Part 1: Prayers in Mandarin

In an English-inundated world, I tingle whenever I hear words of Mandarin worship, prayer, or Scripture. I suspect it’s generative from three generations of matriarchal faith that have held me, fed me, sang to me, prayed over me in cooing Chinese tongue.

My great-great-grandmother, who lived to be 104, often sat on the edge of the sofa for hours, head drooping lower and lower until her chin rested in slumber and the bible loosened from her hands. She would jerk awake and momentarily regain her focus, only to doze off again several moments later. As a child, I took for granted her long, lyrical prayers spoken over meals, and utterances of Xièxiè Zhǔ, Xièxiè Zhǔ every three to four lines—thank you Lord, thank you Lord. The steadfastness must have carried through the generations. I don’t remember my mother’s singing over me as a baby, but her blessings surely are embedded in my unconscious somewhere deep down. My grandmother has been and remains my spiritual watchtower–guiding me in daily prayer, lighting the way through the years with her Scripture-saturated birthday cards, always available with an attentive and confidential ear.

How far back do I dare trace these stories of faith?

My grandmother Margaret fell in love with her Sunday school teacher and got married to my grandfather in 1958. Fulbright Ho, who had been disowned by his parents for his conversion to Christianity, was a student of missionary Watchman Nee and already very active in the local church in Taiwan. They were ages 23 and 33.

From there they were sent out by the church to various regions—Jiayi, where my mother was born, Gaoxiong, in the south, Taichung, where my mother and most her siblings grew up,  and Taipei, where my grandmother and grandfather spent time with my maternal great grandmother during the summers. Names like Ní Tuòshēng (倪柝聲, Watchman Nee) and Lǐ Chángshòu (李常受, Witness Lee) are sprinkled throughout the stories Margaret shares about Fulbright, strands of a much larger history of Christianity in Chinese history.  Apparently my grandfather was a big deal. He was well-known throughout the Christian network in Taiwan, had thousands of people at his wedding, and would be invited to ministry in America later on in life by his contemporaries such as Brother Feng.

I am sad to say that I never had the opportunity to meet my grandfather. He passed away one year before I was born, in 1993. Like all family narrative, his desires and choices pulled at and shaped my mother’s life experiences. Alongside her siblings, she was displaced from her high school life in Taiwan to immigrate to Syracuse, New York when she was 15 years old.