This week's post is a continuation of architect Elise Bahnson's account of the 16-day cycle tour she and two Bible women made in March, 1939, around the countryside south of Siuyen. Due to the travel restrictions, it was her first such trip in many years.
Elise Bahnson's description of the visit to Teacher Wang's home requires a little explanation. This was not the same Teacher Wang referred to in last week's post who was 89 years of age. This one was a Christian who had taught at the mission school for a time. Apparently his son, who was not a Christian, had recently married a Christian girl named Feng Ch'un who had lived at the women's mission station and worked in the mission Sunday School for many years. Her husband, Teacher Wang's son, was a postal employee in the area north of Siuyen, so the couple by then lived in the northern part of the district.
As for Sao-tzu-ho, our readers may remember previous mentions of the mission outstation there, such as in our post Invited Everywhere (1932) and the one about the pastoral visit that Rev. Ch'eng made to the Christians in that village when he was in Siuyen during October, 1936.
Sources:Teacher Wang's Home
"Up over a high mountain road we went, where there was the glorious view of the landscape. The road went past 'Front Mountain Village', up past a very fine new brick temple to the 'fox goddess', over a small ridge, and then we came into a large mountain village.
"[Teacher Wang's] oldest son is employed by the postal service to the north. He had been home for the wedding in the autumn. At that time, two of our Bible women were there to attend the young Christian bride, Feng Ch'un. When she was motherless and the only Christian in her home, she stayed with us and worked in the Sunday School for many years. Her father-in-law was a teacher in our school during the troubled years and had been baptized. The rest of the family had heard some [of the Gospel] here in town but they are still in the inquiring stage.
"Unfortunately, Feng Ch'un had just traveled northward, having visited us [in Siuyen] on her way. Up there, there is no congregation so she is the only one. [Her] young man is not a Christian, but he is willing to listen. In this home, one realizes that Feng Ch'un was a blessing to her mother-in-law and sister-in-law during the short time she was there.
"Teacher Wang is a very busy man, the inspector for seven schools in the area. He is the only Christian in the place. He said that he sorely lacked a Christian man in the vicinity to share with. Mrs. Wang is a busy housewife, so for her the evenings were the best. Then we sat on the kang and talked until late about the things of God's kingdom.
"Right beside the school lives Shu Ch'ing, a girl of eighteen years. During the turbulent years, she too lived in town and went to our school. She had also been at the hospital because of a bad foot. Finally, it was amputated and she received a wooden foot in its place. Recently, she had been to Mukden to a specialist and gotten a rubber foot. She could now walk freely without a cane, and stand a little on the leg. But best of all was that she had not forgotten what she had heard, either at school or during that half a year in the hospital. She prayed constantly and was aware to whom she belonged, and whom she would serve. How pleased she was to see us, and when she was invited over to the Wang family to stay as long as we were there, it was her joy to be together with us, touching us.
"We had the opportunity to talk both to the women from the neighboring homes and to the school girls, two and three times.
"We parted ways. The Bible Women went directly to Sao-tzu-ho. I cycled back to town [Suiyen] for a whole day in the city, and then went down to where they were in Sao-tzu-ho.Sao-tzu-ho
"The River Yang meanders down towards the south from Siuyen and at its termination in Sao-tzu-ho (ho means River) lies the town of the same name: Sao-tzu-ho. The road to there runs along the other side of a ridge and over four high mountain ranges, four Danish miles.
"The Bible Women had come there from La-tzu-kuo, where we had parted. They had begun work on spreading the Gospel. Here in Siuyen we have an older couple who tend the church. They lived before in Sao-tzu-ho and took care of the chapel there. Now it has passed over to a younger brother. These two families, and Mr. Chang No. 4, were the only Christians when I was in Sao-tzu-ho seven years ago. [At that time] Mr. Chang No. 4 had just been released from his opium habit at a revival meeting in Nabo Town. His wife was a Christian, but far away from God because of his opium smoking. She had in her time been baptized at the hospital here. How completely different it is now.
"There is a congregation there of 64 Christians. It was truly a feast to meet with them and go around to their homes and get to know them in their surroundings.
"We had to go out to see the new lot with a three-room house that the congregation has recently purchased. When I went and looked at it, Mr. Chang No. 4 came along and told me how they had imagined it: they would now build four rooms that could be used as church halls. Later, when they could build a large church, this could be used to feed the Christians who came in from more distant places.
" [']We have a stonemason, a builder and a carpenter in the congregation and when we have finished sowing [our crops] we will start work. Then you will have to come down and see us and give us good advice.['] Later, he told me, 'Yes, when I've got everything in order, I can depart in peace.'
"I could not help but compare this visit to his home to the first time. Now the spirit in the home was quite different. All three sons and two daughters-in-law were Christians, together with their children. The oldest daughter-in-law's mother also lived there on the farm and had recently been baptized. I was permitted to teach his grandson's wife and daughter.
"In the village where Mrs. Wang, an assistant in our work, is from, I looked in at four different Christian homes.
"Across the other side of the River Yang, we went to the home of an 82-year-old Christian woman who was severely ill and fighting to live. We were allowed to sing to her and talk and pray with her. Two days later we heard that the Lord had taken her. Now her son was the only Christian left in the village.
"Not very far from there in a small village we went in the three Christian homes where there are in all ten Christians. Liu Ch'ing Wen and his brother, who is a carpenter, had built the houses himself. They were very new and not quite finished. On account of the bandits, they had been forced to move out of the mountain valley they had lived in.
"Over a high mountain in a completely different direction, I was in two Christian homes. On the way there, I saw a house I had visited when I first went down there. Very few of the walls were standing. The house had been completely demolished. During those years, all who lived near one of the mountains or in between the mountains had moved out of their villages.
"In the village that was now our goal, there was a Christian home. A daughter from the home is a [nursing] student at the hospital here. Her parents and grandmother are Christians. The old grandmother, who is 80 years old, lay on the kang. Her hearing is bad and it was hard for me to communicate with her. It is difficult for a woman so old to understand a foreigner, especially when her hearing is not so good. Another Christian daughter was home visiting and they have a Christian son and daughter-in-law in Dairen. In that home, the oldest Christian was the husband. One could feel it.
"On the way back, we visited another home with three Christians -- the husband and his parents. The old man was over 70 years. He could not get around but sat on the kang. His wife was a good deal younger. She got off the kang and sat to the side so that we could pray together.
"During one of the other trips and during this last trip, a church woman from Siuyen came with me. We had an opportunity to talk about the difference. I said to her, 'The old woman in this last home, she was a light. How is it with you?' She replied, 'I have for many years not taken my Christianity seriously, but now it is entirely different. I came down here to my old neighborhood because I wanted to follow you around and quietly do a little work for the Lord.'
". . . Now I have been on this little rush tour and seen a little of the inside of these Christians' homes. Then there is even a large group in a home where the son is an evangelist. They live on the other side of the Sao-tzu-ho River. I did not reach there. But is it not wonderful what the Lord has done during these years? They were feast days when I was allowed to speak to them and visit them."
Bahnson, Elise; "Endelig paa Landtur igen"; Dansk Missionsblad; Vol. 106, Nr. 17, April 26, 1939; pp. 249-252. Translation by Marie-Jacqueline.
Bahnson, Elise; "Besøg i Sao-tzu-ho", Dansk Missionsblad; Vol. 106, Nr. 20, May 17, 1939; pp. 292-293. Translation by Marie-Jacqueline.
Image:
Teacher Wang and Family (1939), from the first article cited above.
All D.M.S. items used with permission.
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