Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?"(Luke 17:17-18) Sister Liu who has served seriously ill children for 25 years replied, "I want to be the one who responds to the Lord's love."
Healed after becoming a Christian
Prior to her conversion to Christianity in 1991, Sister Liu Fengru was hospitalized in Inner Mongolia with body aches for two years. She thought that her uncured sickness was a puerperal fever. One of her non-Christian neighbors, whose mother-in-law was a Christian, suggested she believe in Jesus who might heal her disease.
During her hospitalization, a patient asked Liu to bring her to attend a church. As a local expert, Liu took her to a church. Liu heard an elderly brother talking about God's creation and found it novel. After hearing the sermon, she began to share the gospel with other people.
Later she joined the choir and participated in church visitation and evangelism ministries. "During my service in the church, my stubborn disease was gone."
Being healed, she was thinking of how to respond to God's love. One day she came up with an idea - "giving care to those abandoned elderly people and children".
Adopting the first abandoned child
In her second-year faith walk, an abandoned child with mental handicap broke up the silence of her church. A sister who lost her baby adopted him to whom the church also gave a monthly aid of two yuan. However, the church suspended the aid after some months and the sister couldn't afford to support him alone, so the church decided to send him to an orphanage. But another sister who visited him found him lose some weight then brought him back to the church.
There came a dilemma: no member was willing to adopt him and the church couldn't take him in. Facing such situation, Sister Liu threw out a word, "I will open an orphanage when I get rich." She adopted the child without telling her husband.
Objected by her family
After the adoption, more orphans came to her home, who were dropped off at hospitals and train stations or sent by people. An orphanage was founded and named "Love Paradise". The majority of the abandoned children suffered from cerebral palsy. Liu said that all the children adopted should be proved abandoned by the local police station. Knowing her good work, all her family members and friends objected to her. But she explained nothing and continued her service. "Jesus didn't explain when he was crucified on the cross. The way of faith was different from the worldly one."
Li, her husband, was the largest opposer who asked for a divorce for three times in the following decade. Liu kept on enduring with his opposition and submitted to him in daily life. She chose to commit her marriage to the Lord and told her husband that they could divorce if God allowed it. As a result, Li never mentioned a divorce anymore. Twelve years later, he finally followed Jesus. Having compassion on her who was toilsome to look after the children, he joined the service.
Selling houses to raise abandoned children
Liu used to be a workplace elite resolved to be No.1 in every aspect. She bought four houses.
However, it was a huge expense to cover the children's daily needs, medical treatment, and education. She even sold the four houses and still ran her business to keep the orphanage going. "I was grateful that the houses were bought at low prices while sold at much higher prices when we needed money."
"Wonders and miraculous signs" in the big family
In 2009, the couple moved to Beijing to seek treatment for a sick girl. They live in Fangshan District.
Liu shared,"Many wonders and miraculous signs happen here: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, and the mentally ill are healed..."
Liu showed happiness at the changes of the children. A boy who lost his sight due to the impact of intracranial hypertension on the nerves, but he slowly regains his sight; some children with cerebral palsy or chondropathy can gradually eat and walk by themselves; a deaf-mute teenager girl can hear and speak simple words after cochlear implants installed on her ears at 6. She believed that their changed resulted from the medical work and also God's work.
Apart from abandoned children, Liu once took in a tramp with mental illness. Afterward, the woman turned sane then returned to her home. The children's souls are also healed. A boy with severe burns used to bend down and hide his face in front of visitors. Liu often encouraged to keep his chin up and chest out, then he can naturally face strangers little by little.
The children help each other. A boy with chondropathy asks a 12-year-old blind boy to button his jacket and pull up his trousers; a blind girl always holds the hands of two children with cerebral palsy; a teenager girl is a good assistant of the couple who helps with some housework. Liu also values their education. Those who meet the public schooling conditions study in general schools; some learn to play musical instruments; tutors are hired to teach those who can't go to school. Last year, she opened an SPA center, hoping to provide jobs to the children.
Approaching 60, Liu said that adopting abandoned children was a calling from God. She would do it until she was taken away by God someday. Currently, there are nine children living in the orphanage.
Afterword: Liu's only daughter also sometimes helps take care of these children."Since my childhood, my parents have been adopting children. I'm accustomed to it. Most outsiders say that they are great, but I feel sorry for my parents' hard work. They don't have their own time to enjoy an easy life like traveling and hanging around."
- Translated by Karen Luo
