Madam Niu’s father preached the gospel in China for over fifty years, from age 18, until the Cultural Revolution in 1966 saw him publicly punished, humiliated, and tortured.
Once, he was paraded in the streets wearing a placard identifying him as a Christian. He had to lower his head and bend over, as if confessing to a great crime. To ensure he was bending properly, bricks were hung around his neck. The violence spilled over to his children.
People began to mock Madam Niu for following a foreign religion and lashed out in hatred. She echoed the plea of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who cried out to Jesus: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” The Bible became increasingly precious.
“They burned seven of my Bibles,” she said. To preserve copies of the Scriptures, believers tore Bibles into sections, for easier hiding and so that each person could be strengthened by the Word. When she first received a ‘whole’ Bible again, she remembers that she just leapt for joy.
Today she is in her nineties and is blessed with five generations of her family living under her roof. Many of them serve the Lord and a great-grandson recently completed Bible school training.
