When I was 13, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. In my second year of high school, I had an episode that left me bedridden for three months. Someone introduced me to Buddhism, and I was able to move around again. Over the next three days, I experienced many supernatural events, and I started wondering whether a spiritual realm really existed in this world.
Later, I began reading the Bible, discovering that it not only records the power of demons and evil spirits but also the power of God. I gained a new understanding of God, and my life began to change. As I read, I felt everything around me was beautiful, and the people around me were kind and gentle with a sense of wonder.
Parents and Three Sisters Baptized on the Same Day
Before that, in my first year of high school, I had started to go astray. By my second year, I was hanging out with delinquents from the streets, wasting my days. After coming to faith, I grew tired of that kind of life.
Although I had become a believer, my body suffered due to the effects of steroid medication, which led to complications like avascular necrosis of the femoral head and ankylosing spondylitis. After graduating from high school, I decided to study acupuncture, hoping that one day I could help more people through it. I also started learning to play the guitar, to fill my life with the sound of worship songs.
After being baptized, I had a strong desire for my whole family to come to faith. So, every Friday, I fasted and prayed, asking God to save my family. In 1997, nearly two years after I started sharing the gospel with them, my parents and three sisters all told me at different times that they wanted to be baptized. On May 1, I invited a pastor from the church in Gansu to come and baptize them. Later, my second elder brother, his wife, and my eldest brother's wife also became believers.
Proposing After 5 Days of Online Chat
For over a decade, I served in my hometown of Qinghai. During this time, people introduced me to potential wives. One relationship didn’t work out after I prayed and felt it wasn’t right. Another ended when the person found out my illness couldn’t be cured and broke up with me.
Later, while playing guitar and singing hymns in an online Christian chatroom, I met my wife. We conducted video chatting through QQ. On the first day, she wanted to reject me because her parents hoped she would marry someone abroad. She planned to pray with me and ask God to prepare a more suitable partner for me. But as she prayed, she kept confessing her sins and asking the Lord to change her perspective. She said the Holy Spirit illuminated her mind and made her realize her mistaken views on marriage. Five days after we met on QQ, I proposed to her, and she agreed without hesitation.
I later learned that at 16, she had left home to work. By 21, feeling hopeless, she had contemplated suicide by taking sleeping pills. But then she met Jesus and found a new direction in life. Not long after, she read a book about Mother Teresa and learned about her work with homeless and disabled people. After reading it, she made a vow to God, offering herself to serve in this way. In 2005, while working in Chongqing, she began reaching out to street children. After spending three months with her, all the children spontaneously called her "Mom," when they were hiking. This deeply moved me.
Accepting Adopted Children While Marrying My Wife
While we were dating, my wife said that marrying her came with one condition, I accepted the children she had adopted. Over the years, apart from the children who stayed with us temporarily, we have long-term relationships with over 20 children we adopted and still keep in contact with today.
After we got married in 2006, I moved to Chongqing, where my wife was living. Some of the children we adopted would sometimes misbehave and run away. When they did, there wasn’t much we could do. We simply let them know that no matter where they went, they always had a home with us where they could rest. When they came back for Chinese New Year, they would buy us a few apples and tell us, "Mom and Dad, these apples weren’t bought with stolen money. We know you don’t like stolen goods, so we used the money we earned from selling collected plastic bottles to buy them."
Sometimes, we envy families that have raised their adopted children and supported them to study at universities or even study abroad. But my wife and I are clear that the children we’ve adopted require immense love and patience. Without God’s grace, we wouldn’t be able to do it. My wife and I hope that each child can feel loved and respected.
We’re grateful that most of the children now have jobs. One child, named Yong'en, works as a diligent and reliable waiter. The government helped him complete household registration and move into affordable housing. He later married and had a daughter.
Reaching Out to Estranged Children
Recently, my wife and I video-called our adopted son, Yongde, who is of Miao ethnicity from Shimenkan in Guizhou. We reminisced about the past. Yongde’s father had passed away when he was around two years old, and his mother had abandoned him and his siblings to remarry. Their elderly and disabled grandmother was left to care for them. When he was nine, we brought him and his siblings to live with us. However, after six months, the local authorities sent them back to their hometown to complete the nine-year compulsory education.
In his hometown, Yongde fell in with the wrong crowd at school, and people began tempting him to try drugs. His grandmother entrusted the three children back to us. Eventually, he chose to leave us and return to his bad influences.
In recent years, he has been trying to break away from those involved in drugs, as he now has a girlfriend who is pregnant. Yongde said, “The baby is due in June. I’m planning to go to Zhejiang to work in a factory to support my child.” We invited him to join us for online gatherings and to come back to God. He agreed, and we hope that this time he will truly repent and experience God.
Since getting married in 2006, my wife has had a very harmonious relationship with my family. Since returning to Qinghai, I’ve taken my wife and our children to remote pastoral areas every year. I provide free acupuncture treatment to those in need and promote healthy living.
Although my condition hasn’t improved over the past decade and I don’t know what the future holds, I firmly believe that my life is in God’s hands. Despite my poor health, I want to serve others and help them experience God’s love and power.
(Originally published by the Gospel Times, the article has been edited under permission.)
- Edited & translated by Abigail Wu
