• Bro. Runhuan Liu •
Reminiscing My Spiritual Father
Son-in-law, Brother Youqun Xun
I knew Brother Runhuan Liu because of my wife, Qianmei. When we were still studying as classmates in college, I’ve known that her father was an evangelist. This made me curious. Out of her mouth proceeded the bit of things concerning her father, all of which seemed to exert a very profound influence on his children. Because at that time he served the church outside his locality, seldom at home, therefore, I had very little opportunity to meet him. In my impression he was a terrifying elder, having majesty with geniality, grave and temperate. He spoke little, yet he could get to the core point as long as he spoke.
At that time I was still a gospel friend, and I simply had a very natural concept toward Jesus Christ. Although when I was in junior high school, the gospel was brought by my eldest brother into my family, and I also went to the church to listen to the gospel few times, I never wanted to believe in the Lord in a serious way. It was not until I went to college that I found there were several Christians in my class; even more there were some classmates, the same as my eldest brother in the Lord’s Recovery. Hence, I marveled without reason and also determined to have a further contact with my future wife. The godly atmosphere that I felt when I was at her home made my believing in the Lord and being saved became the first gate that I definitely should pass through. However, since there was nobody else compelling me, this necessary matter had been delayed throughout my time in college. I believed that during this period Brother Liu had been praying much for me behind the scene.
Therefore when I served in the army after graduation, the Lord raised up the environment to place me under a very unreasonable officer. But thank the Lord! The Lord not only prepared a Bible (which my wife especially sent to me before I left) for me, but even put many beloved brothers as my fellow soldiers around me, surrounding me like the cloud. From then on, I had been living a life of being accompanied to read the Bible and attending the holiday meetings. It was only due to the limitation of the environment that I cannot be baptized immediately. However, the first thing I did after I left the army, was to find a church to be baptized to receive the salvation and to live a proper church life. At that time I attended the meeting in Nangang, whose meeting hall belonged to one district in hall 5 and later it developped into today’s hall 21.
One time I came to my wife’s home in Banqiao; as there were only Brother Liu and I together, he asked my condition after I got saved. The deepest impression left on me was that he said: “Do you pray?” I answered:“Sometimes I pray.” He said: “Then, do you have the experience of your prayer being answered?” At that very time I really did not know how to answer him. And then he did not say much more. But since then, this made me learn to look up to the Lord and to seek His leading through prayers in all my life; then I can be blessed by the Lord.
Another unforgettable thing was that after marrying my wife, from the old manuscripts she brought to my home, I found a piece of paper written “thirty character traits”, which was copied by hand in ten lines. It should be the message released by Brother Lee, which had not been printed as a book yet at that time. I felt it was very precious and also copied one according to that pattern. But I always felt that it could not compare with Brother Liu’s. The neat writing I saw would cause me to remember his walk, which was the very living out of “thirty character traits”.
Several years later, when he was serving in Bade, Taoyuan, I and my wife went to his dwelling to visit him. He was living in a small room above the meeting hall of the church in Bade. The narow, small room andyet simple living environment also gave me an impression that I cannot forget: how the Lord’s servant should be to serve people humbly. Due to the fact that we were meeting in different places, I had very little opportunity to listen to him speaking. One time there was a combined meeting, and brothers invited him to speak some word of exhortation; then I just knew what a real minister of the word should learn in order to touch people and supply life.
Brother Liu was not exceptionally gifted in the word; however, he had rich experiences regarding the administration of the church. After his service in the literature work came to a conclusion, he was sent to several churches in Taiwan Island to help those churches to get on the right track. I believed that he not merely depended on the messages given in the meeting to strengthen the saints, but even more used the pattern of his walk that the church might have the healthy teaching and a proper order. After I entered into the church to serve in coordination, it was at the time when I groped to advance in the early stage. The first thing happened to me was to come to Brother Liu for fellowship, and he could always use simple principles to bring the problems to nothing spontaneously.
As he gradually became physically weak and returned to his home in Banqiao, yet he still lived a proper church life in a positive way, especially in caring for and shepherding his spiritual children in the small group. Another thing that he had been occupied with was a thick layer of shorthand manuscripts accumulated in the early years. Except him, nobody else could interpret the symbols in these manuscripts. Meanwhile this was also another very tremendous work to write these manuscripts in an accurate and expressive way. The serving ones in Taiwan Gospel Book Room had ever wanted to help him, but he thought that besides the need to transcribe the symbols into the scripts with Chinese phonetic alphabet, there was also the need to recall the situation at that very time when Brother Lee released messages that the meaning of his messages might not be deviated. Therefore, although there were many people beside him, they could give no help to him. Hence, he had to strive to accomplish this work by himself. It was by doing this that he kept a great deal of assets in the Lord’s Recovery. Thank the Lord! It was the Lord’s sovereign preservation that all the useful messages had been made into the text before his memory was gradually decaying.
In his last days the Lord seemed to take away all the things on earth including the saints, his family, diet, and living, etc., from his memory. The only thing left for him was just his beloved Lord. When he lied in the intensive care unit and could not move his hands and feet, as soon as we called on the name of the Lord Jesus, he smiled. Because he had been ready to go to his Master, Whom he served faithfully for his whole life , to be approved by Him. Glory be to the Lord! Amen!