I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would ever visit China. Yet here I was on a tour with several other individuals from the United States. We had all attended the Youth for Christ convocation in Taiwan and left at the conclusion of those meetings for Hong Kong and then on to mainland China.
This particular day in August 1996, we were in Beijing and our schedule called for us to visit Tiananmen Square. I was a bit familiar with its history. One of my residents at Oakton Manor back home in Wisconsin was in the United States under political asylum for his participation in the protests held by college students in 1989 at this very place.
As the group left the tour bus, we scattered over the several acres of land. Ahead the length of several football fields was the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a national symbol of China much like our Statue of Liberty. But we knew that the grounds had been stained with the blood of many who had come to protest for freedoms that we often take for granted in our country.
A huge digital clock caught my attention. It was counting down the hours and minutes until Hong Kong would revert to China’s control. Art and I were walking together toward the gate when we were stopped by two or three Chinese families. The men started talking to Art in broken English and gestures. They wanted his permission to take my photo with their children. When Art gave his consent, the children clustered around me and the men and Art took several photos of us.
While I was standing there thrilled to connect with these children, it seemed the Lord whispered to me, “I’m going to restore a ministry to children to you.” In minutes the whole thing was over, but I pondered those words for the next several weeks. Why of all the team did these families approach Art and me? What did those whispered words mean?
One of the most difficult transitions I’d faced was leaving “my children” at First Wesleyan in Battle Creek, Michigan where I served as Christian education director. But the Lord had clearly called me to the position I was currently in as administrator of an assisted care facility for low income elderly, many of whom suffered from chronic mental illness. I loved my residents, but I had always enjoyed working with children. Early in adulthood I had prayed that God would never let me get over my joy of working with children. Back home as I would think about the incident in Beijing, I couldn’t imagine how God could restore a ministry to children to me.
The weeks went by and nothing happened. Then on January 2, 1997 I got a telephone call from an old friend, Dr. Jo Anne Lyon. She had started a non-profit ministry called World Hope, International. One of her initial investors in the ministry was on the China trip with us. He had kept me excited with the stories he told about how God was using this ministry to assist people in developing countries of the world. Jo Anne was calling to see if there was a possibility that I would be interested in joining her as the director of a child sponsorship program called Hope for Children. One of her selling points was that we could live anywhere, and I could do this ministry.
A couple weeks later I made a trip to the World Hope office to interview with JoAnne. But from the start of our conversation it was evident that she had already made up her mind to hire me if I was interested. I returned home excited but a bit overwhelmed by the responsibilities connected with the position. Art was quick to remind me that we had been praying for a way to make a move to Denver where he was transitioning to a new ministry opportunity. “Surely,” he told me, “this was God’s answer to our prayer!” And so began a new chapter of my life…something I had never imagined, but truly the fulfillment of the words I remembered so clearly from that day in Tiananmen Square, “I’m going to restore a ministry to children to you.”