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God takes care of the widow and the fatherless

Pui Wah Poon

As edited by her son Luke Poon and translated by her grandchildren Grace Tsang and Pauline Poon

This year (1999), I am 88 years old. My husband passed away while I was in my 30s, leaving our family in great difficulty. As a widow, I was to bring up eight children (three daughters and five sons). It was God who took care of us. Among my eight children, three sons and two daughters devoted their lives to full-time ministry. All three daughters married pastors, and the oldest is also an ordained pastor. Out of 20 grandchildren, five grandsons also devoted their lives to full-time ministry. The rest are all Christians, and many are actively involved in their churches. God has also blessed me with 15 great-grandchildren.

I would like to share with everyone how God’s grace has worked in my life. In times of trouble, God has been my refuge and my fortress. God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows. May all glory and honour be to our true God, and may everyone in the world worship Him.

I grew up in an idol-worshipping family in a small village in Lam Hoi, Guangdong, China. The local people established a Christian church with an elementary school. Though I was a girl and not supposed to attend school, my father made me go. He only had four daughters, and he decided to treat me as a boy. But he would not allow me to go to listen to the gospel. I enjoyed singing Christian songs and going to Sunday school. One night, I sneaked into an evangelistic meeting. My parents found out and locked me out of the house. A nine-year-old girl, I cried outside the door. My pastor passed by and helped me plead with my father to let me in. He finally opened the door, and I did not even get spanked. I went straight to bed.

At that time, there was a revolution in China. Everyone was afraid and trying to run away. My sisters and I hid in the church. God wonderfully watched over the church and the Christian families. I begged the teacher to save my parents. Risking their lives, the Christians brought my mom to the church. My dad sold supplies for idol worship, and he refused to leave his store. Even though he knew that Jesus is the one true God, he refused to be a Christian until all his inventory was sold. God has a sense of humour – thieves came and stole all his goods, and my father was abducted.

Afterwards, our family moved to Shek Waan. This was the turning point for my family. Thank the Lord that he had sent a missionary from the USA, Ruth Hitchcock, who had started a church called the Hebron Mission in the village. Mr. Poon Suen Yeut from the church often came to visit our family. He was a very devoted Christian who brought my parents to accept Christ as their personal Saviour. Later, they arranged my marriage to Poon Suen Yeut’s son, Poon Wood Chuen. At that time, I was only 16, and he was a medical student, four years older than me. His sister was my classmate in nursing school; I later transferred into midwifery.

We moved to Suen Duk Tan village to start our own practice. God blessed us with eight children. My husband sometimes led the family in worship. Near Christmas time, I would teach my children Christmas carols and we would go to perform at the Hebron Mission. Since we had moved, the church was a two-hour walk away, and we only went during Christmas. Slowly, we drifted away from God and became only “Christmas Christians”. However, God never left us.

On April 22 1944, gun shots rang out from the Kwong Foo Restaurant. Some people came running to get my husband to help. He was not home, so I quickly ran to the restaurant with my first aid box. I found the mayor of the village dead. A few others were wounded. While I was attending to them, I was informed that there was someone wounded upstairs. I ran upstairs and saw, to my astonishment, my husband. He was slouched over a chair, helpless. His heartbeat was very weak, his pupils had already dilated, and his wounds were gushing blood. I stood there dumbfounded. He was only 37. Life was so fragile.

The restaurant owner wanted to restart business, and so he begged me to remove the corpse. Our friends were afraid to come to visit. Only our next door neighbour, Auntie Sup Yee, came to comfort me (her daughter Giu was working for us). Old Mr. Ho from across the street also came and brought a lamp full of oil to hang on our front door (at that time, oil was very expensive). The old man spent the whole night with us. I did not remember to pray. I could only sing a hymn to express my feelings: “Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land! A shelter in the time of storm.”

My children followed me in singing, but most of them were too young to understand what was going on. My eldest, a daughter, was 16, but she was studying in Fat Shan City, and had not heard the news yet. My youngest, a son, was only 15 months old. It was a long night with an uncertain future. I soon found out that the mayor was the target, and that my husband was wrongfully killed. From then on, we chased after the killer to obtain compensation for our family’s loss.

A week after my husband’s death, his corpse began to stink. The village people tried to persuade me to bury my husband. They even purchased a casket, but I refused until the case was settled. Yet, for the sake of sanitation, I agreed to move my husband to the killer’s property. I also sent my children back to Shek Waan to keep them away from all the chaos. Only my oldest and fourth daughters remained with me.

The night of the incident, the killer moved his family away. Pastors, lawyers and close friends tried to help me find him, but I was always a step behind. Unable to bring closure to my husband’s death, I had my world turned upside down. The larger society was also facing unrest, as China was in the middle of the Sino-Japanese war. I kept running back and forth to Guangzhou every other week in hopes of finding a solution.

In the midst of this chaos, I still did not turn to God. But God used my brother-in-law to turn my eyes back to Him. He was not a Christian, and yet he said, “You are a believer. Only Jesus can help you.” He encouraged my sister and me to attend an evangelistic meeting.

At the evangelistic meeting, the speaker spoke about sorrows turning into happiness. I was appalled. How could it be? My situation was only going from bad to worse.

The second night, I went again, but only because I wanted to see my old Sunday school teacher. That night, the speaker spoke on the theme “Forgetting what is behind”. He caught my attention when he defined “what is behind” as the dead, a casket, grief and sorrow. A Bible woman, Miss Yu, counselled me. She taught me to do personal devotions and to pray.

One day during my devotions, I heard a voice saying, “Your whole family must die.” I was extremely frightened. I told my mother-in-law, and she told me not to worry because our God was full of mercy and was waiting for me to turn back to Him. She led me in a prayer of repentance. I thought about the sinless Jesus dying on the cross, and I decided not to complain about my own predicament anymore.

However, my husband’s case continued to drag on without a solution, and Satan planted thoughts of suicide in my mind, telling me to jump out of the rear of a boat so that no one would see. On my first attempt, I thought about my elderly mother and father-in-law and my eight children. I went back to make arrangements for them. On my second attempt, I thought about my elderly father, and went back to make arrangements for him. On my third attempt, I went to the back of the boat. As I was about to jump out, I felt a strong hand pulling me back and heard a clear voice say, “Suicide will not save you.” The voice was deep and gentle, but when I looked behind me, no one was there. I was confused about the voice, but I made my way back to my seat.

When I got back to Shek Waan, I went to find Miss Yu to see if she could explain what had happened. She confronted me and said, “Don’t fall into Satan’s trap. He wants you to join him in hell, but there it is much, much more terrible. You must bow down, repent, fast, pray and draw closer to God.” Though I did, I continued to weep every time I thought about my husband’s death. Often I would cry in my sleep and wake up to a soaking pillow. One day, I read Revelation 21:4, that God “will wipe every tear from their eyes”. The words comforted my heart, and I stopped crying. To this day, I have not shed a tear.

When I fully surrendered and trusted God, more miracles happened. The killer willingly came to see me. The negotiations went smoothly, and the case came quickly to a close. We were compensated, and an ad was put in the newspaper to state that my husband had died innocently. The casket was shipped back to Shek Waan, and my husband was buried in the church cemetery.

Not long after, my sister-in-law, who had immigrated to Hong Kong, became concerned about our well-being. She persuaded me to go to Hong Kong to discuss my future. Once again, I saw God’s hand taking care of me. I was supposed to take a ship at Guangzhou, but through carelessness missed it. I was very upset about missing the ship, but I later found out that the ship I had missed was bombed and had sunk.

God brought me safely to Hong Kong by train, and, after some discussion with my sister-in-law, I decided to move my family to Hong Kong. Giu came with us. She was as close to me as a sister, and she willingly came to look after my children so that I could go to work. I could not get a post as a midwife, and I did not want to practise illegally. Instead, God granted me many other jobs. I worked as a factory manager, a daycare worker, a hospital worker and later a Bible woman. Regardless of which job I had, God always provided for us, and, because of my past experiences, He was able to use me to help other people. Later, I was also a babysitter for many of my grandchildren and developed good relationships with many of them.

Thanks be to the Lord who listens to prayers. My children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are all growing up in the love of God. God has worked many miracles in my family. I cannot measure all the great things He has done. Psalm 116:12-13 says, “How can I repay the LORD for all His goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.”

Dear friends, no matter how difficult your life is, you do not need to worry or be afraid. Come before God and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, and He will take care of you. He will grant you inner peace and eternal life.

Pui Wah Poon and her family. At left in front row is David Poon, now senior pastor of Bethel Chinese Christian MB Church in Vancouver.

Pui Wah Poon went to be with her Lord June 25, 2000 in Vancouver, surrounded by a number of her family members, who sent her to heaven with hymns and prayers.

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Last modified January 11, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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