• Bro. Zhanxiang Liu •
Remembering Some Miscellaneous Stories
of My Honorable Uncle
My mother, sister Huiqin Chen-Luo and my uncle are distant cousins in the same village.
The first time I met brother Liu was in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. My father has been transferred to the inland to work, only leaving my mother, my maternal grandmother, and I to stay in Shanghai temporarily. I was weak and susceptible to diseases from my childhood, often contracting whooping cough, and I got no better for months. On day, my mother encountered brother Liu during her shopping. When they mentioned how things were going along recently, he got the information that I was falling ill. Immediately, he returned with my mother to our home and prayed for me. After he prayed for me many times, my state of illness became better and better, before long I got recovered without medical help. For this reason, my whole family got saved.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the fall of Hong Kong forced my entire family to move to Chongqing. Brother Liu was asked to escort my grandmother to go back to her hometown, Zhenze to join her relatives. In 1946, my father was appointed to go to Taiwan to take office in Dadu paper factory in Taitung. During the period of my father’s waiting for ship, he returned to my mother’s hometown. At that time, my grandmother has passed away, brother Liu has become a preacher, wearing a blue long gown and straw sandals, enduring the hardships of a long journey. Later, we knew that my grandmother’s coffin was presented by brother Liu. Although brother Liu’s family sold coffins, he gave the two best coffins prepared for his elders to the people in need. At that moment, I appreciated deep within from my heart brother Liu and his family for their love of giving themselves.
In summer, 1947, at 12 o’clock midnight, suddenly some knocked on our door in the dorm of the paper factory. (For people in that place were used to doing to bed early, usually there was no door-knocking at midnight). Turns out, brother Liu received the Lord’s calling in Shanghai, to go to Taiwan to preach the gospel. He took train southward from Keelung with one address in hand. For the train was slow and stopped at every station, he arrived at Dadu 11 o’clock at night. In addition, our dorm was far from the train station with a distance of about two kilometers. Both sides of the road to our factory dorm, there were no lamps. Besides the road, there were sugarcane fields where the sugercanes were higher than a man. Meanwhile, he walked on the gravel road in complete darkness, facing the language barrier (at that time, Mandarin hasn’t been popularized yet). It was really the leading the Spirit that caused brother Liu to find the factory and let a factory worker lead him to our home.
Brother Liu diligently learned Hokkien for the need of work. Quickly, brother Liu appeared in the churches as far north as Longjing and as far south as Zhanghua and Meidi, the gospel was also widely preached in these areas. For brother Liu’s Hokkien capability progressed with amazing speed, he has already preached in Hokkien in addition to daily conversation. Therefore, for a time, two homes in the church of Kaohsiung intended to invite him to serve. This was the latter.
When I attended the elementary school, brother Liu hurried to Taipei for the meeting after work every Saturday afternoon, and rushed back to his home at midnight. Then because there was the need to renovate the meeting hall in Shanghai Road, Taipei (where the Church in Taipei originated) and to serve, he quit his job and went to Taipei. Afterwards, his footprints all over Taiwan, sometimes he was in Hualien, Taitung, sometimes he was in Taipei, Gangshan, and Yilan. During his staying in Yilan, my father just worked in Luodong paper factory. Meanwhile, I have joined the army, seldom going home. But every time I went home, I met brother Liu visiting my family. At that time, he visited saints diligently every month from Toucheng in the north to Suao in the south. Since there were very few buses, the bicycle became his standard equipment. Regardless of the dusty gavel road, or rain or shine, the two wheeled iron ride is there. All these indicated that the resurrected Christ was in him to labor with heart for the kingdom of God. In addition to such busy service, brother Liu haven’t forgotten the marriage of us the younger generation. Except the marriage of the fifth child, all the five children’s marriage in my father-in-law’s family was ascribed to his service. I believed that he also had done such service for some others besides our family. Hence, my father called him “angel”.
Brother Liu’s temper was humble and meek, having no complaint toward people or things, he always resigned himself to adversity, spring no pains to work. That He completely trusted in the Lord and absolutely obeyed the Lord to follow the footstep of the Lamb is really a pattern for our generation.
Jiliang Chen, Ming Luo
November 29, 2015