Grandma Deng Mei
Grandma Deng Mei is 87 years old and is a particularly bright ray of sunshine, showing the world how Jesus has changed her life. She is blind, has no fingers, cannot walk and lives in a leper colony in Guangdong Province. Her only family members died when she was young. She never went to school, and she has been living as a despised outcast from the world in leprosy colonies since young adulthood. Because of her disabilities, the volunteer missionaries help feed her, dress her wounds, clean her room, and take care of her other daily needs. From all outward appearances, people might think that she is an unhappy person with many reasons to complain about her condition and sufferings. However, Grandma Deng Mei is one of the sweetest and most joy-filled people one can ever meet.
People who meet her for the first time wonder what the secret behind her joy is. The answer is simple. She has Jesus’ love in her heart. Since she came to know Jesus as her Friend and Savior, she always has words of thanks and praise on her lips, and her prayers show that she knows Him as a real friend. Her prayers start with, “Jesus, hello!” and then she proceeds to tell Him about her day and thank Him for everything, especially for sending the volunteers to come and help her at the leprosy colony. She asks Him to bless all the other grandmas and grandpas and the volunteers and their families too.
Deng Mei is a firm believer that Jesus died on the cross for her. Because of this she has been able to forgive those who have hurt and abandoned her. When she is asked, “What is sin?” She replies that sin is “not helping others.” When the volunteers tell her that Jesus loves her, she replies, “Yes, Jesus loves me. God loves me. All the volunteers love me.” She is also so thankful to Grandpa Kim. “If not for him, so many volunteers who love me would not have come here to help me and other patients.”
Because she realizes Jesus’ great love for her, she also wants to tell others about Him. Even though she is blind, she recently started memorizing Bible verses as the volunteers teach her to introduce her Best Friend Jesus to others. The leper colony she is at, is unique in the fact that many groups and individuals from the community come to visit several times each month. To any visitor who comes by her room she says, “I don’t have anything to give you, but I want to share with you some Bible verses and the proceeds to recite several Bible verses including,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Because of Grandma Deng Mei—someone who is weak, foolish, and despised by the world’s standard—many people are being able to hear the Good News. She doesn’t have any selfishness, pride, hatred, or jealousy of any kind and her life bears the fruits of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galations 5:22-23). She has the one thing she can take with her to heaven—a character made beautiful by Jesus!
Jesus came “to serve and not be served” (Mark 10:45), and Grandma Deng Mei’s character is a reflection of Jesus as she shows selfless love. All her earthly possessions can fit in a few boxes on her bed, but even though she doesn’t have a lot of money or belongings, she always wants to share what she has. If she is given 3 bananas, she’ll share one with her blind roommate, give the other one to a volunteer, and then finally eat the third one. She sometimes even uses her own money to buy fruit to give to the volunteers. When asked not to spend her money on the volunteers, she replies that giving makes her happy.
Grandma Deng Mei is a beautiful embodiment of the love and character of Jesus. Through Grandma Deng Mei and many others grandmas and grandpas with leprosy in China, it is evident that God is not dependent on proud and worldly successful people to accomplish His work. He can use blind, crippled, and fingerless grandmas in leprosy colonies to share His message of mercy to the world. “The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them. The light of the Sun of Righteousness is to shine forth in good works--in words of truth and deeds of holiness” (Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 415-416). One may ask how to develop Christ-like character. “It is in doing the works of Christ, ministering as He did to the suffering and afflicted, that we are to develop Christian character” (Counsels on Stewardship, p.165).
Christ genuinely cared for people and their needs and also shared the Good News with them. This is the work of Isaiah 58, and this is what we are called to do. In Christ’s Object Lessons, Sister White writes,
Divine truth exerts little influence upon the world, when it should exert much influence through our practice. The mere profession of religion abounds, but it has little weight. We may claim to be followers of Christ, we may claim to believe every truth in the word of God; but this will do our neighbor no good unless our belief is carried into our daily life. Our profession may be as high as heaven, but it will save neither ourselves nor our fellow men unless we are Christians. A right example will do more to benefit the world than all our profession.
By no selfish practices can the cause of Christ be served. His cause is the cause of the oppressed and the poor. In the hearts of His professed followers there is need of the tender sympathy of Christ--a deeper love for those whom He has so valued as to give His own life for their salvation. These souls are precious, infinitely more precious than any other offering we can bring to God. To bend every energy toward some apparently great work, while we neglect the needy or turn the stranger from his right, is not a service that will meet His approval (pp. 383-384).
By following Christ’s method of Isaiah 58, not only have people living in the leprosy colonies been reached, some staunch Communists, non-believers, and members of other denominations have also been reached. They were initially drawn by the desire to serve the people in the colonies and ultimately decided to follow Christ wholeheartedly. As they saw the love of Jesus lived out in the lives of the missionary volunteers and were able to study the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, many learned about and accepted Bible truths, including the Sabbath, the state of the dead, and Jesus’ second coming. Now they have joined the full-time missionaries who are living with “all things in common” (Acts 2:44-45) and are united for the sake of spreading the gospel.
G. Lee, a graduate of Southern Adventist University in Tennessee, and has been a volunteer for the Adventist lay leprosy ministry in China since 2013.