Editor's note: Sister Zhang is a volunteer with an eight-year experience in caring leprosy survivors. In July 2009, she resigned from her job as a Chinese medicine doctor then walked into a leprosy rehabilitation village located in Shandong. Since then, she has served leprosy survivors scattered in more than 20 leper colonies across China and shared Jesus' love to the people.
Zhang experienced God's grace while nursing those people forgotten by the world. She confessed that she would rather die as a kernel of wheat so that others may live, which is the life value she has been looking for. The sister admits that she used to seek worldly glory. As a respectable doctor, suffering from ups and downs in her life as a doctor as well as from her rebellious child, she was once on tenterhooks and sit up all night... The situation lasted until 2004 when her father, who accepted the Gospel, preached to her.
Her father was evangelized when working out in the morning
One morning, a 94-year-old elderly person shared the Gospel with her father who was working out beside a river. He presenting him the Bible and a book entitled "Streams in the Desert".
That period of her father's conversion was the lowest time of her life. Looking at the book her father brought home, the name touched her. There was a change in her attitude towards Christianity. Although she was once bored with the religion, she walked into a church where she accepted the blessings of believers and felt God's love.
Since that time, she became a regular churchgoer and later participated in church ministries like visiting and reception. A deeper desire for service gradually generated in her heart.
Seeing lepers for the first time
In the middle of June 2009, she went to a leprosy rehabilitation village situated in Tengzhou, Shandong, somewhat accidentally. There, she saw those weak and miserable leprosy survivors for the first time. They were described exactly as how the verses in Isaiah 53 described lepers: "like a root out of the dry ground...no beauty or majesty ... despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised..."
"I took care of my father suffering from a stroke and I barely insisted on taking care of him after two or three months. I know the trouble of serving the elderly." It surprised her that the volunteers changed the clothes of the leprosy survivors, washed their bodies and dressed their wounds with smiles and great willingness. Once, she saw a sister who scrubbed the body of an old leprosy survivor without wearing gloves. Shocked by her courage, Zhang asked what if she got an infection because she did not have gloves. A volunteer, who serves the elderly all year around offered the answer through 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love". Deeply moved by the reply, she made up her mind to overcome her fears herself and to become a Christian with love.
Experiencing a lost-and-found miracle
Zhang brought her rebellious son to the colony where he could do something simple to serve the community. He learned endurance while life in the colony was too boring for a young man like him. At the end of 2010, the eighteen-year-old boy migrated to Guangdong for work. But sister Zhang lost touch with him after receiving a call from him, telling her that he found a job in a brick factory. There were no messages from her son after three months even if it was near the Chinese New Year. At that time, she moved to another leprosy colony in Taixing, Jiangsu from a rehab village in Huizhou, Guangdong. One evening, the verses of Jeremiah 31:16-17 came to her sight for several times: "This is what the LORD says: 'Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,' declares the LORD. 'They will return from the land of the enemy. So there is hope for your future,' declares the LORD. 'Your children will return to their own land.' "The verses comforted her very much.
When it was the day before the Chinese New Year, she couldn't wait and bought a ticket headed to Guangdong in search of her lost son.
She arrived in Guangzhou on the first day of the new lunar year, intending to seek through all the brick factories in the city. A clue reached her very soon and she found her son on the same day. Seeing her son, she was so excited like how the father was glad to return to the lost son in the parable of the prodigal son. She said that she would never have found her son without the help of the Holy Spirit and it would not have been so easy unless God prepared many good people to help her in her search. She felt grateful for this, knowing that the Heavenly Father watches over her all the time.
Touching moments during the service
Just after the 2011 Spring Festival, a local hospital of Dongguan, Guangdong needed volunteers to care for leprosy survivors. Planning to rest for some time, she had a thought: "If we want to share the glory of Christ in the future, we must have a part of the sufferings of Christ during this life. Since there is little time for us to work for God, our purpose should be to save Jesus' scattered and torn-apart flock and we should not regard any sacrifice as a significant thing. We must do the work as long as it is day because the night of hardship and pain is coming. It will be too late to work for God at that time."
The volunteers serve a special group. The majority of the leprosy survivors are the elderly with various complications, some of whom have no hands, legs or eyesight. They suffer from all-pervasive ulcers coupled with indifference and detest from their families and neighbors. Some of them even commit suicide. "Time is precious for us. We may lose the chance of saving a soul if we are one minute late." States Zhang.
Then she set off the next day. Arriving at the destination, she was immediately brought to take care of a 77-year-old leprosy survivor. The elderly woman was tortured by ulcer for six decades and has tried several suicide attempts. She was convulsing and groaning when she and the other volunteers saw her. Zhang began to clean her wound and wipe her body to cool her down. When she disclosed the gauze covering the ulcers, she was shocked by what she saw: "half of the hip was broken...the smelly odor was hard to bear. "
"The spiritual leprosy is more detestable than the fester in the body." Zhang adds.
Zhang applied a heat pack to the sores, partial evacuation of pus and massaged the aching nerves, along with a prayer. The process lasted for two hours. The fever left her and the pain was gone after the sores were binded up. So the news was spread widely. "Are you the angels sent by God?"
The people felt that it was a wonder and many believed in Jesus.
"I would rather die so that others may live."
In the past, Zhang claimed that she kept seeking the Lord to serve Him. Now she has found Him.
"This senior is the Lord and so is that elderly person. They bend their huddled bodies and spend forty or fifty years against black walls with 'marks'. Who are they waiting for when they are alive? People ask the question often and nobody knows the answer, but God is determined to save them."
She believes that these patients are the legacy Christ left for his church, who deserve care just as the Lord cares for them. "Who is willing to respond to God's calling by entering the unreached areas and do God's work with a firm and joyous heart? Who is willing to follow the steps of Jesus and do what Jesus did on the earth in every place that needs comfort, such as beside a patient's bed, in a poor man's house and in a packed alley?"
Through these years of service, she sees the world like a kernel of wheat: "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. " (John 12:24) This is the life value she had been looking for -- "I would rather die so that others may live."
- Translated by Karen Luo
题记：再过三个月，张姊妹就成了拥有8年“工龄”的老麻风病村义工了。2009年7月，她辞去中医工作，走进了麻风病康复村；此后她走遍了中国二十多个麻风病村，服侍病人，分享耶稣的爱。
在服侍这些被世界遗忘之人的同时，张姊妹自己也在经历神的恩典。现在她告白，“自己死，让别人活”，成为一粒麦子，就是她一直在寻找的人生价值。
张姊妹坦言，她曾盲目寻求属世的尊荣，想当一名受人尊重的医者，于是选学了药剂学。后来又选学针推伤科……经历人生的沧桑和孩子悖逆，张姊妹曾彻夜难眠，坐卧不安……直到2004年，接受了福音的父亲将福音也传给了她。
父亲晨练中听到福音
有一天，张姊妹的父亲在江边晨练时，一位94岁的老人向他传了福音。在随后的交流中，这位老人还向张父赠送了圣经和《荒漠甘泉》。
父亲刚接受福音的那段时间，正是张姊妹人生最低谷的时候。看到父亲带回来的书，标题“荒漠甘泉”四个字就像甘泉一样触动了她，她一改往日对基督教厌烦的态度，甚至走进了教堂，在那里接受弟兄姐妹的祝福，感受到了神的爱。
张姊妹自那时开始常去教堂聚会，随着参与探访、接待等服侍工作，她对服侍逐渐产生了更深的渴望。
第一次见到麻风病人
2009年6月中旬，一个偶然的机会她跟别人去了山东滕州麻风村，在那里，她人生头一次看到了如圣经中描述的“像根出于甘地无佳形美容，被人藐视，被人厌弃，多受痛苦，常经忧患，被人掩面不看”的人，也就是那些最小最凄惨的麻风病患。
在麻风村，义工们对麻风病患的服侍的一点一滴都在她的眼前，“我曾服侍中风的父亲，两三个月时就有点坚持不下去了，我知道服侍老人的难处。”让她吃惊的是，那些义工们带着笑容，为老人们换洗、包扎，而且做得那么甘心乐意。
有一次她看到一个姊妹不带手套就为卧病在床的老人擦洗、包扎，钦佩震惊之余，她忍不住说了一句：“不戴手套，传染了怎么办？”一位长年服侍的老人义工用约翰一书4章18节的经文回答了她，“爱里没有惧怕”，张姊妹深受感动。她暗暗地下决心要为这句话得胜自我，做一个真正有爱的基督徒。
经历失而复得的奇迹
张姊妹也将叛逆的儿子带到了麻风病，做一些简单服侍。在这里他学到了忍耐，但是麻风病村的生活对于一个年轻人来说太枯燥了，2010年底，18岁的儿子去了广东打工。儿子在广东的一个砖厂安顿下来之后仅给她打过一个电话，之后就失去了联系。
三个月过去了，农历春节快到了，儿子还是没有音信，张姊妹已经从广东惠州麻风村辗转至江苏泰兴麻风村服侍。一天晚上，好几看到耶利米书31:16-17的经文，“耶和华如此说：你禁止声音不要哀哭，禁止眼目不要流泪，因你所做之工必有赏赐；他们必从敌国归回。这是耶和华说的。耶和华说：你末后必有指望；你的儿女必回到自己的境界。”这两节经文给了她很大安慰。
终于到了大年三十，张姊妹再也坐不住了，她买票重新回到广东，继续找儿子。大年初一抵达广州，她找了一辆三轮车，打算找遍广州的砖厂。感谢的是，很快就有了儿子的线索，最终见到儿子的那一刻，她无比激动，就像“浪子的比喻”中的老父亲一样，为失而复得的儿子欢喜不已。
她告白，若不是圣灵的帮助，她断不能在第一天就找回儿子，若不是神预备了很多好心人帮助她，也不会那么容易见到儿子。为此，她感恩，也知道天父时时在看顾。
服侍当中的点点滴滴
2011年春节刚过，广东东莞泗安医院需要麻风病义工帮助。原本想休息一段时间，张姊妹却有了这样的感动：“如果我们想将来与基督的荣耀里有份，我们今生就必须与基督的苦难有份，我们只有一点点的时间来为上帝做工了，我们要为抢救耶稣那四散而被撕裂的羊群起见，就不应以任何牺牲为重大，必须趁着还有白天的时候做工，因为患难与痛苦的黑夜来到，那时，再为上帝做工已经太晚了。”
麻风病义工面临的是一个特殊的群体，麻风病康复者大部分都是老人，患有各种并发症，没手没脚，眼睛看不见，无孔不入的溃疡更是常常侵蚀着他们的身体，还有来自亲人邻居的冷漠和嫌弃，他们的身心灵都承受着巨大的痛苦，甚至有老人自杀。“对于我们，时间太过宝贵，晚去一分钟都可能会失去挽救一个灵魂的机会。”张姊妹说。
她第二天就出发，一到目的地就被带到一位77岁的麻风病老人身边。这位老人被溃疡折磨了六十年，几经自杀而未遂。正在抽搐呻吟时，张姊妹一行人赶到了，开始给老人清洗伤口，先擦身降温，然后打开患处，她惊呆了：“半面臀部全烂……气味臭的让人难以忍受”。
“灵性的麻风比肉体的溃烂更为憎恶，但爱里有医治的大能，”张姊妹说。她开始为老人热敷疮口，局部排脓及按摩神经所痛之处，并为她祷告，整个过程持续了两个小时之久，包扎完热度退了，疼痛也消了。
“就这样，消息一下传开了。“难道你们就是上帝派来的天使？”众人真是感到神奇，很多人信了耶稣。
“自己死，让别人活”
一直以来，张姊妹说她都在寻找主，想要服侍他，如今她找到了。“这个老人是主，那个老人也是主，他们正卷曲挛缩的身体，靠着黑乎乎有“记号”的墙壁，度过了四五十年的光阴，他们活着在等谁呢？人们都在问，没有人知道，但上帝却要拯救他们。”
张姊妹认为，这些麻风病人正是基督留给教会的遗产，他们应当受照顾，像主自己要照顾他们一样，“谁愿意响应上帝的呼召，进入未曾传过福音的地区，以坚定和喜乐的心做上帝的工作? 谁愿意跟随耶稣的脚踪，在病人的床边、穷人的茅舍、大都市、拥挤的小巷，在每一个需要安慰的地方，行耶稣在地上所行的呢？”
通过这几年的服侍，张姊妹看到了一粒麦子的世界，“一粒麦子不落在地里死了仍旧是一粒，若是死了就结出许多籽粒来。”这也是她一直在寻找的人生的价值——“自己死，让别人活。”
【专访】“自己死，让别人活”——麻风病康复村义工的蜕变人生
Editor's note: Sister Zhang is a volunteer with an eight-year experience in caring leprosy survivors. In July 2009, she resigned from her job as a Chinese medicine doctor then walked into a leprosy rehabilitation village located in Shandong. Since then, she has served leprosy survivors scattered in more than 20 leper colonies across China and shared Jesus' love to the people.
Zhang experienced God's grace while nursing those people forgotten by the world. She confessed that she would rather die as a kernel of wheat so that others may live, which is the life value she has been looking for. The sister admits that she used to seek worldly glory. As a respectable doctor, suffering from ups and downs in her life as a doctor as well as from her rebellious child, she was once on tenterhooks and sit up all night... The situation lasted until 2004 when her father, who accepted the Gospel, preached to her.
Her father was evangelized when working out in the morning
One morning, a 94-year-old elderly person shared the Gospel with her father who was working out beside a river. He presenting him the Bible and a book entitled "Streams in the Desert".
That period of her father's conversion was the lowest time of her life. Looking at the book her father brought home, the name touched her. There was a change in her attitude towards Christianity. Although she was once bored with the religion, she walked into a church where she accepted the blessings of believers and felt God's love.
Since that time, she became a regular churchgoer and later participated in church ministries like visiting and reception. A deeper desire for service gradually generated in her heart.
Seeing lepers for the first time
In the middle of June 2009, she went to a leprosy rehabilitation village situated in Tengzhou, Shandong, somewhat accidentally. There, she saw those weak and miserable leprosy survivors for the first time. They were described exactly as how the verses in Isaiah 53 described lepers: "like a root out of the dry ground...no beauty or majesty ... despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised..."
"I took care of my father suffering from a stroke and I barely insisted on taking care of him after two or three months. I know the trouble of serving the elderly." It surprised her that the volunteers changed the clothes of the leprosy survivors, washed their bodies and dressed their wounds with smiles and great willingness. Once, she saw a sister who scrubbed the body of an old leprosy survivor without wearing gloves. Shocked by her courage, Zhang asked what if she got an infection because she did not have gloves. A volunteer, who serves the elderly all year around offered the answer through 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love". Deeply moved by the reply, she made up her mind to overcome her fears herself and to become a Christian with love.
Experiencing a lost-and-found miracle
Zhang brought her rebellious son to the colony where he could do something simple to serve the community. He learned endurance while life in the colony was too boring for a young man like him. At the end of 2010, the eighteen-year-old boy migrated to Guangdong for work. But sister Zhang lost touch with him after receiving a call from him, telling her that he found a job in a brick factory. There were no messages from her son after three months even if it was near the Chinese New Year. At that time, she moved to another leprosy colony in Taixing, Jiangsu from a rehab village in Huizhou, Guangdong. One evening, the verses of Jeremiah 31:16-17 came to her sight for several times: "This is what the LORD says: 'Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,' declares the LORD. 'They will return from the land of the enemy. So there is hope for your future,' declares the LORD. 'Your children will return to their own land.' "The verses comforted her very much.
When it was the day before the Chinese New Year, she couldn't wait and bought a ticket headed to Guangdong in search of her lost son.
She arrived in Guangzhou on the first day of the new lunar year, intending to seek through all the brick factories in the city. A clue reached her very soon and she found her son on the same day. Seeing her son, she was so excited like how the father was glad to return to the lost son in the parable of the prodigal son. She said that she would never have found her son without the help of the Holy Spirit and it would not have been so easy unless God prepared many good people to help her in her search. She felt grateful for this, knowing that the Heavenly Father watches over her all the time.
Touching moments during the service
Just after the 2011 Spring Festival, a local hospital of Dongguan, Guangdong needed volunteers to care for leprosy survivors. Planning to rest for some time, she had a thought: "If we want to share the glory of Christ in the future, we must have a part of the sufferings of Christ during this life. Since there is little time for us to work for God, our purpose should be to save Jesus' scattered and torn-apart flock and we should not regard any sacrifice as a significant thing. We must do the work as long as it is day because the night of hardship and pain is coming. It will be too late to work for God at that time."
The volunteers serve a special group. The majority of the leprosy survivors are the elderly with various complications, some of whom have no hands, legs or eyesight. They suffer from all-pervasive ulcers coupled with indifference and detest from their families and neighbors. Some of them even commit suicide. "Time is precious for us. We may lose the chance of saving a soul if we are one minute late." States Zhang.
Then she set off the next day. Arriving at the destination, she was immediately brought to take care of a 77-year-old leprosy survivor. The elderly woman was tortured by ulcer for six decades and has tried several suicide attempts. She was convulsing and groaning when she and the other volunteers saw her. Zhang began to clean her wound and wipe her body to cool her down. When she disclosed the gauze covering the ulcers, she was shocked by what she saw: "half of the hip was broken...the smelly odor was hard to bear. "
"The spiritual leprosy is more detestable than the fester in the body." Zhang adds.
Zhang applied a heat pack to the sores, partial evacuation of pus and massaged the aching nerves, along with a prayer. The process lasted for two hours. The fever left her and the pain was gone after the sores were binded up. So the news was spread widely. "Are you the angels sent by God?"
The people felt that it was a wonder and many believed in Jesus.
"I would rather die so that others may live."
In the past, Zhang claimed that she kept seeking the Lord to serve Him. Now she has found Him.
"This senior is the Lord and so is that elderly person. They bend their huddled bodies and spend forty or fifty years against black walls with 'marks'. Who are they waiting for when they are alive? People ask the question often and nobody knows the answer, but God is determined to save them."
She believes that these patients are the legacy Christ left for his church, who deserve care just as the Lord cares for them. "Who is willing to respond to God's calling by entering the unreached areas and do God's work with a firm and joyous heart? Who is willing to follow the steps of Jesus and do what Jesus did on the earth in every place that needs comfort, such as beside a patient's bed, in a poor man's house and in a packed alley?"
Through these years of service, she sees the world like a kernel of wheat: "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. " (John 12:24) This is the life value she had been looking for -- "I would rather die so that others may live."
- Translated by Karen Luo
Transformed Life of Volunteer for Leprosy Survivor: I Would Rather Die to Let Others Live
