My China Story
March 2012
In a country that holds nearly 20% of the world’s population, many people feel lost. Not me. It’s my home. It’s been two years since I last saw my home. It all started with junior year when my life fell apart. In less than 6 months’ time, I lost everything I was used to in my life. My church, my youth group, all of my friends. I had nothing left (or so I thought), and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted out. So, at 16 years old, in a mind that was far from a healthy state for making big life decisions, I decided to get on a plane to the other side of the world with people I loved, but didn't know that well.
I sometimes wondered why in the world my parents ever let me make that decision, but I’m so very glad they did. I know they have always been on my side and have trusted God with my life when they couldn’t make the decisions for me that they wanted. I am all the better for it. Back to the story. So I made my rash decision to get on a plane to the other side of the world for two whole months, and I went. Just before getting on the plane to Tokyo, I cut the very last tie I had to my past. I cried a bit, then let the numbness that I was so accustomed to overcome me. I pushed it out of my mind and stepped into the whirlwind of Asia.
I arrived in China determined to grow closer to God, make huge decisions about my future, and forget. Forget everything from my past that was killing me. Forget the things that I was running from. And it worked. For the most part. My heart soars in China. I was created for that country. I will never doubt that. Not ever. If you asked me the one thing that I would literally give ANYTHING up for, it would be to live in China. In China, a bad day always has a silver lining. The Chinese people are so precious to me, and their country is SO beautiful. I can hardly believe how many blessings God brought out of a mistake. It comforts me far beyond any words anyone could ever say to me.
Despite how happy i was in China, I could not escape the mess that was my life. In running away from the hurt that had been inflicted upon me back home, I encountered a whole other kind of hurt when the people I lived with expected me to act far beyond my years or capabilities at the time. There were many hurtful words thrown around that summer. Ones that I didn’t soon forget. However, in the midst of all of that, despite the place I was in, God graciously allowed me to see it for what it was; hurt people, hurting people. Instead of being angry at them for hurting me, I was sad and moved to a place of prayer for them. This in itself is a miracle as hurt as I was (by my other circumstances). It probably did have something to do with the fact that I spent an hour each morning with God.
As I said, I went to China determined to make huge decisions about my life. And today, I still don’t regret the biggest decision I made while I was there. Because I made this trip the summer before my senior year, I was making decisions about what to do after high school. It was between college or taking a year off, or going to missions training school. While I believe that God would have graciously blessed me in whatever I chose to do, I believe that He told me to go to college. Now, as I sit here in my campus coffee shop typing this story up, almost finished with my freshman year, I could never imagine anything being a bigger blessing than my freshman year has been.
James 1:27 has been a verse that has stuck with me for the last five years, and in China I experienced a greater love for the forgotten ones than I had ever experienced before in my life. I got to go to the orphanage where my little sister Hope (who is the light of my life) spent the first 21 months. So not only was it a chance to work with orphans like I had wanted to do my entire life, it also held special sentiment for me because my sister was just like those babies, and I got to see where she spent her first months. To me, each child was somebody’s Hopey. It absolutely broke my heart that I knew most of these children would just go into the foster system at age three, and then eventually age out with no real family to call their own. I prayed over them, sang to them, cried for them, and loved them with my whole heart.
During that time, God showed me more about His LOVE than I ever could have imagined learning in my entire life. There is something about holding a little one who has never known love and experiencing the joy they radiate over something as simple as a kiss. THAT is a joy so pure that it literally makes my heart full enough to burst. It’s funny how a child who has never known love is the one to teach me, a person who has been loved my whole life by wonderful people, so much ABOUT love. These kids loved without reservation, even though they had experienced the worst hurt of all. Despite being abandoned. Despite laying on a floor for hours a day just waiting for a chance at life. Despite their most basic needs for contact and stimulation being ignored, they were willing and ready and hungry for love. It is the most overwhelming thing in the world to be in a room full of children like that and to be just one person. To divide your time and meet needs equally, it is so VERY difficult, but it is something I wouldn’t trade for all the money and riches in the world. It makes you realize how inadequate you are. How much you need God to come in and spread His grace over the places you could never reach on your own. Those babies. They still hold my heart. I still love them dearly. I still pray for them. Especially for Rosie.
The very first day I ever went to the Gejiu social welfare institute, Rosie was in the quarantine room. This is where they keep the babies who have just arrived. She was tiny. Maybe 6 pounds, and only a few weeks old. I fell in love with her. I rocked her and fed her and kissed her and laughed over her precious expressive forehead. I love babies with concerned foreheads. She was so perfect. There was NOTHING wrong with her. She had healthy rosy cheeks (hence her name) and a cry that made your heart melt. I had to spend a month away from her. When I came back to the orphanage, she was the first one I picked up and held, and the day we left, she was the last one I put down. I love her like my own daughter. I often wonder if I’ll ever be able to love my own children as much as I loved her. She was a thumb sucker just like me. The very last day we were there, she fell asleep on my chest with her thumb in her mouth. I shed so many tears as I laid her in her bed for the last time knowing that I would likely never see her again this side of eternity. I pray constantly for her safety, wherever she is. I pray that she is happy and healthy and that she grows up to know Jesus and have a wonderful family and that perhaps someday, I’ll get to see her in heaven. I know there were people who loved Hope like that, and it makes my heart happy to know that their prayers for her were answered. It gives me hope that mine for Rosie will be answered as well.
Her story is just one of many I could tell, but there is one more that I have to share, mainly because it brought up so many questions that I still grapple with today. They are questions I know I will never know the answer to other than to say that I KNOW God is gracious and I KNOW that He is good and that NOTHING He ever does is out of malice. Joshua was just 2 days old when I was one of less than ten people that got to meet him during his short life. He was in the quarantine room on the day before we were saying goodbye to the babies and heading back to the capital city of Yunnan. His tiny bruised face is something I’ll never forget. He was SO small, but so perfectly formed. I will never get over the awe of the miracle of life. His story broke my heart. The police had found him left for dead in the rain in a ditch on the side of the road, barely hanging onto life. The orphanage doctor kept saying how it was a miracle that he had ever even made it to the orphanage. He was obviously fighting as hard as he could. He just slept. He couldn’t keep any liquids down, his breathing was labored, and his skin was every shade of color except the one it should be. Many times as I sat with him I thought he had passed away. He would stop breathing sometimes for an entire minute before any sign of life would show itself again. At one point after quite a while of not breathing, he grabbed my finger. His tiny grasp was far from tight, but I’m sure it was as tight as he could hold on with the strength he had left in his body. This story, is not mine. Ultimately, it will always be Dani’s. Dani was the one who stayed with him. She was the one who didn’t eat or sleep or go to the bathroom. She didn’t leave his side for ten hours straight, and she wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t been forced to. That night, little Joshua went to be with Jesus. His short life impacted Dani, Kari, Michael and I in a way that I’ll never forget. It brought up questions like “How did God decide who lives and who dies at such a young age?” “How do I reconcile the fact that God chose for me to be born to a middle class stable family in America, while others like little Zachary are left for dead in a ditch in the rain?” “If he had been born to different people in a different place would he have lived?” I still ask myself these questions from time to time. I doubt I’ll ever know the answers. I just have to trust that God is God and I am not, and that His plans for Joshua were carried out in his short life. I know they were. I will never forget him. He left a lasting impression. Joshua’s story showed me that no matter how short of a time someone is in your life, they can teach you however much you allow them to, and that even when you lose someone you care about, (whether it be because they passed away or have moved on from your life) God has a plan to redeem that loss and heal your heart. With Joshua I never questioned the goodness of God. Maybe Joshua was the most blessed of us all. Instead of enduring a life of hardship and pain, he got to skip all of that and go to be with his loving savior and creator. It is a comfort to know that someday when we are all rejoicing in heaven together, he’ll be right there with us.
One of the most defining moments of my time happened about a month into the trip. This woman didn’t know my story. She didn’t know everything that had happened in the past year that sucked. But she was the one person who I’d really love to be a lot like someday. This woman and her husband have lived in China for 22 years. They raised their children there, they changed a lot of lives. They’ve lived there for so long that the day that we spent with this lovely lady, she had a hard time remembering the English word for about half the things she was saying. Someday, I want to be just like that. I want to live in China amongst the people for so long that I forget words in my native tongue. i think that would be wonderful. She and her husband have pretty much single-handedly and systematically turned several welfare centers on their heads and made them gorgeous and happy and safe, and they are beautiful people. They run an internship program that has hosted many many many people from all over the world who feel called to China, so this is why I say that I’ll never forget this moment. We ate lunch one day with her at my favorite restaurant. Afterwards, when we were saying goodbye to her, she took me aside and looked me straight in the face and she said to me in the most sincere voice I have ever heard anyone use, “Hannah, you have something SPECIAL that I have only seen in a few people in my life. PROMISE ME that you’ll come back someday. China needs people like you.” To hear that from a woman who has watched scores of people who claim to "love China" come and go, that means more to me than my words could ever describe. She hugged me and then hurried off and as she was just getting down the street she turned and shouted, “Don’t forget!” And I never will. There’s something about that affirmation of a calling from someone you really respect for the way they have lived their lives that is just wonderful. I know that I didn’t NEED to hear that from her that day because God has showed me that all on His own, but I know that it is something that has changed me for forever.
On the day that everything had absolutely fallen apart, (consequently, the day before I made the decision to go to China) I was feeling every emotion I could possibly feel. And in that time, I felt like God wouldn’t be mad at me if I took up the opportunity of going to China. I felt that He would understand, and that it was even a good thing that I was making this decision. I know now, that going to China in and of itself that summer was not wrong. It was the assumption that running from my problems would fix them. To look back on it now, I shake my head and think how foolish that was of me to think everything would be fixed if I ran. Running from your problems will never fix anything. God knew that and so did my parents, but I think they all knew I was in a place where I couldn’t listen to their wisdom, and was just too hurt to care.
When I got to China, I felt like I was back on track! Totally fine, nothing to fix. Just a joyful relationship with God to have, and a beautiful view of the mountains to enjoy each morning as I sat and read my Bible and prayed. But I knew in the back of my head and heart that I was going to have to leave this beautiful place where I felt so far removed from my troubles, and it made me anxious whenever I was forced to think about it. As the time drew nearer for me to go back, the anxiety increased. The questions of, “Well, aren’t there SOME things you really miss back home? Aren’t you excited to see your family?” Well, yeah I missed my family, but other than that, I was perfectly content in China with my tropicana fruit juice, my oreo wafers, dove chocolate bars, and the occasional trip to KFC. If I NEEDED to get my American comfort fix, I had plenty of options. Family was the main thing, and why the heck couldn’t they just move to China instead? That, is what I told everyone would be perfect, because I did NOT want to go home. Not ever. In China, I felt close to God. Probably because I was doing what I know I was created to do. I love those kids with my whole heart. My problem then (and now still) is that I found it much easier to “see Jesus in ‘the least of these’” on the other side of the planet, than I did to see Him in people that are where He has me right now. How about the maintenance lady who always smiles at me even though I can tell she’s tired and her back is hurting her? What about the guy who sits by himself at lunch? Or the girl who’s sitting on the bench outside my complex at night shedding silent tears? It’s something I still admit I need to work on, but I know now that Jesus didn’t only define orphans like Noah Webster’s dictionary did. I know that when He said, “Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.” He didn’t JUST mean the orphans and widows. He meant people everywhere. He meant the people I walk past on my way to class every single day, or the single mom I see in target with her tiny baby that is clearly having a bad day. I guess, I knew that. But it still seems easier to hop on a plane and go hold kids who have no mom and dad. It’s the place where I KNOW that my actions help better a life. It’s a place where the practical ministry of loving a person is self-explanatory. I feel like it’s okay to be honest where I’m at now. I’m working on this. i want to be the one who stops to help the person in need when I see them instead of being afraid that me stopping will only make things worse.
Anyway, so I felt close to God because I knew I was doing what I was called to do with my life. It was easy to talk to Him because I was happy where I was, and He UNDOUBTEDLY showed me an extra measure of grace by beginning where I ended even though I was allowing my joy to be completely contingent upon my circumstances. He was who He is through everything. I was dumb. I AM dumb. I didn’t and DON’T have it all figured out. Not EVEN close, but He never changed. He was loving and tender and gracious towards me because He was the only one who followed me to China and really knew why I was there. He saw my broken and mangled heart, and He was SO compassionate. He saw the worst and He took it and allowed good things to come out of it. He allowed me to make friends, and to do what makes me feel alive, He protected me, He let me witness my very first miracle, and He was with me every step of the way. He never left my side even though i came to China for ALL the wrong reasons. It was one of the greatest blessings He has ever given me.
When I arrived home, I was exhausted and heartbroken and only a few days away from starting my senior year. I. HATED. EVERYTHING. I hated getting up in the mornings. I hated silverware because I didn’t know how to use it anymore. I hated everyone because they were CLEARLY way too ignorant (which is a very prideful and bad way of looking at things). I hated going anywhere, or even getting dressed for that matter. I think I went through a point in time where I spent over a month in pj’s without getting into real clothes. I hated American Chinese food. It literally made me sick to my stomach. I hated it all. I was angry at everyone and everything. I was most angry at God. I didn’t understand why He took everything i loved away from me. This is something I should have been dealing with during the time that I was in China, but I didn’t. I ran away from it, not to deal with it like i had told my parents, but just so that I could forget it. I really don’t know HOW, in my mental calculations, it didn’t all add up to this coming around and biting me in the butt at the end of summer. So I was grieving. And because I was grieving the loss of what I had in China on TOP of everything else, it took me MONTHS longer than it should have to deal with the grief over losing my best friends and church. I felt like God had abandoned me. I defined myself and how God was doing on loving me by my circumstances. I wanted to give up on God, and I did for a while. The only thing that held me back was that I was firmly grounded in the belief that heaven and hell existed and that I believed that THE ONLY WAY to get to heaven was through the blood of a Savior. So, I begrudgingly stayed mad at God, while still believing from a distance that He was the only person who could save me from myself.
I didn’t just feel abandoned by God, I felt abandoned by everyone, except my family who I took for granted. When I look back now at the notes and letters and posts that others left me, it seems foolish to believe that my family were the only people who loved me still. Even if they had been, I wish that I would not have taken them for granted. My parents stuck it out with me. They prayed for me . They watched me cry and rage and contemplate quitting on life, and they couldn’t do ANYTHING to help me. I can’t imagine being in their shoes during that time. I was mad at God for LETTING my friends abandon me. To be totally honest everything that happened two years ago still hurts very badly. I have forgiven these people, I’m happy for them, I wish them well, and I have moved on from wanting things back the way they were. I even have a new awesome group of best friends, but there are days when the tears still come when I remember the way things felt back then. I am so glad that God has taught me that I cannot base my joy off my circumstances. That is probably one of the most crucial points that I was missing as I tried to recover from all that pain during my senior year. Paul was tortured and imprisoned and betrayed and yet he still wrote of the joy the Lord gave him in whatever circumstance or place he was given to be in.
For being so constantly angry as I was at everyone around me for not caring enough about other people and only caring for themselves, I sure did an awful job of practicing what I preached. While I spent my time feeling like everyone I knew should be more sensitive to needy children around the world, I did a great job ignoring the four younger siblings God gave me; two of whom DID know the sting of a mother’s abandonment. Those kids that I claimed everyone should be more aware of were right in my own home, and I was ignoring them. It breaks my heart now that I’ve moved out of the house and am preparing to see my whole family a LOT less than I’ve been able to this past year, that during a time when I could have been involved in their lives, watching them grow up, going to soccer games and dance recitals, I was either holed up in my room or somewhere far off in my mind. I CHOSE to miss out on some of the last months that I would ever get to be a constant in their lives. I know there is grace, and I have asked my brothers their forgiveness for how I acted, and I have asked God’s forgiveness, but it is still something I struggle with. Regret is a waste of time, but this is one of those things that I can’t just “do better next time around,” and I absolutely HATE THAT.
After so many months of being angry and hurt and confused, things started to look up again. I was still sad. I still had mostly bad days. But good days started becoming part of the mix again. I got a job working at a Chinese restaurant two nights a week, and I really enjoyed it. God created me to be a social person, so being “friendless” for 6 months really didn’t do me any good. Getting out and being around people at the restaurant helped ALOT. I have always said that if you know someone who’s got a bad side you don’t want to be on, I’m usually on it for whatever reason. The only exception to this is Chinese people. I apparently have a way with them that not many people I have met understand. It’s something I’m so grateful for and a tool that I believe God gave me to use for His glory someday when I go to China to live.
Things continued to look up, I had two jobs over the summer, and I was so excited to go to college because I knew that was what God had told me to do. It was one of the only things I was really sure of hearing God on. My circumstances became better, and so then followed my attitude towards life. I don’t think this was the right way of looking at it, but that was the place I was in when I came to college. And even still again, God blessed me beyond measure. He has given me wonderful people to be around that love the Lord and are so amazing, He allowed me to come to the most beautiful and perfect school for me. I still look around in awe sometimes and wonder how God ever saw fit to bless me as much as he did. On top of the school being gorgeous, the people here are so awesome. I love them dearly.
In December of 2011, I went to IHOP’s ONETHING conference. It changed my life. The biggest thing God taught me was that I shouldn’t allow my joy to be defined by my circumstances. I have applied that to my every day life and it has been a very healing and comforting thing for me, but I suppose I never thought that maybe I needed to go BACK and look at how I dealt with China through the new perspective I have. At the age of 18, I am having to make some of the biggest decisions I’ll ever make in my whole life. I have to decide what kind of career I want, I have to make huge financial decisions, and the list goes on and on. The point in all of that is to say, whenever I come to a huge life changing decision that I must make, I believe that sometimes God guides me in the direction I should go, and sometimes He allows me to make the decision on my own. No matter whether I get it right or not, or He leaves the decision up to me, I know that He makes everything work out in the end. This is why i know that everything that happens that I cannot control, happens for a reason. While I was in China, probably one of the biggest things I learned (and then consequently ignored for a long long time after coming home) is that God is sovereign and ALL good. He is not even capable of doing things or allowing things to happen that He cannot use for my benefit and the benefit of others in my life in the future. I pray that someday He will use the things I experienced in high school to allow me to reach out to someone who is hurting and show them the hope of a savior.
So as you see, this is a story of redemption. It is a story that proves over and over again how gracious God is, and how He is capable of taking our mistakes and making them into beautiful gifts and lessons that I will certainly NEVER forget.
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Bold letters mine)
