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Chinese woman leads dozens to Christ with tract
Sue Sprenkle, Baptist Press
January 28, 2011
7 MIN READ TIME

Chinese woman leads dozens to Christ with tract

Chinese woman leads dozens to Christ with tract
Sue Sprenkle, Baptist Press
January 28, 2011

THAILAND — No one notices the young Chinese woman silently

crying in the back pew. It’s the only place she finds solace from her deep

depression and fear of death.

She’s not even sure why she sits in this church every afternoon; her communist

education and Buddhist religion teach against a belief in God. Yet something

keeps drawing Lily Wang* here.

She pulls a Bible from the pew. It’s not in her native Mandarin, but she flips

it open anyway. She learned to read a little Thai after moving to Thailand a

few years ago to teach school, but she hasn’t learned enough to really

understand this.

So many questions cloud her mind that she finally musters enough courage to

speak to a man carrying the same book. He brushes past the petite woman and

goes about his business. The rejection reinforces everything she’s feeling — no

one is interested in her; no one cares.

Distraught and angry, Wang walks to the foot of the cross and screams, “Are you

real?

“I don’t want to die. I want to live,” she cries. “Please give me a way.”

Wang storms out of the church, vowing never to return.

Hope comes

A few weeks later, Wang is sitting at her desk preparing

lessons when a student rushes into her international school’s classroom.

“Teacher! Teacher!” the girl exclaims. Wang jumps up, startled and concerned,

until she hears, “I found your book.”

The student hands her a soiled booklet. She found it in the trashcan on the

playground. Wang scrunches her nose against the stench and explains it isn’t

hers. The girl must throw it back in the trash.

One lone tract from the Southern Cross project got into Lily Wang’s hands. She came to saving faith in Jesus and then led more than 40 others to Christ as well. Southern Cross hands out packages containing a Bible and other Christian literature — at a production cost of about $3.45.

“But teacher, it must be your book,” the girl insists. “It’s written in

Chinese.”

Wang quickly scans the first page. Her heart leaps. The story is about Jesus’

death and resurrection. She thanks her student for the book and sits down to

read. The booklet, a tract called “Song of a Wanderer,” answers every question

she whispered in the church. The information is shocking. Her education since

childhood taught only evolution, but this booklet claims life started from a

complete human form, not a single cell.

“This has to be true,” she mutters to herself.

The book opens a new world for Wang as she discovers a Creator-God. She stuffs

the booklet in her back pocket and takes it everywhere, spending every spare

second reading and rereading.

For weeks, her whole world revolves around the torn book. Finally, Wang decides

she needs more. The booklet quotes Scripture throughout; she wants a Bible —

but she has no idea how to find one. In her home country, China, you can’t just

go out and buy one at the corner bookstore. Wang decides to write to the

address on the tract requesting a Bible.

“No matter the cost, I will pay for the Bible,” she adds to the letter, fearing

the Christians might reject her again.

“I don’t really believe anything will happen,” she thinks,

preparing herself for disappointment. “It will be just like when I prayed in

the church — nothing. God isn’t interested.”

Wang can’t help herself, though. She watches the mail daily, but nothing

arrives. Just as she’s about to give up hope, a woman speaking Mandarin calls.

Southern Cross Project, a Chinese Bible distribution ministry, received her

letter. The woman offers to deliver the Bible in person.

Over coffee, Wang learns that as she was screaming at God months ago in the

church, some American mission volunteers were distributing Mandarin Bibles and

Christian literature packets to Chinese tourists. Somehow, one of these books

made it across town to her.

“I’m in God’s hands. He does care about me,” Wang admits. “I need to accept

these teachings.”

Hope shared

After her meeting, the teacher rushes home to call her

mother in China. She excitedly recounts her new discovery and urges her mother

to tell her sister.

“How can I share if I do not understand it myself?” her mother asks.

It hasn’t occurred to Wang that her uneducated mother might not understand the

tract. It speaks to educated Chinese, those who learned about evolution and

were taught to doubt God’s existence. Wang wants her family to find the same Creator-God,

so, she calls everyday, reading from the tract and talking about God. By the

end of the book, her mother and sister also decide to follow Jesus.

The first time Wang visits a Chinese church in her city, she notices everyone

gathered around two women. The discussion about God heats up but the two remain

stone-faced, unbending in their denial of God’s existence.

Wang pulls the precious tract out of her purse and discreetly hands it to the

women. They read parts of it together and discuss it with the young teacher.

Both ask Jesus into their hearts.

Wang takes the soiled booklet everywhere she goes. Even when she travels to

England to work on a master’s degree, she slides it into her carry-on. While in

Europe, she uses the tract to lead more than 20 people to Christ during her two

years of study — not to mention 20 others in Thailand.

When Wang goes to China for vacation, her childhood best friend, Chen Wu*,

notices something different about her. Wang starts to tell Wu about the change

in her life but her friend stops her mid-sentence. Wu doesn’t want to hear; she

thinks God is only for lucky people. Rather than argue, Wang comes up with a

compromise.

“If you promise to read this book, I promise not to talk about God until you

bring the topic to me,” Wang says, inwardly grimacing about leaving her

precious, worn-out book in China.

Her friend agrees, not really believing something that looks like a piece of

trash really holds answers for her life. It’s months before Wu opens the book.

But when she does, Wu reads the entire thing in one sitting, then immediately

calls Wang.

They kneel together — one in Thailand, the other in China — and

Wang helps her best friend invite Jesus into her heart.

“Isn’t it amazing how God uses a piece of trash to call people to Him?” Wang

asks her friend about the 70-cent tract. Then she adds, “Now, give me my book

back!”

Wu ignores her. She now uses the booklet to tell others in China how her life

changed. She’s lost count of how many have prayed with her to receive Christ.

*Name changed.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — The next Southern Cross project, Jan. 30 to

Feb. 6, will be live-blogged at www.mreport.org. You can join six volunteer

teams as they pray and distribute packets of Christian literature. To learn how

to get involved in the Southern Cross Project, e-mail [email protected]. Sue

Sprenkle has been travelling the globe for more than a decade as a writer and

photographer for the International Mission Board. She currently resides in

Southeast Asia.)

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