My brilliant cousin, conveniently also named Kim (thus, Kim Creasman, just like my wife) wrote a compelling blog about legacy. Legacy is what many think about when we get older, especially at the time of pondering and thinking about a new year. She and her husband Jim have served for almost 20 years in Asia, mostly in Singapore, as a missionary with Church Resource Ministries. This past year they finally returned home to the States, perhaps just for a sabbatical or maybe for a stateside appointment.
Kim tells this wonderful story about legacy, starting with a journey into the backwoods of China in 1999. She writes “Before we finished our time in China, we wanted to take a trip to the village of the sweet older teenager who had been the babysitter for our boys while we had been in language school. She was a Christian young woman from the Yi Minority Group. She had come to the big city [of Kunming, population 3 million at that time] from a Christian family in a remote village.” So, my cousins started what became a 35+ hour trip by train, bus and minivan, followed by a 40 minute walk on a dirt trail.
After one night there, the girl and other villagers took my cousins on another trail for about an hour to get to a larger village. To their surprise, everyone in the village was a Christian. Note, for either village, few visitors came unless they were tax collectors or other government officials. They were what we could call extremely impoverished, though I doubt the people saw it that way. Kim shares that “This long weekend, they killed a chicken and fried a few varieties of vegetables like corn, and sweet potatoes…and sweet potato leaves. Normally all they ate were potatoes with chili paste.”
So, in the other village where everyone was a Christian, the mayor, who was also the pastor, gathered the entire village for a service and to meet with the Westerners. Kim writes “It didn’t take very long before the place was packed, dimly lit inside by only two light bulbs hanging from cords in the ceiling. We gathered in a common room of the pastor/mayor’s home, jostling for how to fit everyone in on small wooden stools. We had some gifts to give them. They had some simple gifts, and some words for us.”
It was what the pastor said that touched Kim and taught her about legacy. He said “We have wanted to meet a white person for a long, long time. We are so thankful to you. Once 8 years ago, when our school was finally finished, we heard that a white person was going to come to help us dedicate the school. The children prepared dances and songs for weeks. On the day of the dedication, they lined the road and stood for hours, waiting. But the white guest of honor never came. Now, here you are! Without any notice at all, you showed up and surprised us! We are so grateful to you!”
He went on sharing with my stunned cousins. “You see, before the revolution, we had [the name he said we didn’t know] come here to tell us about the love of Jesus, and his Father in Heaven. We all had lived in poverty and fear of evil spirits, but [whoever he was] introduced us to the Way, the Truth, and the Life, through Jesus. Now we had Savior who gave us hope and joy! We are all so thankful to [him, whoever he was]. He was killed and is buried nearby in [this place and time we couldn’t understand either], and we all honor his sacrifice for us to come to know God. You are the first white people to come to us since then. You are the first white people we are able to thank for sending [this mystery Saint]. Thank you for being missionaries in this generation. Thank you for being people who are willing to come all the way out here to bring us the Good News!”
Wow! As Kim put it, the mystery missionary had come some time between the 1920s and World War II’s start…which in China really began in the middle 1930s. He would never know of the impact he had. Yet, he left a legacy. Kim writes “Later that night back in Shiao Yan’s village I heard singing. I walked out away from the dimly lit wooden house to listen. Across the completely dark valley I could faintly hear a group of people singing old hymns that I had known as a child growing up in a Baptist Church. I’d long ago forgotten words, but the tunes were familiar. There in the remote mountain ranges of this communist country, the hearts of an entire people group had been won for Christ, and I had been undeservedly thanked for it.”
What about you? Is what you are doing leaving an eternal legacy? I can promise you that what you do is leaving some signs behind. The question is what you leave good or bad? Kim shares about the fact that often we simply can’t see the impact. I’ve said that often about teaching (want to know if I have done a good job….check with my students in 10-15 years after my class). Ministry is the same way. But even beyond Christianity, how you operate leaves a trace. My mother taught kindergarten for 30 years in McMinn County in East Tennessee. She left a powerful legacy through the hundreds of children she taught. Similarly, in all walks of life, from my father’s work with SkillsUSA, my brother-in-law’s work with Florida law enforcement, another brother-in-law’s work as a conductor and every other kind of person in-between. You leave a legacy within your neighborhood or apartment complex.
Want to read the whole story about Kim and Jim’s experience in China…check it out here.