An Incredible Journey of Love and Faith

 

When Roy and I got married on August 6, 1960, we told God we wanted our home to be used for his glory.  We didn’t realize that desire would open our home and our lives to an exciting and incredible journey of love and faith.

 

Roy was a mechanical engineer and worked as factory manager for Eaton Corporation.   He was also active at the Chinese Christian Union Church in Chicago Chinatown as counselor for the boys’ club.  Later, he became chairman of the Youth Board, a member of the Board of Trustees, and an elder.  

 

I was a high school English teacher and taught a high school Sunday school class.  Later, I became a special education teacher, the Sunday School Superintendent, and member of the Board of Trustees.

 

Our first opportunity to open our home to someone came when three boys in Roy’s boys’ club woke up one morning and found their father hanging from the kitchen door.  He was deep in debt and decided death was the only way out.  Roy brought the three brothers to our house and our pastor took in their mother and sister.  They stayed with us until after the funeral and after mother found another house for them to live in.

 

Another opportunity came when we heard about a girl from Hong Kong.  She was studying music in Boston when she found out she was pregnant.  She didn’t know how she was going to pay for doctor or hospital bills. She didn’t want an abortion because she was a Catholic.  Roy flew to Boston to meet the girl and found her eyes red and swollen from crying.  He offered our place until she had her baby.  We didn’t realize she had emotional problems.  She had a nervous breakdown as a graduate student in biology in Wisconsin because she couldn’t meet the high standard she had set for herself.  Her parents came to take her home to Hong Kong.  My obstetrician was associated with Northwestern University and told me there was a special fund to help foreign students who were pregnant.  She also offered her services for free.  When my doctor found out this girl had emotional problems, she suggested I go to the  labor room with her to keep her calm during her labor pains so that she would not have another nervous breakdown.  We had also referred her to a Christian agency for counseling about what to do with her child.  She insisted she was going to keep the child even though we told her it would be very difficult for her to support herself and her child and continue her education.  As the time for the birth of the baby arrived, she kept saying she would kill herself and the baby if she couldn’t keep the baby.  Therefore, she was placed in the psychiatric ward after she had the baby.  Meantime, she received a letter from her sister that she was getting married.  Therefore, she decided to go home to Hong Kong.  The Christian agency asked her to sign a paper to release the baby for adoption if she didn’t return.  The agency also warned us that we might never hear from her again because she would block out this traumatic part of her life.  We never heard from her again.  However, we learned from friends in the Boston area that she had returned to school there.

 

There were two Korean teenagers who attended Faith Bible Church which was our church in Des Plaines.  While they lived in Korea, their father was killed and their mother couldn’t support her four children.  Therefore, she sent the two older ones to live with her husband’s brother, wife and son.  These girls were used like servants.  They cleaned house, did laundry, took care of the yard, shoveled snow, and helped with the cooking.  They also had part time jobs and went to school.  When their uncle got drunk, he became verbally abusive and even threw things around.  The girls decided to run away from home.  They went to the parsonage.  Our church worker who was living there for the summer called us to ask what he should do.  The two girls stayed at our house until we talked to their aunt to ask what they should do.  They refused to return to their uncle’s home.  Their aunt was a nurse and knew there were some apartments near the hospital where she worked.  She was able to get a part time job at the hospital for the older girl and they lived there until they graduated from high school.  Then they moved to an apartment near the University of Illinois Chicago campus.  The older one completed her major in economics and the younger one went to the Art Institute to major in dress designing.  The younger girl is married and has three children.

 

During the Vietnam War, we heard on the radio a plea for sponsors for Vietnamese families. We called to say we would be willing to become sponsors.  Then we received a letter that said they had a 17-year-old girl and her 16 year old brother who were difficult to place in a home because most families wanted little children.  Roy flew to the refugee camp in Arkansas to meet the two teenagers.  Roe’s heart went out to these two who were living in a long Quonset hut with many other families and with only sheets hanging from the ceiling to separate them from the other families.  The girl stayed with their belongings because people were stealing things.  Her brother helped as translator because he spoke English, French, Vietnamese, and Chinese.  We found out this boy was 19, not 16 years old.  His parents had lied about his age so that he wouldn’t be drafted into the Vietnamese army.  Our house was checked by the state to see whether we qualified to become foster parents.  The girl went to the high school near our home and the boy started at a junior college.  We found out he didn’t have the required math and science courses from high school because he had attended a French language school and a British business school to avoid studying math and science.  The junior college had him study these classes as part of their GED or high school proficiency courses before they started him on college courses.  He later transferred to the University of Illinois Chicago campus and graduated with a computer science and math major.  He got a job with All State Insurance Company.  His sister lived with us for three years.  After high school she also went to the University of Illinois Chicago campus.  She planned to become a pharmacist but failed the entry test.  Therefore, she changed to computer science and got a job with IBM.  Both of them became Christians through the Cantonese fellowship group at the Chinatown church.  The girl is still active there.  Her brother is married and has two boys.  His family is involved at a Mandarin church in the suburb.  How their parents got out of Vietnam and were reunited with their six children is a fascinating story of God’s protection and grace.  However, it’s too long to describe here.

 

There was a doctor from Beijing who drove his family in a u-haul truck and towed his car from Orlando to Chicago. Friends in Orlando told us about when he would be arriving in Chicago and where he would be living.  On that day, we drove around that area of Chicago and saw a u-haul truck. The doctor and his family had just arrived. Roy helped him get his car off the trailer.  After they finished unloading the truck, he took the doctor to return the truck and trailer.  We returned the next day to take the boy to school.  We were told he needed a physical check up before he could start school.  We went to the Chinatown church to ask a friend there for a name of a doctor.  She sent us to a clinic not too far from the church where they had a Cantonese speaking doctor and a Mandarin-speaking doctor.  This family now lives in Ohio.

 

One cold, icy winter day in 1993, there was a 42-car pile up on the Kennedy Expressway near Addison St. in Chicago.  Only one person was killed in car #7.  She was the wife of a University of Illinois Chicago campus grad student from Beijing.  He had just graduated from the university and was going to start working on Monday. To celebrate the couple went shopping for a CD player.  She died and he was rushed unconscious to Illinois Masonic Hospital with severe internal injuries.  When Roy read about the accident in the newspaper, he felt compelled to find out where the funeral was going to be.  His brother had a florist shop in Chinatown.  Roy figured someone would order flowers from him for the funeral.  He asked his brother to call him if someone ordered flowers for the Pan family and tell him where the flowers were to be delivered.. When Roy went to the funeral, he met the parents of the husband.  They both taught at the top engineering school in China.  It was in Beijing.  They had borrowed money to pay for their plane fare to see their son.  Roy wondered how they were going to pay for their son’s hospital and doctor bills.  He decided to go to the various Chinese churches to appeal for financial help for them.  Roy also found out that the professor and his wife were planning to take the bus from their son’s apartment at 31st street on the south side of Chicago below Chinatown to the hospital on the far north side of the city.  He offered to drive them to the hospital.  When their son regained consciousness and was finally allowed to recuperate at home, Roy drove him and his parents to his apartment and carried him up to his 2nd floor.  Mother stayed to care for him but father returned to Beijing.  This boy’s company kept his job for him until he was able to start work.  He has now remarried and has two children.

 

     Roy got an unexpected and shocking phone call one day.  A Chinese woman from Shanghai who had just arrived at O’ Hare International Airport in Chicago needed help in locating her son who was involved in a car accident.  He had graduated from Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois the year before and left for Missouri for graduate study.  He was returning to Trinity College for his friend’s graduation and was going to pick his mother up at O’Hare airport.  On his way, he fell asleep at the wheel and his car went into the median strip and directly in the path of a semi-truck which was just passing another car.  He and his passenger were killed instantly and then his car burst into flame.  The police called his residence in Missouri and his friend called a teacher at Trinity College to meet his mother at O’Hare.  When mother asked what had happened to her son, the teacher found it very difficult to tell her that her son was dead.  When a Chinese couple at Trinity Seminary heard what happened, they immediately called Roy to help this mother.  Roy called the State police to find out where the accident had happened and where they had taken the body.  When Roy talked to the funeral home, they asked the mother to fax to them permission to cremate the body.  Roy asked where they were located so he could pick up the ashes.  He also made flight arrangements for mother to go to her son’s residence to pack his belongings.  Mother asked Roy to go with her.  Roy had no time to pack because he left immediately with mother.  After he picked up the boy’s ashes, Roy drove his mother to where the accident happened.  Then Roy took her to her son’s residence to pack his belongings.  She gave his clothes away.  Roy flew back to Chicago.  We met the boy’s father when we went to Shanghai.  He is a professor at a university in Shanghai.  He told us how God had prepared them for their son’s death.

 

1989 was the turning point in our life.  My dad had said he wanted to go to Disney World.  Since he was 88 years old, Roy suggested he go before he got any older.  Roy wanted this trip to be more than a vacation at Disney World.  He prayed that God would use this trip for his glory.  When we went to the China Pavilion at Epcot, we went to the gift shop there.  Roy saw an older Chinese sales clerk with the name tag “Peter”.  He told the man that Peter was a good name.  Did he know the meaning of Peter?  The man replied, “The Rock.”  Roy asked how he knew that and Peter said he was 3rd generation Catholic.  Since Peter became busy with some other tourists, Roy looked around for someone else to talk to.  He saw a girl by the Chinese dresses and she wasn’t busy.  He started talking to her and found out she was from Hangzhou.  He asked how long she’d been in Orlando and what she had seen in this area.  Her answer was typical of those without a car. She hadn’t gone anywhere. He asked,  “When is your day off?”  Her day off was after we were to leave Orlando on Friday.  He told her that we were going to Cypress Garden the next day and if she could arrange something to go with us to call us.  He gave her our phone number in Orlando and was pleasantly surprised to have her call us.  She had swapped day off with someone else so she was able to go.  Roy tried to talk to her about becoming a Christian during the water skiing show but she was not interested in the show.  Through this girl we were introduced to some others from China.  Roy felt he should follow up by phone these people we met.  He also flew to Orlando a few months later when he learned there would be new people coming from China.  When he was introduced to them, he asked whether there was anything he could do to help.  Did they want to buy Chinese groceries for their dinners or did they need anything from Wal-Mart?  Did they want to go sightseeing on their day off?  He gradually gained the confidence of people and word got around that Uncle Roy really wants to help people and doesn’t expect anything in return.

 

After several years of flying or driving to Orlando, Roy began to feel we should move to Orlando because God wanted him to reach out to these people from China.  They were here for only one year.  This was a window of opportunity to talk to them about spiritual things while they were here in the U.S.

In May 2000 we moved in to our new house in Orlando.  We had it built according to the model of a house with 4 bedrooms upstairs and a master bedroom downstairs with living room, kitchen, family room, and a long patio area for a ping pong table and a long kitchen table for many guests.  We planned to invite many people to our home from Epcot.  Also, many people told us they would be visiting us since we lived near Sea World, Universal Studio, and Disney World.  We even bought two sofa beds to have additional bed space.

 

We found out very quickly that when we reached out to help people, there were many, many ways to help especially those who didn’t have a car.  A girl from Hong Kong had bad skin allergy so she made an appointment to see an allergist but had no way to get there.  She called us to ask whether we could give her a ride to the doctor’s office and back.  Another girl sprained her ankle when she missed the last step of her stairway.  Her friend called us to ask what she should do.  We suggested she ask her supervisor at the China pavilion where she should go and we would drive her there.  Another girl needed a ride to take a test to enter a graduate school.  One thing that many of them wanted to do was to take the driving test.  In Orlando they must first take a 5 hour drug and alcohol prevention class, then a written test for learner’s permit and finally the road test.  Rather than take people one at a time, Roy suggested that a group go together.  Another way to help was Epcot workers often get home from work at 10 pm and then must prepare dinner for themselves.  Roy invited individuals for dinner or a group of them for dim sum dinner.

 

As we sought to share spiritual truth with these people from Hong Kong and China, we learned what Missionary Paul meant in I Corinthians 3: 6 to 9  “I planted, Apollos watered but God gave the growth…He who plants and he who waters are equal and each shall receive his wages according to his labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers.”  A girl from Hong Kong didn’t seem to be interested in spiritual things when we talked to her.  After she finished her one-year contract with Disney, she went to England to complete her education.  She met some Christians who invited her to a retreat.  She accepted Christ there.  She sent an email to us to let us know what happened and thanked us for introducing her to Jesus Christ.  We should not be discouraged if we don’t see many people accept Christ.  God wants us to be faithful whether we are planting spiritual seed or watering which is helping others to grow spiritually.

 

Another thing we are learning is when God has his hand on a person, He will bring other Christians into their lives.  When the girl from Hangzhou asked us to be sponsors for her husband to study at Tempe, Arizona, we said, “Sure!”  Roy flew to Arizona to meet him and to talk to him about becoming a Christian.  He said yes to be polite because Uncle Roy had come so far to talk to him.  God knew his heart.  He brought another Christian to his dorm and he went to church with him.  When his wife was able to join him in Tempe, they moved to an apartment complex where a Christian couple had Bible study in their home for people who had to work on Sunday.  This couple is now in Texas and they have a little boy.

 

Roy volunteered me to tutor two teen-aged acrobats from Hurbe who perform at Splendid China theme park in Kissimee.  I teach them English on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from about 8pm to 9 or 9:30pm.  Another thing that happened was when we took friends to Animal Kingdom, Roy walked over to the Asia section and talked to a girl from Thailand.  On her day off, he invited her to our house and to dinner at the Oriental Seafood Restaurant.  He asked her to invite her friends.  One of her friends had a roommate from Tokyo, Japan who was graduating the same day as a friend from China so we went to their graduation.  Roy offered the 2 girls a ride home.  The girl from Thailand had to hurry home to go to the airport to meet some of her friends.  On our way, we stopped at McDonalds to get her a hamburger.  After we dropped her off, we took the Japanese roommate to Sizzlers for a breakfast buffet to celebrate her graduation.  She later called for a ride to the post office to mail 4 boxes to Japan.  When her parents came from Japan the next week to go on a Disney cruise, we picked them up at the airport and drove them to the Polynesian Resort Hotel where they were staying.  Another day, we went to Animal Kingdom Lodge with a girl from Hong Kong.  Roy started talking to a boy from Botswana who had come just a month ago.  Because he used to be a guide at a wild animal reservation, he was hired by Disney to talk to the guests at the lodge about the wild animals and also hold seminars on the African animals.  Roy invited him to our home for dinner and also took him to and amusement park called Old Town and to Splendid China.

 

Getting involved in people’s lives is very rewarding but when the phone rings too often for help, Roy gets tired of running around and begins to feel he is being taken advantage of.  Our home has been very busy with friends, relatives, pastors, and missionaries along with Epcot people staying with us.  We even had 2 girls from Hong Kong stay with us for 2 weeks after 9/11 grounded their plane to New York and Canada.  They finally flew directly home to Hong Kong.  We feel like we’re running a bed and breakfast place.  When we get tired, we are reminded of Galatians 6: 9 “And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessings if we don’t get discouraged and give up.”  We remind ourselves that the reason we moved to Orlando was to serve others.  We also travel to get away for a while.