In the safety and comfort of his grandmother’s house, the young boy waited eagerly for Father to arrive, but the days turned into months and the months into years. Gradually, Xiao Ming’s* heart didn’t skip a beat anymore whenever the doorbell rang. He no longer wondered if it could be Father. As he grew into his teens and started attending high school, he could barely remember anymore what his father looked like.
When Mother thought Xiao Ming was old enough to understand, she explained to him that Father hadn’t come home in so many years, because the Public Security Bureau in China had arrested him. “Your father led a church in a province in southwestern China and they didn’t want him to keep doing ministry work, so they put him in prison for five years.”
Mother was not a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, so the authorities had deported her. Thankfully, she was allowed to leave with their only son… and with the hope that the family would be reunited in about five years’ time.
The Years Dragged On
Father was released after five years, but the police warned him not to travel outside of the country. They threatened that his every move would be closely monitored. His heart ached to be with his wife and son again. The authorities, however, didn’t care.
Father could only wait and do God’s work in the meantime. For the next two years, he decided to turn his attention to reaching out to the survivors of the Sichuan earthquake who were facing months of trauma and haunting nightmares.
When Father was finally able to go to his wife and son, more than eight years had passed.
Getting to Know the Stranger in His Life
Their reunion in 2010 was tearful for Mother and awkward for Xiao Ming. Father was ecstatic at the prospect of being a happy whole family again. However, as they began spending time together, Father began to observe that Xiao Ming wasn’t the same little boy he knew before and that they were like strangers to each other.
After Father’s reunion with his wife and son, Samuel* (a trainer with Open Doors Asia) came to visit the family. Samuel had known the family for about ten years. During this visit Father poured out his anguish about the difficulties he was facing in “connecting” with his son.
Samuel encouraged Father to spend time with Xiao Ming; by spending time together they would naturally get to know each other again. As time passed by, Xiao Ming saw Father’s loving sincerity in trying to bond with him. Little by little, the iceberg began to melt and Father found that he was communicating with and understanding his precious estranged son.
Becoming His Father’s Right-hand Man
When Father first came back and had to go for preaching engagements, Xiao Ming would literally have to be dragged along. He felt out of place at the meetings as no one was his age and often ended up just sitting in a corner. But as their relationship deepened, Xiao Ming started looking forward to accompanying Father on his preaching engagements. He was also able to come to terms with his father’s imprisonment and all those absent years.
Observing Xiao Ming’s transformation, Samuel challenged Xiao Ming to consider what he could do when accompanying Father to his church meetings. After some thought, the boy soon proved his usefulness by recording Father’s sermons, so that these could be duplicated and circulated to a wider audience. Today Xiao Ming is his father’s right-hand man!
*Pseudonym
SourceOpen Doors Newsletter November 2011