Dear Trekker,
This month marks the beginning of our 16th year of writing monthly, “MEN – Passing the Baton.” MEN is an acrostic for model, encourage and nurture fellow trekkers and anyone who should happen to read a monthly missile here and there.
But…a confession is in order. I find continually in my life and thinking an inability to escape my cultural American roots and see the Body of Christ as surely the Savior must see “His Body” across the history of mankind. He creates the Body continuously as He adds daily throughout time those who are being saved (Acts 2:41). The saving act of grace, an outgrowth and companion piece of God’s eternal love, is always applicable until He will return the second time for His bride, the Body of Christ (I Thessalonians 4:17).
Yet I seem to always see the Body “in my USA surroundings.” Though Jesus died for all… and all means all (II Cor 5:15), I still see these truths through an American, cultural, generational lens. A few years ago I counted 77 foreign countries I have lived in or visited or passed through. I estimate I have met and fellowshipped with fellow believers in approximately three quarters of those countries. I know personally fellow Christians who have true faith in Christ but know little of the Judeo-Christian Western world.
How wonderful that true faith in Christ alone cuts across all cultural barriers of language, religious culture (read Christian religion and denominations) and whatever seeks to divide the Body of Christ. Praise God the Body of Christ knows no cultural, ethnic or national boundaries. I pray – “Oh God, give me vision “to see as You see.”
So when events unfold and we are reminded of the depth and breadth of the Body of believers across the world, we should be grateful and give thanks for our fellow believers, in their suffering, their trials, and their victories. For example, a few months ago, I sat in the Wheaton College chapel and heard a first-hand account from fellow Wheaton alumni, Andrew Brunson, as he described his two-year imprisonment in a Turkish jail. Riveting indeed! A generation behind me, he endured persecution, imprisonment, and hardship unknown to the typical believer. You might want to read his book, God’s Hostage: A True Story of Persecution, Imprisonment and Perseverance. I recommend it.
This brings us up to the present day, and the worldwide “coronavirus” centered in China and spreading throughout the world. Some “good intelligence” from China has become available to me and records a fascinating story concerning the Body of Christ active in the People’s Republic of China. Reports have seeped out that a certain Chinese doctor, a believer, Dr. Li Wenliang, living and practicing in Wuhan, the center of Chinese outbreak, “discovered” and sounded the alarm on the coronavirus in December of 2019. He was then arrested for being an alleged alarmist whistleblower for “spreading” rumors about the mysterious pneumonia-like virus. He continued to treat patients until he was infected himself and passed into Glory in the early morning of February 7. Our hearts should be deeply moved by his sacrificial choice to spread awareness about the virus, now a worldwide health threat of epidemic proportions.
Despite risks and persecution, he was the fragrance of Christ in his last days, living out the love of Christ to patient after patient affected with the virus. What a legacy this brother leaves. He chose to be an example of Immanuel, God with us, to the people of Wuhan.
So, trekker, pray for his wife and young son. He was a young doctor in his thirties. Though he has heard the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” pray too for his wife who is infected with the virus during her eighth month of pregnancy with their second child. May God heal and give their family grace in this dire time of need. And may the scourge of this newly discovered virus be arrested quickly across our fallen world.
Dr. Wenliang penned a deeply touching poem of how he would miss his family and loved ones he knew in his beloved Wuhan. The poem has been named, The Hero Who Told the Truth. Written in Chinese (of course), here is a rough translation from an expat friend of a very close trekker still active in worldwide ministry! One brother in Christ being ”Jesus with skin on” in a fallen world, a true whistleblower who died after being punished by the Chinese government for issuing the first warning about the deadly coronavirus worldwide (now) outbreak.
The Hero Who Told the Truth
I don’t want to be a hero.
I still have my parents,
And my children,
And my pregnant wife who’s about to give birth,
And many of my patients in the ward.
Though my integrity cannot be exchanged for the goodness of others,
Despite my loss and confusion,
I should proceed anyway.
Who let me choose this country and this family?
How many grievances do I have?
When this battle is over,
I will look up to the sky,
With tears like rain.
I don’t want to be a hero.
But as a doctor,
I cannot just see this unknown virus
Hurting my peers
And so many innocent people.
Though they are dying,
They are always looking at me in their eyes,
With their hope of life.
Who would have ever realized that I was going to die?
My soul is in heaven,
Looking at the white bed,
On which lies my own body,
With the same familiar face.
Where are my parents?
And my dear wife,
The lady I once had a hard time chasing?
There is a light in the sky!
At the end of that light is the heaven that people often talk about.
But I’d rather not go there.
I’d rather go back to my hometown in Wuhan.
I have my new house there,
For which I still have to pay off the loan every month.
How can I give up?
How can I give up?
For my parents without their son,
How sad must it be?
For my sweetheart without her husband,
How can she face the vicissitudes in her future?
I am already gone.
I see them taking my body,
Putting it into a bag,
With which lie many compatriots
Gone like me,
Being pushed into the fire in the hearth
At dawn.
Goodbye, my dear ones.
Farewell, Wuhan, my hometown.
Hopefully, after the disaster,
You’ll remember someone once
Tried to let you know the truth as soon as possible.
Hopefully, after the disaster,
You’ll learn what it means to be righteous.
No more good people
Should suffer from endless fear,
And helpless sadness.
I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the race.
I have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.
2 Timothy 4:7, Holy Bible
Trekker, the Body of Christ lives on in the world as we all pass from this life into the Forever. Hallelujah!
Your friend,
Jim Meredith (Psalm 16:11, check it out.)