Teacher Wang's Home and the Christians at Sao-tzu-ho (Early 1939)

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.

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."

Sources:
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.

The Round Mountain Village and the Fox Goddess Cult (Early 1939)

By the 1930s, the city of Siuyen had a population of about 20,000, although there were fluctuations during the famine and the bandit attacks when people came into town by the thousands. The entire Siuyen mission district was comprised of about 3,500 square kilometers of land and had about 180,000 inhabitants.

The travel restrictions referred to in our earlier posts such as Landlocked (Early 1936) were not self-imposed or imposed by the D.M.S. Rather, the Manchukuo government imposed them and the police enforced them. Although by mid-1936 the new motor coach line had made it possible to travel via bus to other towns and to reach the passenger railroad line, the kind of missionary journey to outlying villages described in our post Invited Everywhere (1932) had not been possible for many years.

In early 1939, however, Elise Bahnson, Anna Bøg's collaborator in the work with the women in Suiyen, received governmental permission to make just such a trip in the company of two Bible Women.

Here is Elise Bahnson's account:

"There came the first authorization for foreigners to travel in the country in Siuyen District. None of us had thought it would come so quickly.

"In the month of January there was a big hunt for the bandits to get them rooted out. The result was that the two remaining bandit chieftains along with their some twenty cohorts were either captured or surrendered. It was said in town that there were no more bandits in the District.

"When we held the co-workers' meeting on February 27, the Christian Mrs. Chao came from the 'Round Mountain Village' to invite us out there. The last beating of the bushes to find the bandits had been a very difficult passage. Everyone in the village made offerings to the fox goddess to obtain help. The fox goddess is very much worshipped in Siuyen and its environs. But Mrs. Chao stood firm and would not.

"When the push [for the bandits] was over, and there had been a good outcome, the village people said, 'That woman has something to hold onto'. They came and wanted to hear. Before they had not wanted to listen.

"Since that place was also the native village of the Bible Woman, Miss Chao, we thought there was every reason to go there right away. Our minister, who handles most of the police matters, thought I would receive permission. I too had high hopes. The Bible Woman and I went in and came back beaming, with authorization for a 16-day tour in the country. It was as if a new page had been turned, that we really had permission to move freely in the country.

"Cycling Tour

"The first of March, two Bible Women and I left on our bicycles by way of the Takushan Road. Our things came after us on a little pushcart. They may be driven on the highway, as they have motorbike wheels, so these days there are many of them.

"[We traveled] approximately one and a half Danish miles out along the main road over two [mountain] passes. Below the last was a side road that went alongside a little stream into a valley. This road was not as good as the main highway, with only bridges over the streams in a few places.

"I felt almost as if I had not been in this country all these years because we have not been able to go outside of town. It was almost like being released from prison -- wonderfully glorious.

"In four and a half hours' time, we reached the village. During the last stretch, the road ran out. There were only paths, as usual everywhere before in the old days. There we had to walk our bicycles.

"The Round Mountain Village

"South of a bend in the River Yang is 'The Round Mountain'. The valley goes completely around it on all sides in a circle, and the mountain is quite low. South of the mountain, the village lies midway between a collection of villages.

"This time we did not visit all the villages. Some nine years ago, the Bible Woman Miss Chao's family moved into town, and during those nine years the daughter had not been home. Now she came with light and ardor to give her kinsmen the Gospel and the Savior she herself had come to love and serve.

"It was a joy to follow her on her first country visit in the district to her own native place. Her aunt and uncle were our hosts. They inhabit a 5-room house with side houses. The grounds are divided in two by an invisible center line. The eastern part belongs to her uncle. The west was her old home, now rented to a relative. Her aunts and uncles had also lived in town, had heard the Gospel, and had been baptized. They were now out to invite people to our meeting.

"From the first evening, the kangs were full of women and children, the chests and tables of boys, and the benches of men. So it was every evening during the five evenings we were there. Many heard the Gospel proclaimed for the first time.

"The first day we were out on house visits, an old woman, a zealous Buddhist, was visited. She did not come [to the meetings] the first few days but the last two evenings she came. She wanted to hear her young relative speak. She was not unaffected. She had otherwise said to her sons that those who wanted to be Christians would be disinherited. One of her sons had decided he wanted to be a Christian, he and his house.

"The next day we went on a visit to the 'Mountain Village Behind', a larger village. We went to the home of the Shih family. The 70-year-old woman was born a Chao. The [home had] two wide kangs and two large rooms. The rooms were soon full. There were several who had never heard the Gospel.

"In the audience was a man who made his living as a soothsayer and with continual satanic power misled the local people. That sort is called 'Ta Shen', which is directly translated as 'the great God'. He is gone for and questioned when there is illness, death, or other difficulties.

"He said right out, while the others heard it, 'I know mine is fake -- that is true. I will wait until after the 15th [in the Chinese calendar]. (That day is an important day of offering to the idols.) 'If you believe, then we will follow,' said several. Poor thing! He was trapped. Soon thereafter one of his assistants came and got him as there was no one at his home who sought him.

"A small cluster of houses stood alone. We went in. A schoolteacher came along with the children, and in a moment there was again a great assembly to speak to.

"The evening before the 15th, the Bible Women talked about how at Ephesus they had burned the costly sorcery books.

"That evening, some boys said to their father that they wanted to be Christian. 'Shall we take the idols down?' That evening they did not come down, but neither was there a sacrifice to them in the morning.

"We heard about a second home where the man had taken down the idols. As we talked about it, the woman went over and tore down the god of wealth. He had been glued to the wall right behind me. The man took down the threshold god, and to get [the home] entirely clean, the Bible Woman took down the kitchen god. 'It gives me particular pleasure,' she said, 'to help clean out the rooms where we lived, my old home.

"There was a bundle of joss stocks that the man had recently purchased. It was a little hard to get them under the pot, but they got them there and they were also burned.

"On Sunday (the 15th), the Bible Woman came and said, 'May I go over to my old teacher in the village near here? I have been repeatedly reminded of my old Teacher Wang, now 89 years old. I must go over and see him.' Then she went with a relative and came back radiant. 'As soon as I told him about the true God and Jesus, he was ready to believe. He has now decided that he wants to be a Christian.'

"The next day when we left, I went there to greet him. He was quite clear of mind, could still read, and did so wonderfully. We left a few books and promised him a Bible. He is very poor and alone. His family has relocated to other districts."

There will be more about this trip in next week's post.

Source:
Bahnson, Elise; "Endelig paa Landtur igen"; Dansk Missionsblad; Vol. 106, Nr. 17, April 26, 1939; pp. 249-252. Translation by Marie-Jacqueline.

Image:
Chao home in Round Mountain Village, from the article cited above.
All D.M.S. items used with permission.