Collection 00/MS.262 - James Liu and Stephen Wang Papers

HENGYANG, CHINA—James Liu, Mennonite educator and leader in China, died Oct. 13 due to complications after a fall nine days earlier. He was 87.

Liu studied at Mennonite colleges in the United States, was elected chairman of the 2,500-member Mennonite conference in China in 1940 and served with Mennonite Central Committee.

During the Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s, he was imprisoned for three years on charges of being an intellectual, a Christian and a friend of foreigners.

He addressed the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Winnipeg in 1990.

Liu was born June 19, 1904, the eldest son of peasant parents living in Kaizhou (Puyang) in Hebei Province, 300 miles south of Beijing. His father was employed as a gatekeeper by the General Conference Mission at Kaizhou. His parents soon became Christians.

In 1916, after studying for several years in a Confucian school, Liu enrolled in the newly built Mennonite elementary school. He graduated from a Baptist high school at Dezhou in 1928.

He and classmate Steven Wang studied for two years, 1928-30, at Yenzing, a Christian university in Beijing. With assistance from former missionary Ed G. Kaufman, who was soon to become Bethel College president, and others, Liu and Wang came to Bluffton College in 1930-31 and Bethel in 1931-32.

After graduating from Bethel in 1932, they returned to China to serve as teachers and leaders in the growing Mennonite program. In 1934 Liu married Hazel Yang, a nurse and teacher.

During the Japanese occupation and the years of World War II, Liu continued at Kaizhou as teacher, school administrator and church leader. He also served as Mennonite conference chairman.

From 1946 to '51, the Lius served with MCC relief work along the Huang Ho River and in the management of an orphanage at Hengyang.

After five years of MCC service, Liu returned to teaching high school at Hengyang. During the Mao era all communication with overseas friends was halted. Liu was imprisoned for three years.

In 1979, three years after the death of Mao Tse-tung, Liu wrote his first letters to his missionary friends, Marie Regier (Janzen) and Wilbert Lind. In 1985 and 1990, he visited friends in Canada and the United States.

In the last decade, as the post-Mao government lifted its repressive controls of the church, Liu emerged as an unofficial counselor to the churches in his native Kaizhou area. There the former Mennonite mission churches have grown in number and size, with an estimated regular attendance today exceeding 20,000.

Among the most deeply satisfying events of Liu's last years have been the decisions of his grandson Paul and then his son Timothy and daughter-in-law Edna to become Christians and join the church.

Liu and Stephen Wang, a retired chemistry professor now living at Changchun, tell the story of their lives in a twin-autobiography, Christians True in China, edited by Robert Kreider, published by Faith and Life Press, 1988.

Liu's wife, Hazel, died in 1984. Surviving are his son, Timothy,; and two grandsons, John and Paul, the latter a student at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg.