In this chapter we want to begin seeing the spiritual lessons which Brother Nee learned through his sufferings. I was with Brother Nee for a long period of time. In my initial years in the work with him, especially in November and December of 1933 and January and February of 1934, he had many personal times with me to tell me many things concerning church history, his history, and the history of the Lord's work in China. His intention, of course, was to help me. He told me the lessons he learned through his sufferings. I could never forget the things he related to me because of the deep impression and great help which I received.
The first thing Brother Nee suffered was poverty. He was enlightened to see that he had to serve the Lord by faith to fulfill the Lord's calling. He saw that he should not be hired by any mission, denomination, or person. He exercised a pure and single faith in God for his living (see Watchman Nee's Testimony, pp. 42-55). I followed Brother Nee in 1933 to take this way. Although this was very difficult, we learned the faithfulness of the Lord. The economic situation of China during that time was not good. In such a situation, we suffered poverty. Sometimes when Brother Nee was living in Shanghai in the early days of the church life, he had nothing to eat except a small amount of bread for the entire day. This happened a number of times, and I and other co-workers also suffered things like this. At times we did not know if we would eat our next meal. The Lord really did some miraculous things to take care of us.
In 1937 Brother Nee cabled us to come to him in Shanghai. I was assigned during that time to work in northern China, and Brother Nee had called a conference of all the co-workers in January to release the messages on the normal Christian church life. After we received his cable to come to that conference, we got on a train that took thirty-six hours to reach Shanghai. We traveled third class. The first-class compartment had places to sleep, but we did not have the money to pay for that. Brother Nee met us at the train station in Shanghai. After the conference of the co-workers in Shanghai, I was invited to minister in Hangchow. I was also invited to Nanking, the capital, and I traveled through many cities. I was away from home about two and a half months.
Because I left home in response to Brother Nee's urgent invitation, I did not have time or much money to arrange anything for my family. At that time we had four children. After I was gone about three or four weeks, my family ran out of food. My wife and some of the children knelt down and prayed for the next day's food. Not too long after they prayed, an old sister came to our house late in the night. This sister was well-off financially, but she did not love the Lord that much. She did not even attend the meetings regularly. She told my wife that while she was at home, there was something in her heart which caused her to have no rest. She felt that she had to come to my wife with an envelope. She gave the envelope to my wife and left. There was enough money in the envelope to meet the need of my family. This is an illustration of how the Lord took care of our need as we lived by faith in Him.
It was very hard to live by faith in God, without being hired by anyone, in the financial situation of China in those days. Brother Nee was the pioneer among us to take this way in all of China. The Lord Jesus really needed him and used him to cut and pave the way. Then we followed in his steps. Sometimes people would tell me, "You are just a follower of Watchman Nee." Although they said this to put me down, I felt wonderful and glorious.