As Jonathan patiently explained the gospel to Chang-san, tears filled the young man’s eyes. Chang-san explained that he wanted to become a Christian, but his father had made it very clear over the years that his sons were to have nothing to do with foreigners. Chang-san was reluctant to cross his father because he had a particularly bad temper. Indeed, the people of Hsiwen had given his father the nickname “Fury” because of his temper.
Jonathan talked to Chang-san about doing what he knew was right and letting God take care of things with his father. That evening Chang-san became a Christian convert. The next night and the night after that, he came back to services at the church, staying afterwards to talk to Jonathan about what he should do next. The night before Chang-san was due to go home, Jonathan encouraged him to tell his family that he had become a follower of the true and living God. Chang-san agreed that this was the right thing to do, but he was still a little afraid of how his father would react.
For the next ten days Jonathan prayed for Chang-san and waited anxiously to hear from him. On the eleventh day, just as darkness fell, a man staggered into the mission compound. His clothes were shredded and he had several nasty gashes on his face. In the glum of twilight, Jonathan couldn’t recognize the man or know what he wanted. “What can I do for you?” he asked. “Do you need a doctor?”
“It is me!“ exclaimed the man, taking a step closer to Jonathan.
“Chang-san?” Jonathan gasped, hardly able to believe this was the same young man he had counseled just days before.
“Yes, it is me, Ku-Mu-shih,” he replied. “I have come to you for advice.”
“Come in,” said Jonathan. “I will wash your wounds and we can talk.”
Jonathan guided his visitor to a chair in the kitchen and got a bowl of warm water. “How did this happen to you?” he asked as he dipped a clean cloth into the water.
Chang-san sighed. “I did as you told me to. As I walked back to my village, all I could think of were your words, ‘Your first step in your new life must be to confess Christ before your own people.’ I was very scared to do this on account of my father, and I put it off for many days. I did not meet with my friends or talk to my family, fearing they would ask me questions about my time in Changte. Finally, I could bear it no longer, so I threw myself at my father’s feet, weeping and banging my head against the brick floor.”
Jonathan squeezed out the cloth and placed it gently on Chang-san’s eye. “Go on,” he said, dreading what he would hear next.
“I could not stop weeping, and my father concluded that I had gambled away the family’s money in Changte. He told me he knew I had done something I regretted and that I should confess it and it would be over with. ‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ I told him. ‘I have done nothing I regret, but I have done something you will not understand. That is the reason I am weeping. I am a Christian now. I heard a missionary in Changte, and he told me the amazing story about how God loves every man and woman.’ Before I could say anything more, my father sprang from his chair. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and began pushing and kicking me. He shoved me out the door into the street, where a big crowd of neighbors had gathered. My father kept right on beating me, yelling to everyone, ‘The foreigners have bewitched him!’”
“What did you do then?” Jonathan inquired anxiously.
“I tried to protect my head,” continued Chang-san, “but I didn’t fight back. Eventually my father, who is getting older, began to run out of strength. He gave me one final kick and yelled, ‘Renounce this foolishness. Curse the foreigners!’ But I said, ‘No, Father, you can do what you want to me, but I have made up my mind to follow the true God.’ At this my father became more furious than he had been before. ‘Get me a hatchet!’ he yelled at the crowd. ‘My son has dishonored the whole family. I will kill him now!’ When no one went to get a hatchet, my father ran inside to look for one himself.”
“What did you do then?” asked Jonathan, pouring a cup of tea for his guest.
“It was the strangest thing,” said Chang-san, shaking his head. “There are no other Christians in my village, yet several of the older men pulled me to my feet and helped me to a neighbor’s house. They made me hide under a pile of straw and said they would come and get me when my father’s anger had subsided. Later that night they did come back. They reported that my father had not yet calmed down and that my best hope was to flee. So I crept from my neighbor’s house, climbed over the wall, and hurried all the way to you.”
“I am glad you did,” replied Jonathan.
“This is my question, Ku-Mu-shih,” said Chang-san, looking into the missionary’s eyes. “What do you think the true God would have me do next?”
Jonathan sat for a moment, speechless. In front of him sat a new convert who had nearly been killed for following “step one” in his new Christian life and had come to ask what “step two” might be.
“I don’t know what you should do next,” Jonathan admitted. “You must stay here with us tonight, and tomorrow I will call all the mission workers together to discuss your situation.”
The following morning Chang-san told his story to the gathered missionaries and church workers who had assembled in Jonathan’s study. When he had finished, they decided on a plan of action. They would all go to Hsiwen the following day and preach in the streets there while Jonathan tried to meet with Chang-san’s father and talk to him about his reaction to his son.
Early the next morning they all set out for Hsiwen. Chang-san stayed behind in Changte because they all agreed that he would be in great danger if he went back with them.
The group’s welcome in Hsiwen was less than cordial. No one showed any of the normal Chinese good manners when a visitor arrived in town. No chair was brought for any of them to sit on after their ten-mile walk, and no drink was offered. Undaunted, the Christian workers took up various positions around the town and began preaching. A few stray dogs and barefoot children stopped to listen, but not one single adult.
Jonathan paid a young boy to deliver a note to Chang-san’s father asking him to come and visit later in the day. No reply came, and finally around lunchtime the missionaries met together. They agreed that preaching was not working, and they decided to sing choruses and hymns to see if that would attract more attention. They started by singing a rousing version of “Jesus Loves Me.”
Slowly, as they sang, the mood of the village began to change. First one or two and then groups of adults began to linger near the missionaries and evangelists. Then a small group of men sat down to listen. One man dragged a table from a nearby courtyard and offered it to the missionaries to put their Bibles on. Another man carried out two benches for them to sit on, and an old woman produced a pot of tea and several small cups. Throughout the rest of the day the growing crowd listened attentively as the gospel was preached.
Jonathan, however, became concerned when Chang-san’s father did not reply to his note. After all, the goal in visiting Hsiwen was to try to make it safe for Chang-san to return home. At three o’clock in the afternoon, Jonathan decided to pay Chang-san’s father a visit, with or without an invitation.
When he arrived at the Chang family home, Jonathan learned that Mr. Chang had been warned that a foreigner was coming his way and had run out the back door of the house and hidden. There would be no talking to him today, but a crowd of Chang-san’s relatives had gathered to look at the man who had “cast” a powerful “spell” over a member of their family. Jonathan decided it was an opportunity too good to miss. He invited the relatives to sit down, and right there where Chang-san had been beaten only three days before, he shared the gospel. It was late in the afternoon before Jonathan rejoined the rest of the missionaries and church workers for the long, dusty walk back to Changte.
A few days later, Chang-san heard from a friend in Hsiwen that many people there had been impressed by the missionaries’ visit and that his father had calmed down enough for him to return home.
Jonathan insisted that Mr. Ho accompany Chang-san in case things did not work out with his father. It was just as well he did. When Mr. Chang saw his son again, he became enraged and began ranting. He grabbed a heavy iron poker and rushed forward to attack his son. Quickly Mr. Ho jumped between them and managed to wrestle the poker from Chang-san’s father. He then held Mr. Chang’s arm behind his back until he promised not to try to harm his son again. When Mr. Chang promised, Mr. Ho released his grip.
In China, giving your word was a very serious matter, and so Mr. Ho left Chang-san with his father, confident that the young man would not come to any physical harm. Over the next few weeks, missionaries and church workers visited Hsiwen several times to keep an eye on the situation and to continue preaching. As a result of the visits and Chang-san’s urging, many people in the village became Christians, including all of Chang-san’s immediate family except his father.
Finally, overcome at the changes he saw in so many of his family members, Mr. Chang decided to become a Christian himself. From that day on, he was a different man. Instead of cursing, now he sang choruses as he worked. He read his Bible aloud every morning and was so kind to the children of the village that they stopped calling him “Fury” and instead treated him like a kindly grandfather.
Chang-san and his younger brother, who had also become a Christian, asked their father for permission to join the evangelistic team in Changte. Even though this meant he would have to go without many of the things his sons provided for him, Mr. Chang encouraged them to go. “All Chinese people should hear of the one true God,” he told them. “If He can change an old angry man like me, He is a God of much power.”
There was one person in Hsiwen, though, who was not at all impressed with Mr. Chang’s conversion, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Her name was Mrs. Chang, and she was a great-great aunt of Chang-san. As the oldest woman in the Chang family, her opinions were greatly respected. She became furious when she learned that the younger members of the family were dishonoring their family gods and becoming Christians. She set about to make life as difficult as she could for the growing band of Christians in the village.
One day, on another visit to Hsiwen, Jonathan and Rosalind sat visiting with Chang-san’s parents when his mother burst into tears. “I do wish we could reach old Mrs. Chang; she is so old and bitter. She hates all the Christians here. Everyone is scared of her tongue-lashings, and so they try not to displease her,” she said through her tears.
Jonathan looked at his wife. He knew a Chinese woman would not welcome a man into her home. Rosalind looked back and smiled. “I know!” she said, and then turning to Mrs. Wang, one of the church workers, she said, “Go over to Mrs. Chang’s house and ask her if I might visit her. We will stay here and pray while you are gone.”
Mrs. Wang hurried off to see if the old woman would let a foreign woman with man’s feet into her home. She arrived back at Chang-san’s parents’ house an hour later. “She says you are to come,” she reported to Rosalind excitedly.
Jonathan smiled at his wife. “This time you go and I will pray for you,” he said.
An hour later Rosalind burst back into the room. “Quickly, Jonathan, help me find a red and blue pencil, a fountain pen, and my writing pad.”
Jonathan, who had been sitting reading his Bible, jumped up. “What do you need them for?” he asked as she rummaged around in the bottom of a leather bag.
“Mrs. Chang and I got talking about all of the pictures of gods she has tacked to her walls,” Rosalind began as she pulled a writing pad from the case. “I asked her if she thought their eyes really watched what she was doing. She replied, ‘Yes, of course they do. See how lifelike they look.’ So I told her, ‘What if I could make something that looked that lifelike? Would I have made a god? Would it see everything you do?’ ‘Ha,’ she laughed at me. ‘You couldn’t do it! No human could make something that lifelike unless it had the spirit of a god inside it.’ So I told her to wait and I would show her.”
