Caring For Others

The Ticket to Freedom

(My grandmother's family in Taishan, China in 1937. My grandmother is the child that the woman standing next to the man in the chair is holding.)

Imagine this: the year is 1951, and you are a refugee in China fleeing the country in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War as communism is taking root and Christians are being persecuted. Your only hope of freedom is fleeing the country aboard an overcrowded and cramped boat, but you and your family take the risk in hopes of going to a better place.

With the little money your family has left, you and your family buy tickets to America aboard a ship docked in Guangzhou, which is a city in the very south region of the Guangdong Province. It’s a cold, cloudy January morning when you first arrive at the dock. You take a look at your surroundings and see misery all around; there is an extremely long line of refugee men, women, and children snaking around the entire dock who are waiting to be boarded on the ship. The people in that line are exceedingly skinny, covered in dust and dirt, and dressed in ragged clothing with rips and tears from the brutality of the Chinese Civil War. Some men have bruises and scars on their arms and faces, children are crying loudly as they hold their mothers’ hands, people are shouting and yelling as they try to push their way up the line and towards the entrance of the boat. Some people are so bruised and bloodied that they can’t even stand up, and are instead forced to lay down on the cold, hard floor either next to their family members or by themselves. There is a horrible, vomitous smell in the air of rotten fish and food mixed in with the odor of the people at the dock, who haven’t bathed in many weeks. Flies are everywhere around you, for right next to you there is an open cargo box filled with molded and rotten food that will, alas, be eaten by the people during the journey to America since ripened food is nowhere to be found. These are your surroundings, but you and your family get into the line of refugees anyway, because the situation in the country is getting very desperate, and that boat is the only way you will ever escape to freedom.

After waiting for an extremely long time, you and your family finally get to the front of the line. The captain of the ship is standing in front of you. He is a tall, intimidating man with a scowl written on his face and his arms crossed in an irate manner. He holds out his hand to you and loudly demands that you show him your ticket. So you reach inside of your pocket to retrieve it, but then you suddenly realize that it is no longer in there. Panic and fear soon set over you. Anxiety and fear evolve into a hurricane in your mind as you desperately try to find where your ticket is. You ask your family, but they all say that they don’t know where it is. You start to feel anxious and worried as the people behind you begin whispering and murmuring to one another about why you and your family are taking so long, while others, who are becoming very infuriated about the hold-up, begin berating you to hurry up. Fear begins to evolve faster and faster as you realize that without that ticket, you will have to stay in China alone. When the bad-tempered captain registers the fact that you do not have your ticket with you, he demands that you leave the front of the line immediately, while your mother pleads with him to let you on the boat so that you can go to freedom. What would happen to you now?

My Grandmother's Story

My grandmother found herself in this exact situation when she was only 16 years old. In 1951, she was fleeing China from the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War with her parents and brother (my great-grandparents and my great uncle). They lived in the village of Taishan, but left for Guangzhou before going aboard a ship to the United States of America. But before they could enter the boat, my grandmother suddenly realized that she had lost her ticket. She was about to be told that she needed to leave the dock immediately and would have to stay in Guangzhou or go back to Taishan alone, but her parents pleaded with the captain of the ship to let my grandmother aboard. However, the captain refused, and soon my grandmother’s family was causing a huge commotion at the front of the line of refugees waiting to be boarded on.

As my grandmother was about to be forced out of the front of the line, to her surprise, a stranger pushed her way up the line and handed my grandmother her lost ticket back. The woman was from Guangzhou and said that she had found the lost ticket on the streets. She suddenly realized what the ticket was, and made her way to the dock, where she heard my grandmother’s family having a loud argument with the captain of the ship. She then determined that the ticket must have belonged to a member of the family, and that’s why she gave the lost ticket back to my grandmother. Now that the ticket was in my grandmother’s possession, she and her family were allowed onto the ship and were able to come to America, while the stranger disappeared back into the streets of Guangzhou.

(My grandmother when she first arrived in America in 1951.)

(My grandmother and great uncle in America in the year 1953.)

(My grandmother's parents (my great-grandparents)).

When I first heard this story, I was about nine years old. I was amazed. In the city of Guangzhou, there was a stranger who cared enough about my grandmother to give her ticket back to her. My grandmother told me that it was that stranger’s kindness and care that provided her with a way to escape China, and I would have to agree, too. That woman could have very well not given the lost ticket back to my grandmother, but the stranger cared for her, whom she didn’t even know, and showed kindness and love to my grandmother. The situation that the stranger was in was just as miserable and desperate as my grandmother’s, and when she found the ticket she could have used it for herself or she could have sold it to buy food or something very valuable. Yet she did not do that, and instead performed an act of care and kindness by giving the ticket back to my grandmother.

(My grandmother's family many years after they arrived in America. My grandmother is the woman with the white necklace.)

Ever since my grandmother told me this story, I have been captivated by it. I think about it so much because I find it amazing how caring that stranger was to my grandmother. And it also got me thinking about something else: Do I care for others? Have you ever thought about how much you actually care? What have you done that benefits other people? And most importantly, when we care and help others, do we do it from the bottom of our heart or do we do it just because we have to? These are the types of questions that circulate in my mind almost every day. Throughout my life, I have noticed that we often intend on only thinking about ourselves and not being concerned for anyone else; only rarely do I ever see someone who showed the amount of care and kindness as the stranger my grandmother met in 1951. Nowadays, it is extremely easy to only care about ourselves. We are sometimes so engrossed by everyday life and our own demands that we often forget to listen to each other, talk to each other, and tell others that we love them. These are just some simple ways to show one another that we care for them, but it is occasionally difficult for us to do these things.

Kindness and Love in the Bible

So what does the Bible want us to do for others? Well, one good example is the Book of Ruth. In this story, Ruth and Orpah, two women of Moab, marry two sons of Naomi. Eventually the husbands of all three women die, leaving them all widowed. Naomi then urges Ruth and Orpah to go back to their own people, but Ruth stays behind. In Ruth 1:16, she says to Naomi, "Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay...". This verse perfectly shows Ruth's loyalty, kindness, love, and caring nature to Naomi. She could have left her, but Ruth stayed with her because she cared for the well-being of her elderly mother-in-law. She attended to Naomi and demonstrated a beautiful act of faithfulness, compassion, affection, and care. The Book of Ruth shows us what the Bible says we should do for others: we should care for other people and demonstrate actions similar to those of Ruth. The Lord wants us to look at Ruth as a perfect example of affection and kindness. God wants us to always love and care for others and show our kindness as if we were representing him.

(Ruth and Naomi. Picture Provided by, qspirit.net)

Conclusion

(My sister and I with our grandmother in 2015)

So what is the best way to show that we care for other people? We treat others with respect, love them for who they are, and show affection to them. We should remember the way that Ruth treated her mother-in-law, Naomi, and like her, represent the Lord through all of our actions. Go and talk to somebody today, go and listen to a story that they would like to share, or even just help somebody out by doing a simple task. Whether it’s helping a refugee find her ticket to freedom or walking somebody across the street, these are just some things that demonstrate God’s love through you. Helping another person is one of the most important things we can do, and if we help others, it will send a message to them and to other people around you that you care and that God is at work in your life.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading this devotion!

Author: Morgan I. Lee

Graphic Designer: Taylor A. Lee

And a special thank you to Mrs. White, Mrs. Beck, Mrs. Richardson, and Pastor Derrick Cruz.

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