Caring Comes Alive

by Frank Cooley

During the Second World War, I became active in the leadership of the New England Student Christian Movement and the World Student Christian Federation. These experiences opened my eyes, my mind and my heart to ministry with students and the possibility of missionary work in the Far East. I found that somehow China was calling me, so I spent a year at Yale in preparation by studying the language and history of China. In the fall of '46 I began the first period of my working life in Beijing.

As the civil war in China loomed closer and closer, I worked with university students at the YMCA-YWCA. I became deeply aware of the plight of students, many faculty members and intellectuals generally. Many had lost faith in the ability and willingness of the Guomindang government to institute the radical changes required to meet the needs of the Chinese masses still suffering from WWII. I attended, on the periphery, the protest meetings of the students, as well as their mass demonstrations, and found myself caring deeply about what I saw happening to them. I too felt the urgent need for change.

As a result of my sympathy and caring for students, the cautious leaders of the Beijing YMCA requested my transfer to another post. Thus, in late 1947, I was reassigned to the farthest west "Y" that had a student work program, to Chungking in Szechuan, the wartime capitol of China. I taught English and physical education at Chungking University and lived at the student center. Again I was engaged in student ministry and loved it.

Many of the expatriates in western China left before the Communist forces won the civil war in 1949. I chose to stay, continuing my work with students because I had come to love China and care about the people. All went well for me until mid-1950, when Allied forces pushed up toward the border of China at the Yalu River. In response, the Chinese Army poured into Korea, driving the Allied forces back deep into South Korea. Clearly the time had come for me to leave China, since the US involvement in the Korean war had made me an "enemy alien" in communist China.

Under close surveillance, I applied for a permit to exit China. What I did not anticipate was that I might be seen as a source of useful propaganda for China as the Korean war dragged on with heavy casualties or both sides. Although my government was strongly opposed to China, I cared and hoped that I might just somehow serve as a reconciler --- a 30 year-old optimist!

On the morning of September 18, 1951 the phone call came. I was ordered to appear before the Pubic Security Bureau. I walked to that office with this verse of Psalm 27 ringing in my ears:

The Lord is my light and salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Once there, the sentence was read to me: "You are to be deported on charges of espionage, sabotage and subversive activities." I was fortunate; such serious charges would have meant execution had I been Chinese. I had seen it happen! But instead I was taken to prison and placed in a tiny solitary confinement cell to await deportation. The sentence reflected the cost of my genuine caring for China and the Chinese.

When I developed a nasty case of bronchitis due to my damp cell and the arrival of cooler fall weather, I needed medicine from the prison doctor. In the process of getting that and warmer clothes, I was able to secure a New Testament, St Augustine's Confessions, and the stub of a pencil to use in writing my life story. I read the books, then used the blank spaces in Augustine's Confessions to begin writing my life story. Both reading and the writing helped me to remember that I was God's child and that God was with me. It made the rest of my time there pass more profitably, though I had to read surreptitiously when the prison guards weren't near my cell.

About two and a half months later, I was escorted out with two other prisoners to be deported. Aboard a Yangtze river steamer, under guard, we sailed down through the fabulous Gorges to Wuhan and from there to Canton by train and immediately to the border of Hong Kong. There I boarded another steamer for London and arrived in New York shortly after New Year's 1952, free but heart-sick for my Chinese friends.

During those five years in China, I made two wonderful friends who have meant much to me, though today both are far away. Zhou Deyi one of my best students in the English faculty at Chungking University, still teaches English in a University in South China. We keep in touch by e-mail as well as by slower airmail.

The other is the Rev. Zhao Fusan, a colleague in YMCA student work, who later became an Anglican priest. Fusan still cares deeply about China, despite the fact that he was sentenced to spend three years in solitary confinement before being sent to a rural village to live and work with a farm family during the Cultural Revolution. Fusan is presently living in Belgium, having taught and translated scholarly work in Chinese philosophy. Both kept my love alive and present.

By 1956, I was ready to return to Asia to work with university students in Indonesia.

Although Indonesia was going through a revolution marked by terrible violence and suffering, my family was with me there. We stayed in the Moluccas (the "Spice Islands") until 1982, working with both the Christian and Muslim communities. Even now, the Moluccas are torn by atypical conflict, intimidation and destruction. Stirred by the ruling elites in Java, neighbors have turned on each other with tragic consequences.

In 1982, the Presbyterian Church (USA) was seeking a researcher who had lived in an Islamic society other than the Middle East and I applied. The task was to design and lead a study of Christians Muslim relations. I was fully engaged in that study until I retired in 1988. It helped me learn much more about Islam. It also helped develop in me a deep respect, indeed admiration, for the faith and practice of Muslims in Lebanon, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Bangladesh and in the United States. The fruit of that five-year study written with my colleague, Dr. Byron Haines, was a 130-page study book entitled Christians and Muslims Together, An Exploration by Presbyterians.

My Christian faith has been broadened, strengthened and deepened by coming to know and care about other cultures and faiths. Hope for peace and justice is the blessed gift that caring about others has given to me.

Frank L. Cooley is currently serving as Pastor, Tiger (GA) Presbyterian Church.