China (1899-1968)

Yin Wei Jie was born in Guangdong Province, China to a Buddhist family who practiced

many traditional Chinese beliefs such as worshipping ancestors and reverencing ghosts. When

she was nine years old, she contracted malaria and became seriously ill. One of their neighbors

insisted that her mother take her to the mission hospital for treatment. As she stayed in the

hospital for several weeks recovering, she cried out many times for her father who had passed

away. The missionaries began to tell her about her Heavenly Father and how Jesus could lead

her to Him. She began to pray “Jesus, please lead me to this Heavenly Father”. As she

learned to pray in Jesus’ name and asked God to forgive her sins, she found herself

mysteriously changed. When she recovered, she was able to get admission to the mission

school where she began to get an education and learned more about Jesus and the Bible.

In 1923, Yin Wei Jie attended a conference for young people and heard a Chinese

woman preach a missions message titled “Who will Go for Us?”. Yin Wei Jie responded to the

call to go wherever God would send her to share the gospel. “Lord if you need me, I will go”.

She felt God was calling her to go to Manchuria in the far north which at that time was controlled

by the Japanese. In 1934 she went to work with American missionaries at the mission in

Manchuria. Although she had trouble adjusting to the diet and the bitter cold, she was able to

share the Gospel and lead people to Christ wherever she went, even fellow patients when she

had to be hospitalized because of poor health.

For thirteen years, Yin Wei Jie worked as a Bible woman, traveling out to remote villages

to share the gospel. Travel was very difficult, usually by cart over unpaved roads. Many were led

to Christ and began to get rid of their household idols. The mission planted a church in the area

with the people who had come to know Christ, and when war between the Japanese and

Chinese forced the American missionaries to leave, Yin Wei Jie stayed for several more years,

leading the church and continuing to share the Gospel. However, civil war was brewing in

China, and Yin Wei Jie and her family decided that they needed to return home as the area

became more unsafe.

Back in her hometown, her friends from the mission hospital where she had come to

Christ welcomed her. All of the American missionaries knew they would soon have to leave the

country because of the political situation, and they appointed her to care for the orphanage run

by the mission and take care of the children and workers when they had to leave.

From 1949-1952 she led the orphanage faithfully. However, she was brought in many

times for questioning by the Red Army officials because of her close association with “foreign

imperialists” and her Christian beliefs. Finally, in 1952, the revolutionaries took over the

orphanage and replaced the leadership and workers with people loyal to the new government.

They put Yin Wei Jie in prison for 17 months, forcing her to write the complete story of her life

many times and looking for evidence that she was a counter revolutionary. She continued to

insist that she had done nothing except take care of orphaned children and express her

Christian faith by sharing God’s Word with others. She held fast to her identity as a child of

God, separate from any political party or agenda. Eventually, they could find no charges against

her and let her go.

After her release, through a series of miracles, she was able to get a travel permit to

Hong Kong, and eventually was able to travel to Los Angeles where she lived the last five years

of her life. In each place she lived, she continued working with the church, sharing Christ’s love

and the salvation that he offered through faith in Christ. She had to learn to cross cultures, both

in China to work alongside American missionaries, then to work in Manchuria which had a

different language and culture from her own, and finally to adapt to her new environment in the

United States. However, she held fast to her identity as a daughter of the true Heavenly Father,

and she saw his grace, protection and blessings follow her throughout her life, remaining fruitful

in ministry in each culture where God called her to serve.