"My brother, who is 95 years old and has retired long ago, still preaches in grassroots churches, bearing witness to God in good spirits," said an elderly Christian doctor.
On June 19, the pastor and staff members of Jiexi Church in Shima Town, Zhangzhou, Fujian, paid a visit to the daughter-in-law of a former pastor who served in Shima Church and her son, bringing a sample of a book of the history of Jiexi Church (first draft) to them.
Jiang Meiling, director of the Pediatrics Department of Fujian Medical University Union Hospital in Fuzhou, is the daughter-in-law of Rev. Ouyang Hou, with his son Ouyang Qiming as the director of the Department of Stomatology of the hospital. "As a graduate student, Qiming’s son is a surgeon at Union Medical College Hospital, just giving birth to a son, my great-grandson. So I have been upgraded to be a great-grandmother... " said Jiang happily.
"My father Jiang Tianhan, a devout Christian, was a famous western doctor trained by Zhangzhou Gospel Hospital, appointed as the chairman and acting president of the hospital. My brother Jiang Junyu, aged 95, has now retired, and once served as a pastor at Mochou Road Church after graduating from Nanjing Union Theological Seminary," Jiang added.
"I also graduated from the seminary," said Rev. Ye Yi’neng of Jiexi Church.
"Do you know my brother?" Jiang asked.
"Yes, as when we were studying theology in Nanjing, we practiced in churches in Nanjing every year, including the Mochou Road Church," Ye said.
"Born in Zhangzhou in 1927, after my father died, my brother was admitted to China’s most famous seminary at that time in Nanjing after graduating from middle school. Married in Nanjing, he was assigned to be a music teacher in Nanjing 26 Middle School (Nanjing Foreign Language School now) with a good voice. In the choir of Mochou Road Church reopening at the end of 1980, he retired to sing baritone, ordained as a pastor later," declared Jiang.
"Yes, I once heard him preach. He occasionally showed a paper written with the topic and main points (the outline) of the sermon in large letters, worrying that the congregation couldn’t understand his Hokkien dialect. During the sermons, he also sometimes sang hymns or short songs, conducting others to sing, with a magnificent voice," Ye recalled.
- Translated by Abigail Wu
