I'm He Zenghai, born in a farm laborer's family of Xi'an, Shaanxi in 1967. I grew up with my mother alone because my father worked in another province, Qinghai.
The complex family relations and special living conditions contributed to an unbalanced residence for me. Until 1976 when my younger brother was born, I was left in my grandmother's home and my mother decided to take my brother to live with my father in Qinghai due to the disadvantaged financial condition in our community. I became the "left-behind child" of the family.
After graduation from middle school, I went to Qinghai and lived with my family. Then, I was admitted to a local high school and on the second grade, I was in poor physical condition, suffering from backache and poor eyesight. Unfortunately, I was hospitalized not long after.
During my frustrating days, I went to a church alone for the first time on a Sunday of August 1989. I remembered that I was crying while singing the hymn 'Must I Go and Empty Handed?', feeling that I couldn't live without the church.
The second day, I joined in an exam to apply to become a teacher in a local primary school. It turned out that I was selected as I ranked first place among all the candidates. Thank God that my class got much higher scores than those classes where the experienced teachers were in charge of.
However, pleasant hours flew fast. In a conference close to the end of the semester, the school's headmaster criticized me, he who was a member of the Communist Youth League of China, for believing in Christianity. I was fired.
One year later, a local church, approved to open by the local authority, bought a house on a mountain. I became the first guard on duty of the church. Baptized in 1991, I went to study in Yanjing Theological Seminary.
But in the first semester, I became weaker in both spirit and body, especially suffering from severe hemorrhoids that caused hematochezia and even rectal prolapse. The doctor said that I was in such poor health that no operation could be performed. I couldn't take care of myself for a period of time.
At that time, my teachers and students tried to find doctors for me. Two doctors from another hospital, who treated me well, still were uncertain about my future condition. Some who helped me also considered me as a burden. Thank the Lord, I didn't feel disappointed.
In an evening prayer meeting at school, I preached a sermon named 'The Lord Will Use Me'. My sermon was published in a magazine, added with the verse from Psalm 103: 1-4. Those verses moved me. I believed that God would use me, put me in an important position and I was going to recover.
Time flew. When it came to the internship in my hometown, the headmaster and headteacher of the seminary said the same word to us, the undergraduates, "Be ready to cry when you go back! " Consequently, the word was fulfilled on me first. I was forced to leave Datong Church for my ill health.
Later, I went back to Xi'an for treatment with 500 yuan my parents gave me. I was so badly weak that the large intestine would come out of my body after a five-meter walk. The local hospital required me to be hospitalized to prevent further complications. But it was impossible to do so with just 500 yuan.
I stayed in my aunt's home which was more than 10 kilometers away from the hospital. I had to take an agricultural tricycle that traveled at a low speed to arrive at the hospital. Hobbling, I always asked God when herding sheep for my aunt, "God! Why would this be?" But I knew in my heart that he would use me so he trained me.
Several months later, I got well from the disease. I returned to Qinghai and began to sell feather shoes for a living. The second year, I got married. Then, some suggested to me that I should resume my study in Yanjing. I accepted the advice and continued my study in March 1996. Encouraged and supported by a deputy president of the seminary, I completed the degree. At the commencement exercises, the headmaster said, "After graduation, you don't battle for lecterns with others. If the church doesn't arrange you to preach sermons, then clean the toilets, which nobody will kill for with you."
But I was wondering: where was the church I was going to?
