As a global religion, praise is a great feature of Christianity. In China, in addition to the great masters of sacred music such as Ma Geshun, the hymns created by ordinary Christians also have extremely distinctive Chinese characteristics. The most well-known of these is Sister Xiaomin, a sister from Henan province. In addition, there are countless ordinary Christians as well.
Brother Luan who lives in Yinchuan, Ningxia province is an ordinary Christian. He had accepted the Lord more than 20 years ago. From two years ago until this year, he has created three Christian hymns, two of which have been sung by the church's senior choir. They were also uploaded to video websites such as Youku.
Brother Luan is 64 years old this year. His hometown is in Jiangsu province and he came to Ningxia with his family when he was 5 years old. More than 20 years ago, when he was hospitalized with asthma, his friend's wife, a nurse at the hospital, told him that believing in the Lord could heal his illness. That's why he believed in the Lord from the very beginning.
After his conversion, Brother Luan began to attend church meetings. He said that at that time, no one in the church could play the piano and there was no piano. Even the lead singers were all out of tune. Brother Luan used to enjoy music and had somewhat of an ear for music. Seeing the church's need, he felt he should serve in this area. He began to learn to play the piano after work every day.
Whether it was learning to play piano or leading worship, he started to study on his own. There was a tape of the new hymns in one of the believer's house. He bought four empty tapes, recorded all the hymns, and picked some simple ones for learning the notation. Later, he started to learn to play the electric organ without having a tutor. When a teacher came, he seized every opportunity for asking questions.
Gradually he began to lead the senior choir in Helan Church. Every time it was expected to prepare the hymn according to the preaching theme, but he could not find hymns about the subjects in some preaching content. In order to serve, he began to learn to write some hymns about related topics. That's why these three hymns came to birth.
The year before last year, he wrote his first hymn, "Jesus, You are God." This is also his most touching hymn, and he feels better "using this for delivering the good news." The first sentence of this hymn is "When you preach Jesus to people, they might ask who God is, please show me..." This is a question many people often encounter when reaching out. Brother Luan hopes to tell people who God is by this hymn. After writing it, he sang this hymn within the senior choir. If the choir's ready to sing, they can sing outside and also evangelize.
Later, he wrote a hymn entitled, "The Appearance of the Lord". Last year, the Helan Church began to build its own church building. And this year, the main building was completed. He wrote another hymn, "Building the Temple of God." Brother Luan said that he mainly writes at home, first the lyrics and then the notation. He writes in pencil at first because normally it will be changed many times. When he is satisfied, it will be printed. As usual, the senior choir will practice it first.
Brother Luan said the started believing in Jesus because He could cure his disease. "However later I felt that it was enough just for Jesus to be with me, no matter whether the disease is healed or not." After he believed in the Lord, he also gave up playing Mahjong. Nowadays he's so grateful to the sister who shares the good news with him. As for hymns, he will continue on and praise Jesus for the great works that He has accomplished in his life.
- Translated by Ze Wang
