A Lovely Sunset

By Ling Li-li

It's been nine years since I retired and settled in Canada. During this time subscribing to magazines has become important to me and one of them is Overseas Campus... This magazine, however, has distinguished itself from the rest as it has brought back my college life of some sixty years ago and so has become an integral part of my life.

It all began when I read two familiar names in Overseas Campus. In Issue 38 I read Play the spiritual music by Miao Jin-min. And then in Issue 39 I read The reasonable decree by Tang Li-ming. I knew these two writers very well as both of them were students of mine at Second Shanghai Medical School over thirty years ago. It was amazing how we were able to meet up again through Overseas Campus.

I was so excited that I wanted to contact them right away. But one of them was living in Finland and the other in America. They were both a long way away and no postal addresses were given. So I wrote an article for the magazine Your teacher embraces you... To my surprise, Editor Lu helped me locate them. Then came letters and phone calls. We were all very excited to get in touch with one another again. Since we were all brothers and sisters in the Lord, we praised the Lord together.

The story did not just end there. Our network gradually expanded. I started to take on a new mindset and no longer considered Overseas Campus as confined to young people. Retired people like me can also join in. I'm elderly now, well into my eighties. One of the characteristics of old people is nostalgia and we like writing about ourselves. In addition, since I have been a Christian for a long time and my whole life has been filled with the Lord's grace, I often count His blessings by writing about the past.

Following publication of these articles in Overseas Campus, many people have written to me, far beyond my expectations, offering information and encouragement. There have been letters from old friends who live in foreign countries, from people who are very familiar with what I have written about, from alumni of St. John's Medical, or simply from strangers. Many have made copies of my articles and sent them on to Toronto and Shanghai. Now I realize that Overseas Campus also attracts a large number of middle-aged readers!

All my life I was busy working for myself. It is only in my sunset years that I have started to serve the Lord with my pen, offering Him a broken sacrifice. But the Lord has not abandoned me. Instead He supports me through my brothers and sisters in Christ so that even when I am in poor health I have been able to keep on writing.

I often ask myself, "What does Overseas Campus have that makes it different from all other magazines?" When I was in China, I often wrote scientific research papers for various publications and I often acted as an advisor for some professional magazines. However, as an author I had never worked with editors, and as an advisor I had never worked with authors.

Overseas Campus is different. When the editor learned of my cancer, he wrote to share with me his own experiences as a cancer sufferer and the Lord's grace to him. After the surgery I was in a great deal of pain, and so the co-workers at Overseas Campus sent me a get-well card. It was so touching. I had never met the editors and yet they wrote to me like my best friends. This magazine is different because it is like a garden, with the different parts of the body of Christ working together, communicating and sharing with one another. The magazine has also become my spiritual home.

Recently, the periodical Behold, another production of Overseas Campus, started to be published. The word Behold appears many times in the Bible and it is very meaningful. Some verses I read recently have given me new insights. In the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 17 Verses 1 through 8, Jesus goes up to a high mountain along with Peter and others. There he was transfigured in front of them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light. Moses and Elijah also appeared and a cloud came and covered them. Then came a voice: "This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don't be afraid." When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

After reading these verses, I realize how after ten years of existence Overseas Campus has achieved so much and by God's grace has become such a popular magazine. I love this magazine so much and I want to go on writing for it. To give a testimony, however, it is not enough to have personal wisdom and experience. It is not a matter of offering normal articles. It is not like preparing lecture notes or telling a story. It is not trying to please someone else and it is not for boasting about ourselves.

To give a testimony is to bring people to Jesus. Before this can happen, one needs to be living a joyful life or there is no point in writing about it. As Overseas Campus approaches its tenth anniversary, I'd like to encourage myself with the verse quoted above: "When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus."

The author came from Shanghai. She graduated from Shanghai St. Mary High and St. John Medical School befor becoming an obstetrician-gynaecologistr. Between 1952 and 1992 she served as a professor in Second Shanghai Medical School. She moved to Toronto, Canada in 1993.