Sister Xiang is my fellow village woman, but I don’t know exactly where she’s from originally or even recognize her. However, we come from the same Shandong Province.
I came to know her through a brother who dragged her into our church chat group on WeChat. Xiang seemed to give attention to the brother. It turned out that they were both trained in a praise and worship team of a church. The family of the brother was working in my city with his elderly parents.
Becoming a Christian at an early age, Xiang dedicated herself to God when she grew up. In her last year of studying at Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, she was chosen by the head of a very famous church in northeastern China. Then she traveled from Shandong to a small city in the northeast, but her passion faded away along with the geographic variations, climate discomfort, and homesickness.
The three forced retreats to her hometown drove her into a corner. She desperately stayed in the church of fewer than 20 members. The small church has grown to more than 100 believers. To meet the increasing needs, the church spent more than one million yuan renovating the bungalow into a three-story house. In the completion ceremony, a local official leader in charge of religious affairs said to her, “I can see from you that Jesus whom you believe in is real because you can’t finish it as a little girl from a foreign place.”
The pastor who hired her led her spiritually and served as her brother, offering full support to her ministry. The girl has grown up to be the heroine of the house of God. She has excelled in pastoral ministry, administration, mission, and evangelism. The church has seen a regular attendance of more than 200.
She was in her twenties when graduating from the national seminary. Working in the bottleneck period of the church, she spared no effort to serve. She did not meet the right one. Stepping into her thirties, she had a flush with a brother who attended the worship training. They even talked about getting married. Originally from another province in the south, he had to return to his hometown as the only child. But she had to break up with him because she was reluctant to abandon her congregation.
Initially paid eight hundred yuan with food and accommodation provided, she now receives a wage twice that. However, she needs to give a tithe and also offers financial aid to those members in need.
Last July, she ran into an accident on a visit to her congregation. Though she was not badly hurt, her leg had to have surgery. Several months later, I learned that she was hospitalized again due to health issues. Had she spoken sporadically about it, I would never know her health condition because she seemed to serve more.
She told me that she had more time when lying on the bed. I tried to persuade her to meet her parents in her hometown and she might get better when she felt better. Then she sent me a long list of needy faces online and a list of crying faces followed.
She could not return home in 2019 with occupied ministries. The next year she was planning to go back, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented her plan. She could only grieve her grandfather’s death in a faraway place. She burst into tears as soon as her mother talked with her via video call.
The legendary story of her ministry is not a make-up tale, but a real account of the numberless soldiers of God’s kingdom.
