Daily Archives: May 16, 2012

Queen of the Dark Chamber – Christiana Tsai

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Queen of the Dark Chamber
Christiana Tsai
(1890-1984)
Living in Spiritual Darkness. Cai Sujuan, known in the West as Christiana Tsai, was born in Nanjing, the 18th of 24 children of the vice-governor of Jiangsu Province. Despite her luxurious surroundings, Sujuan was a sad, serious girl, and she considered becoming a Buddhist nun. Instead, her fascination with the English language led her to two missionary schools, the first in Nanjing, where Mary Leaman was the principal, and the second in Suzhou. Sujuan entered these schools determined to shut her ears to all discussion of the Gospel, but when a visiting American pastor preached at the Suzhou school, Sujuan attended to listen to his English. His message, Christ, the Light of the World, struck her to the heart, and she believed.

Coming to Light. Her infuriated family forbade her to return to school, and mocked her mercilessly to pressure her into changing her mind. Enjoying inner peace for the first time in her life, Sujuan read the Bible and prayed with one mind, and was filled with peace and joy. Finally, her mother allowed her to return to school just to get her out of the house. Sujuan grew in love and faith, and after graduation she turned down job offers to return home and bring her family to Christ. God rewarded her faithfulness, as 55 members of her family eventually followed the Lord. Sujuans mother came to Christ when He healed her from opium addiction, and for several years Sujuan, her mother, and Mary Leaman had a fruitful ministry in the Nanjing area, especially among women.

Shining in Darkness. With these blessings came trials. When Sujuans fianc, whom she had met at church, turned away from Christ, Sujuan broke their engagement. In 1930, Sujuan contracted a devastating case of malaria. She was left bedridden, and was so sensitive to light and noise that she was obliged to remain continually in a darkened room. Sujuan thought her painful confinement would bring an end to effective ministry, but her loving Savior was refining her like gold. From her bedside, Sujuan was able to comfort lost and broken souls more effectively than she had from her pinnacle of wealth and accomplishment. Her physical circumstances deteriorated further when Mary was imprisoned with other missionaries in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. Sujuan was left alone during the day, surviving on bread and salt vegetables and crawling about on the floor to take care of her needs. Even in this, she saw the hand of her Savior, as several of their friends were converted by the peace and strength with which Mary and Sujuan faced their trials.

After the war, Marys poor health forced her to return to the United States, and she took Sujuan to live in the Leaman family home in Paradise, Pennsylvania. Sujuan continued to minister to those who visited her there. Her autobiography, Queen of the Dark Chamber, was translated into 30 languages, and she later wrote a devotional book, which includes these words on the importance of prayer. How can we still be useful? Maybe you think people only pay attention to the educated those with Ph.D.s? Never mind. The Lord loves us. We can have a degree, too a P.D. a doctorate in prayer. If we will be faithful in our corner, praying for those who are on the front lines of battle, we will have a reward, too. There is not a day that I have not prayed for China, my homeland, and the millions there who need Christ. Sujuan entered the presence of her Lord on August 25, 1984.

Corrie ten Boom

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Corrie ten Boom
(1892-1983)
Everybody in the Netherlands knows about the Anne Frank House, but relatively few Dutch people will have heard of another important wartime hide-out: that of Corrie ten Boom in Haarlem – the place where this brave and deeply religious woman used to live, who in WWII offered help and refuge to hundreds of people.

Her wartime home is now a museum and, to mark the anniversary of her death, on April 15 a new book about her life and works will be presented at the museum.

Walk through Haarlem’s old city centre and you could easily overlook the modest jewellery and watchmaker’s shop on a corner of Barteljorisstraat.

The business still bears the name Ten Boom though it’s no longer related to the family. The living quarters on the second floor again resemble the way they looked during the war and now serve as a museum. You almost expect to bump into Corrie, her father Casper or her sister Betsie while taking one of the regular guided tours of the house

Natural leader

Shortly after the Nazi’s invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Ten Boom family became active in the resistance. For years they offered a hiding place to hundreds of people in their house. One of the museum’s tour guides, Aty Bennema, tells how Corrie turned out to be a natural leader:

“She was 48 when the war began and very soon got involved in underground work. Eventually she was head of a resistance group of about 80 people and had built up a whole network of addresses and contacts.”

The network was used to find hiding places for people on the run from the Nazis, Jews mostly, but also members of the resistance and young men who had been called to work in German factories. Some people only stayed for a couple of hours with the family Ten Boom, until a safe house had been found, others -usually up to six or seven people- lived there for weeks or months even.

Corrie ten Boom’s Haarlem hide-out at Barteljorisstraat 19

Hiding place

On the second floor, in Corrie’s bedroom, a hiding place was constructed behind a brick wall, accessible through a removable panel in a built-in closet. A small space where seven people could only fit in if they stood close together. In case of unwanted Nazi visitors an alarm bell would ring and the people had to get to the hiding place within 70 seconds, taking even their plates and cutlery if they happened to be having dinner at the moment. Usually it was a matter of hours until all was safe again.

“Corrie and her family didn’t know fear,” Aty Bennema says “They believed God would help them.” With customers coming and going the shop proved to be a good cover. Until they were betrayed and the house was raided by the Gestapo.

Six people made it to the hiding place in time and weren’t discovered, but they had to stay there in absolute silence for four days. Aty Bennema tells that the Gestapo kept the house under close surveillance for a long time because they knew there were people hiding somewhere.

“They arrested everybody else in the house and also people who dropped by later that day. You see, the Ten Booms had an all safe signal, a wooden plate advertising Swiss Clocks, which they put in a side window. But they had forgotten to remove the plate and when Corrie’s sister Betsie saw that, it was too late.”

Many people walked into the trap that way. The Gestapo arrested Corrie, Betsie and their father as well as 36 other people.

Miracle release

They were taken to the nearby police station and later to Scheveningen prison, where father Ten Boom, who was 84 at the time, died ten days after his arrest. Most of the others were released at one time or other, but Corrie and Betsie were eventually transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Aty Bennema:

The hiding place in Corrie ten Boom’s bedroom. It was constructed behind a brick wall, accessible through a removable panel in a built-in closet

“Betsie died there in December 1944, but Corrie survived. She was released through a clerical error. The Nazis had made a list of all the women of 50 and older but Corrie – she was 52- was put on a list for release. It was a miracle. Corrie later heard that all the elderly women went to the gas chambers and died there. Thousands of them.”

After the liberation Corrie wrote a best-selling book entitled “The Hiding Place”, recounting her family’s wartime experiences. She also set up homes where war victims could recuperate and then the deeply religious woman travelled the world as an evangelist. In the 1970s, Corrie ten Boom moved to the United States, where she continued to write books and give sermons. Several years after her death in 1983 her old house in Haarlem became a museum, which annually draws tens of thousands of visitors, many of them from abroad.

While Corrie ten Boom is widely known among Christians around the world, here in the Netherlands she’s not quite as famous as that other wartime icon, Anne Frank. Aty Bennema thinks there is a logical explanation for that:

“First of all we are no longer a Christian nation and here at the museum we give a Christian message. The other reason is, there are more people who did the same as the Ten Boom family, even in Haarlem.”

Susannah Spurgeon

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Susannah Spurgeon
(1832-1903)

January 15th, 1832, Susannah was born to Mr. and Mrs. R.B. Thompson. She spend most of her younger years in Southern suburbs of the city of London. Her parents occasionally visited New Park Street Chapel, where she first was instructed in the things of God. It was one Sunday at this chapel that the pastor preached on Romans 10:8, it was this morning that she was first awakened to her own lost condition.

She says:

“From that service, I date the darning of the true light in my soul. The Lord said to me, through His servant, ‘Give me thy heart’, and, constrained by His love, that night witnessed my solemn resolution to entire surrender to Himself.”

Despite her recognition of her sin and decision to seek Salvation is Jesus Christ she kept all religious thought to herself.

“Seasons of Darkness, despondency and doubt had passed over me,” she says, “but I had kept all my religious experiences carefully concealed in my own breast.”

It was the hesitation and reserve in this respect being the cause, in Mrs. Spurgeon’s judgment of the sickly and sleepy condition of her soul.

It was on December 18, 1853, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a youth of 19, preached for the first time at the New Park Street Chapel. Susannah was not at the service that morning but heard glowing reports of the preacher from many friends. To please her friends, and out of curiosity to see the new preacher, Susannah accompanied her friends to the evening service. She later recalled her thought of the day:

“Ah! how little I then thought that my eyes looked on him who was to be my life’s beloved; how little i dreamed of the honor God was preparing for me in the near future! It is a mercy that our lives are not left to us to plan, but that our Father chooses for us; else might we sometimes turn away from our best blessings, and put form us the choicest and loveliest gifts of His providence. For, if the whole truth be told, I was not at all fascinated by the young orator’s eloquence, while his countrified manner and speech excited more regret than reverence. Alas, for my vain and foolish heart! I was not spiritually-minded enough to understand his earnest presentation of the Gospel and his powerful pleading with sinners; -but huge, black, satin stock, the long badly trimmed hair, and the blue pocket handkerchief with white spots which he himself has graphically described, – these attracted most of my attention and I fear awakened some feelings of amusement. There was only on sentence of the whole sermon which I carried away with me, and that solely on account of its quaintness, for it seemed to be an extraordinary thing for the preacher to speak of the ‘living stones in the Heavenly Temple perfectly joined together with the vermilion cement of Christ’s blood’”

The young miss Thompson, after she quickly over came her prejudices against the young preacher, was soon awakened to her back sliding state of indifference and became very alarmed. Yet through conversation with the Mr. Spurgeon and through the young man’s preaching, she soon found the rest her soul longed for at the cross of Jesus, where sin’s are washed away.

The first meeting of Charles and Susannah neither of them could ever remember, but they came to know each other through conversation and few outings. It was in June of 1854 that Charles first declared his love for Miss Thompson, the two where then engaged two months later.

Many where the trails ahead for the two young lovers. Mr. Spurgeon being extremely busy with his preaching, Susannah often felt slighted because of what she considered a lack of care of his part. Yet with some wise counsel from Mrs. Thompson, Susannah came to understand that she must never begrudge her future husband to God. The Lord Jesus would and should always be first in Charles life. She soon repented of her folly and became a willing and able helpmate to him.

The couple where married on January 8th 1856, in the New Park Street Chapel. The wedding was anything but a quite one; people came from miles around to see the couple exchange their marriage vows. Their honeymoon was spent in Paris, France, visiting museums and places of historical interest.

In September of that of that year the couple had their first children, a set of twins who they named Charles and Thomas. The Couple was so happy about the arrival of the new babies, but their happiness was soon over shadowed with a sad cloud. Their was a very bad scare at one of Mr. Spurgeon’s preaching appointments at Music Hall. It left in a sad state of temporary mental anguish. Susannah and the babies joined him at some friends home in Croydon for some much needed rest. Charles Spurgeon soon recovered from his restlessness and was preaching again.

The couple spent 10 happy years together. Raising children, taking care of their own country home, Mrs. Spurgeon had the task of caring for her husband in a few illnesses, yet over all it was a joy filled time. Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon both enjoyed gardening in their spare time, and built a lovely flower garden around their home.

Mrs. Spurgeon did not retain good health for much of her life. She was almost constantly suffering from physical ailments. She did her best to support and encourage her husband in his ministry despite her weakness.

In 1875 Mrs. Spurgeon begun was would soon become known as “The Book Fund”. After her husband wrote his first volume of “Lectures to my Students”, Susannah proof read it. She told her husband, “I wish I could place it in the hands of every minister in England!” Charles Spurgeon responded, “Then why not do so? how much will you give?” Thus the book fund began. Mrs. Spurgeon begun with saving her own money, and then announcing her intent of giving the book to ministers who asked for them. Money soon began to come in for the fund and it continued to grow. s

Despite her illness, Mrs. Spurgeon found many ways to help her husband in his ministry. She raised her sons, begun and worked on the “book fund”, and also wrote a number of devotionals. Her life was filled with much work and dedication for the cause of Jesus Christ.

In the Summer of 1903 Mrs. Spurgeon had a severe attack of pneumonia which prostrated her, and from this she never recovered, being confined to her bed. She was bed ridden from several months, slowing growing weaker and weaker. On October 22nd 1903 Susannah Spurgeon passed away quietly in her sleep, leaving a rich legacy of self-less love and devotion for Jesus Christ.