had heard Papa's prayer. Not long after he passed away, God gave me the first test. Previously, I have already mentioned that when I was a buyer in Shanghai, I got to know a brother and a church. From the events that followed, it was definitely not mere coincidence that we met. After Mama talked to this brother, she realized that he was a reliable Christian. She then asked him to baptize some brothers and sisters in the church. In the spring of 1994, this brother sent me a letter asking if I would be willing to join a Bible study training, which would begin on September 9^th.

The first person to oppose was my wife because I would have to resign in order to join this training. My wife had already lost her job, and if I did not bring in the income, what would become of our family? My wife was extremely firm. She said, "If you go your own way, we will get a divorce!" My wife's family also stepped in when they heard about this and tried to interfere. Though my mother-in-law was not well-educated, she knew how to get at my soft spot. She asked me, "So you don't want your wife? You don't want your son?" My brother-in-law spoke very tactfully. "It's good to be a preacher of the Gospel. That's very noble. Your father was also a very good man, and I really respected him. But he suffered all his life. You have to be more practical. Don't you have to consider your family? What about your son?" Finally he said, "You are very immature." His words rang in my ears, leaving me much to ponder about.

My employer also objected. The Director of the institute is a very experienced leading cadre. He smiled when he heard that I wanted to resign. "Are you dissatisfied with the research institute? You can speak your mind. Do you feel that your business trip allowances are too low? Actually, our compensation is really quite good. What other needs do you still have that we can attend to? Why don't we talk about them?" he asked.

"It's not because of any of these. You have been very kind to me. But perhaps you have already heard that I am a Christian. I'm resigning because of my faith," I replied.

He said, "I know you're a Christian. It's precisely because of this that I've given you this job. But a Christian still has to work. He still has to feed his family. It's really not easy to get into a work unit such as our research institute, so you should treasure what you have."

At this point in time, it was impossible for me to discuss anything about my faith with my boss, but I was determined to leave. When he saw that there was no way to turn me back, he solemnly told me, "According to our regulations, whoever resigns cannot be re-employed." Then he looked at me and wrote on my record, "Send to Human Resource Exchange Center." Standing in front of him, I was still smiling, but my heart was tossing wildly like a rough sea. I was very career-minded and had suffered what no ordinary person could endure to be admitted into university. (As a persecuted pastor's child, I was deprived of a steady education, let alone a good one. And when the rare opportunity of schooling came by, I had to study in a hostile environment of jeering and partiality.) And I saw my present job as the beginning of my career. But now, as my boss drew a full stop to my career on my employment record, all my efforts were wasted. In China, when a person leaves his work unit, he would feel as though he was being uprooted and thrown out as garbage. It was literally the end of the world for him. (All work units in China were state-owned, and they provided for every working adult and his/her family in their lifetime from cradle to grave. Hence whether or not a person could belong to a work unit was like a life-and-death situation.)

The opposition from my wife and my boss wore me out, and I wanted to get some comfort from my brother. But his attitude was unexpectedly ambiguous. He did not say much, but what he said had both negative and positive connotations. He said, "I don't object to your choice. Being the eldest son in the family, I should bear the burden of the family, but it's beyond my means. As your elder brother, I have contributed a lot to our family." He was hinting that a person should be responsible for his family. I felt even more miserable after this. I could understand how difficult it was for him. He had taken care of our family at the cost of his youth. My conscience also told me that he was in a terrible fix because of his broken marriage. So I should not pass my burden to him.

At that time, Mama was the only person who was my support. Although Mama was elderly and frail, she was absolutely unwavering and bold in her stand. She said, "Go! Trust in God's guidance no matter how difficult the future may be. We have experienced suffering as a Christian family. There is nothing we can't endure in this world." Mama prayed with me that God would give me strength. Mama's support was like a fire burning radiantly within me. It strengthened me and I stepped forward resolutely, like the Israelites who set out on the road to Canaan, into the unknown future.

The last worship that Papa led us is something that every one in our family will never forget. It was Sunday, March 28^th. Three days later, Papa would pass away. That morning, as Papa had requested, we stopped all medication and treatment and the whole family gathered in his room. After the worship began, he sang many songs of praise with all of us. He sang "Hallelujah" over and over again. But we could not carry on singing when we saw how weak he was. And yet he still spoke in English, inviting us to continue singing. Although Papa knew that this might be the very last time that he would worship with us, he looked extraordinarily peaceful and joyful. "I'll be seeing the Lord very soon," he said, "and when I do go, you mustn't cry. You must sing songs of praise to send me off to the heavenly Father."

This worship that Papa led was truly meaningful. He used this approach to tell all of us that God's children must serve the Lord with all their hearts, all their minds, and all their beings until their last breath. Papa did not specify what to do with the church after he was gone. He only used his own love for the Lord to encourage those who came on the scene later. In a sense, for us three siblings, the last image of Papa was also the constant driving force behind our total commitment to God later on.

He believed that God would lead our family and the church. Indeed, in the events that followed, God revealed Himself to us time and again and helped us overcome weaknesses and temptations through His lovingkindness. At the critical moment in every spiritual battle, the Lord always used His Word to tide me over the crisis.

I arrived home from the Bible training on May 23, 1995. I had no job and so I had no income. How was my family going to live? Gradually, my wife's restless anxiety turned into irrational anger, and she took all this out on me. She did not bother to disguise her dissatisfaction and disappointment. Each time I preached at the pulpit, she would publicly contradict and oppose me. She also repeatedly raised the subject of divorcing me. Though my son was young, he also felt the wretchedness of financial want. He accused me of being selfish. Meanwhile, my friends alienated me because they had misgivings about my decision to leave my job. One of my relatives even questioned me saying, "Did you do something wrong at work?"

Everything around me was telling me that my decision to dedicate myself to God was actually blind and childish. Also, in the depths of my heart were two different voices. One voice loudly scorned my choice as utter foolishness, saying, "Throughout the ages, there have been kindhearted people with ideals and integrity who gave up everything, including wealth and position, to realize their own dreams. But they were successful! Some of them have become honored heroes and world-famous masters in their trade. What are you doing preaching the Gospel? You speak grandly as though you're building a great career. Aren't you just teaching a bunch of old women, a marginal group in society that nobody's interested in? For you who are young and able, mixing with these old women is ridiculous!" And yet, my conscience quietly reassured me to trust in the Lord.

One day, as my son and I were walking through the bustling city, the dazzling, brightly-colored world was reminding me of the fun of the old days. My job at the research institute had provided me with a yearly income of 10,000 yuan. Added to all the benefits I had received, I had enjoyed an affluent life. I had been able to afford expensive branded goods, and I had often patronized restaurants and dance halls. Now, sauntering on the streets, I lustfully coveted those enchanting places. I could hardly hold myself back.

A sense of frustration and the temptations of this world brought my suffering to a climax. What was most unbearable for me was the loneliness. I really felt I was alone with no peer support -- either from my wife or my brother. There was no one that I could talk to and I was enfeebled by the anguish that was building up inside me. What was I to do? At the time of my deepest pain, I wrote to the brother who had trained me. However, I never heard from him. A few months later, the letter was returned to me marked "No such person." At that point, my wife issued me with a final ultimatum -- a letter saying that she wanted to leave me and find a job out of town.

I began to waver and I told the Lord, "I can't stand this anymore." That afternoon, I took my wife and son out for a meal. I was struggling painfully in my heart, looking for a way to retreat. I thought about looking for a job and serving the Lord part-time. As I was thinking along these lines, a tiny voice sounded in my ear: "I have already died for you." It was the Lord! The Lord was speaking to me! As I listened to the Lord's gentle voice, I leaned against a tree by the side of a main street and wept. I could not stop my tears. It was exactly like what a certain poet wrote, "At that moment, I could feel the suffering of every one of Your wounds from being flogged stretched out over my own body." As I wept, I told the Lord, "Lord, I am willing...."

That experience pacified my turbulent heart. From then on, I was willing to offer my body as a living sacrifice. Actually, before this, the Lord had already told me His will through the words of another person. After my resignation, my boss had told me that if I wanted to return, he would still consider re-employing me. So in my weakest moment, I went to the research institute. And the Deputy Director, a very good friend of mine, startled me when he said, "You resigned to preach the Gospel. Although I'm not a Christian, I admire your courage to burn your bridges. One has to be single-minded in whatever one does. A person just cannot do two things and do well in both. Go ahead and do a good job at preaching the Gospel!" Thus my dear Lord supported and guided my every step. And so I put this incident to song:

My Lord, dear Father,
I willingly surrender in humble awe
Since Your love has conquered me.
You have sustained my weary soul through it all.

On April 1, 1993, my papa finished his seventy-three years of life and rested from his labors in the Lord's peaceful bosom. Those brothers and sisters whom he had looked after came from everywhere to attend his memorial service. With tears in their eyes, they told of how Papa had helped them and led them. They bore witness to an ordinary man, who when he offered himself to God to be broken and used by Him, entered God's eternity after his transient life on earth.

Papa was lying there in the coffin, and he looked just as kindly and serene as when he was alive. The story of his entire life flashed before my eyes in picture form. From a rich young man of Shanghai to a prisoner on a farm in Qinghai, from a lost, patriotic youth to a single-minded shepherd of the church, Papa's life resembled a drama with a complicated plot. And God was the Director par excellence, manifesting His great love and power in every scene. My two siblings and I slipped into reminiscences about the past as we stood by Papa's coffin, listening to brothers and sisters singing songs of farewell. We remembered that stormy night when the wind and the rain raged and our family sang songs of praise and thanksgiving. We remembered the comfort and protection from God in times when we had nothing else to rely on. It was because we had such a father that we were fortunate enough to know, since childhood, that there is an omnipotent Power in this heaven and earth - and that He is our Father, our Lord, our Protector and our Strength. It was because we had such a father that we were in time to put right our direction at life's most critical moments, tightly clinging onto God's promises. It is precisely because we have such a papa that we can distinguish between what is noble and what is base in an age such as this where right and wrong is confused and where moral principles are confounded. From this, we established a correct value system and outlook on life. Oh Papa, thank you!

Goodbye, Dear Papa!
April 1^st was Papa's last day in the world, and he was to be cremated that morning. There was, however, a bad practice in our local crematorium that the family of the deceased had to buy cigarettes for the laborers. As Christians, we could not do that, and so my brother and I decided to cremate Papa ourselves. That was truly a soul-stirring moment.

We placed Papa's body in a hearse and pushed it before the furnace. Then, we transferred him onto a cart, opened the door of the furnace and pushed hard to send Papa's body into the blazing flames. Papa's hair dissolved almost immediately. And right after that, his clothes and body were charred, just like what we saw in anatomy classes. Gradually, a scorched skeleton was revealed in the fire. What had been alive only a few days ago suddenly became a pile of ashes, in a matter of minutes.

My brother and I thought of Psalm 102, verse 3 almost simultaneously:

For my days have been consumed like smoke and my bones have been scorched like a hearth.

We put Papa's ashes into a cloth bag that we had brought along. Holding it in my hands, I felt as though I was engulfed in a big void. Status, riches, wife, children and happiness on earth immediately lost their worth before this handful of ashes. We will remember this scene to the end of our lives. No wonder my brother told Mama right then and there: "Papa is dead, and I have come alive." He expressed what all of us wanted to say.

Papa has left us for eight years. And in these eight years, I have often thought of that funeral in spring. For us three siblings, as we gazed across the chasm dividing life and death, we were made to separate the eternal from the transient. Spiritually, we were like a nest of twittering birds, not yet able to fly. But when Papa, at his last hour, handed us over to the fast-changing sky, he placed us into the hands of the mighty Navigator at the same time. A father on earth is temporary, but the Father in heaven is eternal.

Like Our Papa, We Began to Rise into Eternal Life
Two months after Papa left us, I began to preach the Gospel with Mama's encouragement. In August 1994, I left my job to serve the church. And in June 1996, my wife repented and was baptized into Christ Jesus. Now, she is helping me to take care of the brothers and sisters in the church. In November 1999, my elder brother also resigned from his job and set his heart on serving the Lord's church. When he gave up his career and future to commit his life to God, he was already prepared to suffer for Him. In September 1999, my sister also determinedly gave up her high pay and a promotion to senior management in a multinational corporation in order to serve the Lord full-time. Her prayer to God was: "I offer up all that I have, including my marriage, on Your altar of sacrifice."

I often think, "What will Papa say when he is reunited with his children in the kingdom of God one day?" Perhaps we will not say anything. Perhaps we will sing loudly together with Papa his favorite song of praise and sing it eternally:

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

This is a true story about a three-generation family which spans a few periods of time in the history of China. The family members are molded by innumerable experiences of suffering and temptation. And yet, they choose to remain true to Jesus Christ as they walk the narrow road with Him. They choose to suffer severe persecution rather than to enjoy the transient pleasures of sin. Is this the path that you would take?

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