Editor's note: As an ardent Christian in Northeast China for more than two decades, Fen, a baby boomer, visited a village called "Shack" where a spacious and bright church had been established, and about 20 believers gather steadily. Fen had once gone to preach the gospel there 20 years ago.
Fen, a female believer, shared her experience of ministry and the establishment of the church with the Chinese online Christian newspaper, the Christian Times.
More than 20 years ago, after Fen accepted the gospel, she frequently went to the surrounding countryside with other believers to preach Jesus Christ to the destitute.
In 2003, while Fen was praying in the church, she received a call from her relative Wumei, the fifth younger sister, who informed her that a 16-year-old boy, Wumei's relative, had been bedridden for three years with cranial tuberculosis. Before he fell ill, the child used to herd sheep on the mountain. The child's mother wished to invite Fen to come and pray for the child.
Subsequently, Fen and another female church worker named Zhang visited the impoverished village called "Shack."
During the SARS epidemic in 2002, they arrived at a small earthen house with broken plastic sheets covering the window. The house was low, and the grass on the shed had been touched by hands. The child's father was slightly deaf, and his mother, from South China, was stooped, dark, and thin. Lying on the kang, a heatable brick bed, with his backbone exposed due to extended bedriddenness, the child could not open his eyes and had difficulty breathing. The house was malodorous as the boy had been lying on the kang for an extended period.
Seated on the kang, both believers held the child's hand, prayed and praised three times, and tears flowed from the child's eyes. They served the child for three consecutive days, and on the third day, he opened his eyes. The neighbors were amazed.
When they returned to their city, they shared the child's story with their church. A week later, church members contributed supplies such as quilts to the child. Eventually, the child sat up. At that time, Fen thought that God could be glorified if the entire village believed in the Lord when this child was healed. She kept praying about it.
Indeed, the child's parents and his relatives, including Wumei, all converted to Christianity due to this miraculous incident.
Although the child's condition was improving with the donations from the believers, he suddenly fell into a coma. However, they hoped that God could perform a miracle, so they confessed the child's sins and repented together with his mother. The child later passed away.
Perplexed by this incident, Fen prayed with a complaint at Wumei's house, "Lord, what I wanted was for this child to live, why did you let him die?" While questioning God on her knees, she began to vomit and felt dizzy. She suddenly realized that maybe the Lord had reminded her not to blame Him, so she immediately asked the Lord for forgiveness. After praying, she recovered.
The child's family held a simple funeral service for the child, and then his father came to her and said that he saw Jesus leading his son away. At this point, she recalled that when she prayed for the child in the morning, she saw a vision of the flying horse pulling the cart for him. She began to understand that God had taken the child away.
Convinced that the child had found eternal rest in Jesus' arms, his parents were willing to worship and praise the Lord in their own home, and villagers came there to pray one after another. As a result, a family gathering place was founded, and a female believer from the village assumed the role of leading the church.
The female Christian has been serving at the meeting point for 20 years, during which time some believers passed away and others moved out of the village. Currently, there are about 20 people who gather regularly, and several of them are new believers. In this small church, several people who couldn't be treated in the hospital came there to be healed.
After gathering in a dirty and dilapidated small house, they built a spacious and bright brick house with the help of the government. The child's mother, who was once stooped, black, and thin, is now completely different from before. She stands tall with a straight waist and is filled with joy. Despite having little schooling, she leads churchgoers in praise. The father, who used to be able to hear only when others shouted at him, now wears a hearing aid and reads the Bible for the congregation in church.
Furthermore, their church now has its own buildings. The inside room can accommodate more than 100 people, with 50 people seated in the glass room outside. Compared to the old one with a leaky plastic sheet covering the window, which Fen saw for the first time, she couldn't imagine that the church had changed so much.
- Translated by Abigail Wu
