A Love Letter

By Zhang Su

Why The Hurry?

The first thing I did after accepting Christ was to tell my friends in China who had been seekers like myself. They were astonished. "Why the hurry, Su? Didn't you say just a few days ago that you still had a lot of unanswered questions?"

Before coming to the U.S., I had been going to evangelistic meetings in China from time to time over a period of two years. Ten months after my arrival in the U.S.A. I started going to church again. However, I didn't go in order to read the Bible or to settle questions of faith, but to practice my English and to get a better understanding of American culture, as the Sunday worship service in our Belmont Chinese Church was held in two languages.

On my first visit I naturally chose to join the English Bible study class. The class was led by Americans, so I would have more opportunities to listen to and speak English. However, by the second week, I changed my mind and joined the Chinese class! Why? Because the Chinese class would help me understand the Bible more quickly and directly. I had a greater urge to understand the Bible than to learn English!

There was a reason for this change of attitude. In the intervening two weeks two unusual things had happened that inspired me to study the Bible.

An Old Man's Gift

Three days after my first visit to church, as I was hurrying to the classroom, I met an elderly American gentleman handing out Bibles. I took one and thanked him, and then asked, "I would like a Chinese Bible. Do you have one?"

"I'm sorry," he shook his head, "we only have English ones."

I was a bit disappointed but as I turned to leave, the old man said, "But I'll try to find one for you. I understand that there are seventy or eighty different translations of the Bible. Could you give me your name and phone number, please ?"

I hesitated a moment, because I was not in the habit of giving my phone number to strangers. But the old man had already handed me his name card. So I gave him my phone number. That afternoon I received a call from him, telling me that there were no Chinese Bibles on hand but he could order some for me. He asked me how many I wanted. I thought of the many Chinese students around and told him that I would like four copies. I asked him what it would cost for the Bibles and the postage.

He said, "There won't be any charge. Consider it as my gift to you."

I thought this was strange -a man prepared to buy things for people whom he did not know? Whatever motive could he have?

A few weeks later, when I received that special gift - my first Chinese Bible since coming to the United States - from this elderly man who was a stranger to me, all my suspicions were gone. Indeed, it is just as Christians say, in the world there is no such thing as unmotivated love, but in the death of Christ the world receives this kind of unconditional love.

A Special Love Letter

The second unusual incident was that I met a nun. It happened one day when I had gone to the library to study. As I sat down, I noticed a girl, whose appearance told me that she was an Asian, at the other end of the lobby. We exchanged nods in greeting ..

After an hour or so, I was getting tired. As I raised my eyes from my book, I found that the young woman was gazingover at me. After we had nodded to each other once again, she stood up and came over. So began a conversation that lasted three hours.

She told me she was a Catholic nun, and her parents were devout Catholics. When she was twelve years old, her family had taken a fishing boat and fled Vietnam for America in search of religious freedom. During some tens of days drifting across the ocean, they encountered many dangerous situations because their boat was so tiny and the waves just enormous. However, they prayed all the way with strong faith in God, and every time danger was averted.

I told this young woman that I had tried to read the Bible several times but had never even managed to finish one book; worse still, I found some passages totally incomprehensible. "Don't read it as science or philosophy," she said, "The Bible is neither an ethics textbook nor fiction. The best way to read the Bible is to read it as a love letter, because Jesus is love."

I was astonished. Her words touched me deeply; I opened my mouth but couldn't say a word. I had been to college in China and then studied for a master's degree in Japan. I had spent most of my life studying, but I did not know how to read the Bible!

I cannot recall how the conversation ended and I have forgotten her name. Her words, however, stayed in my heart, although I never saw her again.

Two Good Pieces Of Literature

If these two incidents had happened in the past - in the days before I left China - I would have thought that they were just two isolated, irrelevant events. However, now that I know what faith is, I know that God had arranged them for me.

Like most mainland Chinese, I had gone through some painful experiences before coming to believe in God. Because so many issues were still unresolved, I had stopped going to the evangelistic meetings. But these issues did not just disappear with time; they became barriers between God and me.

The situations in mainland China and in America are very different. In America conditions favor belief in Christianity. It is easy to find all kinds of Gospel literature and churches often hold special evangelistic or outreach activities. What I appreciate even more is that although Christians here are zealous in preaching the gospel, they are never so desperate to win over enquirers that they pressurise them.

For most educated people, the biggest obstacle to believing in Christ is atheism. If we deny that God exists, there can be no talk of religion. Two pieces of literature were a great help to me. One was a message given by the preacher Fong Bingcheng in the beginning of 2000 at an evangelistic camp held in Dallas. The other was his book, Away from Home, written from a rational and scientific perspective and published under the pen- name "Licheng" (literally "mileage"). As I studied these materials, I quickly changed from being an atheist to being a theist.

"Yes, I'd Love To!"

America is a country where there are more churches than schools. On and around our campus there were four or five churches. However, although I passed these churches every day, I had never thought of visiting any of them. I knew that every Friday evening there was a church Bible study for Chinese students, but I had never gone along.

On this particular day, as I stepped out of the gym, it started to rain. The church was just a small distance away, and it was time for the Bible study. Suddenly I thought of going in to take a look.

The door of the church was still shut, and the students had not yet arrived, but I saw an elderly gentleman waiting outside. We introduced ourselves and started to chat at the doorway. As it was raining and I had just got out from the gym after a workout, I felt cold and was starting to shiver. The man realized this and spoke with concern, "Go and sit in my car and wait. My wife is there. I don't mind waiting here alone,"

I got into the car and introduced myself to the elderly lady. Our conversation soon shifted to religion. She asked me, "Su, do you believe in Jesus?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Have you accepted Him as your Savior yet?"

"Not yet."

"Would you like to?"

"Yes, I'd love to!" I said. eagerly.

Suddenly I began to cry, and felt as if all the blood was draining away from my head down to my toes. And I suddenly felt that my heart was really my own! So, led by a stranger, that day I made my decision for the Lord.

What You Used To Be

Since then, I have been in a state of joy such as I had never known before. This is why I believe that my conversion to Christianity was not just some sudden impulse. It was like the excitement Columbus felt when he found the New World. The great difference was that what I had found was indeed "a new world" of Life. I couldn't help talking about my joy in church, at home, in school and even to strangers.

I remember a sister whom I had known when I had been going to the gatherings in China. At that time she was leading the fellowship. She was always eager to share with us the joy she had from her faith in Christ. But somehow I felt repelled because she reminded me of the character Xianglinsao in Lu Xun's story. I left the fellowship.

Now, in retrospect, I understand her behavior much better. Hers was a joy that sprang naturally from her heart, like realizing for the first time the sweetness of the morning dew. Fortunately I had a chance to see her again when I went back to China. I said to her, "Now I am like what you used to be."

A Change in Perspective

Once you believe in the Lord, a new life begins, and your view of life completely changes. I find that things in the past which I could not stand nor comprehend, along with what I thought was hopeless, all now have new meaning to me. I believe that it is because I have changed. Now I can see things in a larger context, in a way that is truer to the nature of things and more perceptive.

For instance, when I first went to church I used to feel annoyed at everybody quoting verses from the Bible. I thought that this was dogmatic and as ridiculous as it was in the Great Cultural Revolution, when we were taught, "Whatever Chairman Mao says, we follow." If so, what has happened to individuality ?

I remember once my husband asked me what we would have for dinner. I picked up the Bible and laid it open in front of him and said solemnly, "Let's see what the Bible says!"

I now realise that the Bible is our guide for Christian living; it is like a compass in the middle of the great ocean. Without a compass the ship will not only lose direction but also run into danger. The darkness of the church during the Middle Ages should serve as a reminder to us.

But God is not a dictator. He also gives us freewill. He reveals to us the right choices, taking into account each person's particular situation, and lets each of us take responsibility for his own behavior.

The American Dynamic

I enjoy political science. Even before I believed in Christ, I appreciated the American system of checks and balances - the mutual independence of the Legislative, the Judicial and the Executive. I appreciated even more the historical trends that demonstrated that the welfare of the people is to be given more consideration than personal interests. However, I missed something deeper and more crucial behind the facts.

I remember a small detail I came across while reading the biography of George Washington. After the American Revolution in which the American colonies won their independence, Washington left the army he had commanded and prepared to go back home to live an ordinary life. He felt he had done his duty and that the country needed to be entrusted to people more capable of government than him. He was willing to transfer his hard-earned power to others.

Our China has four thousand years of cultural history, yet why hasn't been there any figure like George Washington? We simply cannot imagine handing over a kingdom won at such a cost to others.

If Washington's case is an extreme one, then look at the ordinary people? Towards the end of the 19th century, a team of explorers, after finishing their work in the mountains at Yellowstone, sat around a bonfire discussing the issue of who this region should belong to. After arguing vehemently for hours, they made the decision not to occupy the territory personally but to give it to the nation, so that everyone could freely enjoy its beauty. After two years of efforts by these adventurers, Congress passed the bill, accepting Yellowstone as a National Park.

A few months ago when I first went to church, Pastor Huang from Houston happened to be preaching. He said, "America is a land blessed by the Lord." Looking back now, I realise what he meant: it is God Himself and God's people who give this nation its strength and dynamic.

Mainland China and Taiwan

In the past I saw no hope for the issue of the relationship between Mainland China and Taiwan . Within the first few months after the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1945, when the Communist Party and the Guomindang were supposed to be working together to rebuild the nation, they started fighting each other. This developed into a civil war that was to last four years, until the Guomindang's retreat to Taiwan.

Since then, Mainland China and Taiwan have been constantly at each other's throats. There has been talk for years that either the Communists are to "liberate" Taiwan or the Guomindang is to recover their "lost territory" - that is, China. In recent years, whenever there have been voices from Taiwan shouting for independence, or the Mainland Chinese government has been strengthening their armed forces in the coastal areas of Fujian and Guangdong, I would be consumed by worry that the relations between the two were going to deteriorate.

We Chinese people belong to a nation that originated from the same culture. We speak and write the same language, so why, over the past fifty years or so, have we not been able to co-exist peacefully? But now that I am a Christian I see that there is hope. I see that there are some very encouraging things in the church. United in God's Kingdom, we can each abandon the love and hate accumulated in the past and really become brothers and sisters who love and care about one another. In this way, mainland Chinese and Taiwanese may truly become one undivided family.

I have already decided to be a Christian and Jesus is my personal Savior. But this does not mean that all my problems are solved - for example, I am still not used to thanking God for the food He provides, I have not learned to pray aloud, and I cannot discern God's will on some matters.

These problems, however, are no longer obstacles preventing me from following Jesus. Jesus said that He came for sinners, not for the righteous. He loves me, and I know this because He tells me so in his love letter - the Bible.

The writer is from Beijing and holds a master's degree in education from Japan. She now lives in Texas.