​得救见证 - 李亮助弟兄和李琳姐妹一家

​弟兄姊妹们早上好！很荣幸能有这样的机会来跟大家分享我的得救见证。同时，我们也特别高兴今天能跟大家介绍我们一家人。我叫李亮助，这是我妻子李琳，我们有个6岁多的儿子叫Eric。我们来自俄亥俄州克利夫兰市，目前我就读于美南神学院道硕专业。自从我们8月初搬过来，甚至在我们还没来这个教会之前，我们一家就得到了很多弟兄姊妹无私的帮助。我们非常感激大家，也真的是感谢主把祂的孩子们召聚在这个大家庭里，让我们感受到祂的爱和弟兄姊妹之间的爱。

我们是来到美国之后才信主的。从我的童年时代开始，我就听到过许多关于上帝和基督的故事，但是我从未进过教会，也不认识基督徒朋友。直到2015年，我以访问学者的身份来到美国国立卫生研究院，认识了一些基督徒。但那时，我无法接受基督徒的一些观念，比如他们声称世界上只有一位上帝，并且绝对禁止崇拜任何其他上帝。在我看来，这种观点有点极端和不友好。

2017年，我接受了凯斯西储大学医学院的科研工作岗位，并决定与家人一起移居美国克利夫兰市。不幸的是，在我们做出决定后不久，我的母亲被诊断出胰腺癌晚期，已经剩下不到三个月的生命。在那段艰难的日子里，我亲眼目睹了母亲生命的消逝。肿瘤不断生长并压迫她的神经，导致巨大的疼痛，只能通过注射吗啡来缓解疼痛。在那个关键时刻，最出乎意料的事情发生了：我母亲被通知去办出院手续！为了保持较高的病床周转率，医院会直接放弃像我母亲那样无法治愈的晚期癌症患者。为了让我的母亲尽快离开医院，医生甚至在未告知我们真实情况下，直接拔掉了腹水引流导管。两天后，大量的腹水再次积聚，压迫心脏和肺部产生的巨大压力直接导致我的母亲出现了生命危险！

我们放弃了与医院的抗争，将母亲转移到远离市区的一家小型康复医院，因为对我们而言，最重要的是尽全力延续母亲的生命，尽管她只剩下几周的时间。我想直到我生命的最后一天，我都会记得陪我母亲一起去康复医院时的情景。透过救护车的后窗，我看着枯萎的叶子从路边的树木上掉下来，感觉好冷，好冷，一直冷到骨头里。在人生命的最后时刻，这个世界到底留给了我们什么？ ---无非是巨大的痛苦和无尽的冷漠！我的母亲是虔诚的佛教徒，但是当我在救护车上的那一天，我绝望的在心里喊道： “佛陀，您在哪里？为什么您不能让相信您的人摆脱痛苦和冷漠呢？为什么您让我们的心里充满了疼痛和悲伤呢？” 但是，我找不到任何答案。

母亲去世两个月后，我们一家人搬到了克利夫兰。到美国的一周后，我第一次走进基督教教堂，因为我想寻找其他神灵那里找不到的答案。最初的几个月，除了观察和思考之外，我什么也没做。我发现基督徒是非常特殊的一个群体：他们也面临着种种苦难，但最让我印象深刻的是他们对痛苦和死亡的不同态度。在教会里，有一个年轻人非常善良，多才多艺，他喜欢音乐和烹饪，但是您看不出来他是一名患有淋巴癌的患者！他的笑容如此灿烂，充满了对生命的热爱，对家庭的热爱，以及对上帝的热爱！我忍不住好奇这是一位什么样的神？为什么即使人在面对死亡的情况下，信靠这位神的人仍然拥有平静与喜乐？

以前，我问过很多人，是否相信这世上冥冥之中有一位主宰。我得到的答案是100％都说有。但是，当进一步问到这位主宰是谁时，会有太多不同意见。我们相信一位主宰的存在，却不认识他，这是多么可悲的事情。但是我相信，如果这位主宰确实存在，那么他一定会让我们经历到他并认识他。在过去的几十年里，我的人生遇到了各种问题。我脾气其实不好，对我的妻子和儿子经常很不耐烦。每次吵架之后，我总是后悔并发誓不再这样做，但很快又有下次。我同意中国古代的一种哲学观点：人之初，性本恶。因此，让我承认我是一个罪人并不难，但是我该如何战胜罪呢？面对人性时，我是如此虚弱，我真的无能为力！直到有一天，当我读圣经时，就像一道闪电划过一样，我突然意识到，我们永远无法靠我们自己来克服罪，因为这是人类的天性，这就是耶稣为我们而死的原因！我人生中第一次跪下来向上帝祷告，承认我的罪，求祂掌管我的生命。从那天起，我慢慢开始经历以前从未有过的平安与快乐。我的生活每天都在变化：越来越少的争吵，越来越多的尊重，我的家庭关系变得越来越好……我能感觉到圣灵在我身上做的工。

突然间，我理解了那位身患绝症的基督徒弟兄非凡的精神世界。这是一个充满平安和喜乐的天堂，而这一切，乃是源于对耶稣基督的依靠以及对永生的确信！有了这种确信，我们不再惧怕死亡和这个世界上的所有苦难。因为这份信，我们不再依附于这个世界，而是切切的盼望天父为我们预备在天上的居所。感谢赞美主，我于2018年复活节受洗，我的妻子四个月后受洗。上帝彻底改变了我们的人生。谢谢大家！

 Testimony from brother Liangzhu & sister Lin Li's family

​​Good Morning brothers and sisters! We are very honored to have this opportunity today to share our stories of conversion with you. In the meantime, we are also incredibly happy to introduce ourselves to this great family. I’m Liangzhu Li. This is my wife, Lin Li, and we have a six-year-old boy, Eric. We moved here from Cleveland, Ohio. I’m currently attending the Master of Divinity program at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Since we’ve moved here early this month, or even before we came to this church, we’ve already received a lot of help from many brothers and sisters here. We’re very grateful and Thank God for putting his children in this big family so that we can experience His Love and the love from one another!

We became believers after we came to the US. Since my childhood, I have heard many stories about God and Christ, but I never entered a church or knew any Christians until 2015, when I visited the National Institute of Health of the United States as a visiting scholar and met some Christians there. However, I couldn’t accept their statement of faith when they claimed that there is only one God in the world and it is absolutely forbidden to worship any other gods. It sounded a bit extreme and unfriendly to me at that time. 

In 2017, I accepted a job offer from the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University and decided to move to Cleveland with my family.  Unfortunately, my mother was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer right after we made the decision. The doctor told us that her remaining life was less than three months. In these difficult days, I witnessed the fading of my mother’s life. The tumor kept growing and compressed her nerves, leading to great pain which was only able to be eased by injecting morphine. At that critical moment, the most unexpected thing happened: my mother was discharged by the hospital! In order to keep a high hospital bed turnover rate, the hospital discharged those terminal cancer patients like my mother who could no longer be cured. To let my mother leave the hospital as soon as possible, the doctor even pulled out the ascites drainage catheter without telling us the real situation. Two days later, a large amount of ascites was accumulated again and the huge pressure on her heart and lung almost killed my mother!

We gave up fighting against the hospital and transferred my mother to a small rehabilitation hospital which was far away from the city center, because the most important thing for us at that time was to help my mother alive though she had only a couple of weeks left. I will remember the day to the end of my life when I accompanied my mother in an ambulance to the rehabilitation hospital. Through the back window of the ambulance, I was watching the withered leaves falling from trees on roadsides, feeling so cold, so cold, cold to the bones. What does the world leave us in our last moments? ---Nothing but great pain and endless indifference! My mother was a pious Buddhist, but on that day when I was in the ambulance, I asked: “where are you, Buddha? Why can't you save people who believe in you from suffering and indifference? Why do you fill our hearts with pain and sorrow?” However, I could not find any answer.

My family moved to Cleveland two months after my mother had passed away. A week after coming to the US, I walked into a Christian church for the first time in my life, because I wanted to find the answer which I couldn’t find from other gods. For the first few months, I did nothing but observing and thinking.  I found that Christians was a really special group of people: They also faced different kinds of suffering, but what impressed me most was their different attitude toward pains and death. In the church, there’s a young man who was very kind and versatile. He likes music and cooking, but you would never know he’s a patient suffering lymph cancer! His smile was so bright, full of love for life, love for family, and love for God! I couldn’t help thinking about what a kind of God He is. Why is He able to lead His people to find peace and joy even when they are facing death? 

I asked a lot of people if they believe that there is a master in this world. The answer I got was 100 percent ‘yes’. But when it comes further to exactly who the master is, there are too many different opinions. How sad it is that we believe a master exists, yet do not know him. But I believe that the master, if he really exists, will surely let us experience him and know him. In the past decades, I had suffered all kinds of problems in my life. I had a bad temper and was very impatient with my wife and son. After each quarrel, I always regretted and swore not to do that anymore, but there’s always a next time. One philosophy in ancient China offers a viewpoint that human nature is bad, which I agree with. So, it is not difficult for me to admit that I am a sinner, but how can I conquer the sin? I am so weak that when I face my humanity, I really can’t do anything! Until one day, when I was reading the Bible, just like a bolt of lightning across my mind, I suddenly realized that we can never conquer sin by ourselves because it is human nature, and this is why Jesus died on the cross for us! For the first time in my life, I kneeled down and prayed to God, admitting my sin and asking Him to be my ruler. Since then, my life started to be filled with peace and joy that I had never experienced before. My life is changing every day: less quarreling, more respect, improved family relationships… I can feel the work of the Holy Spirit in my daily life.

Suddenly, I understood the extraordinary spiritual world of the Christian brother with a terminal illness. It is a paradise full of peace and joy which comes from relying on Jesus Christ and His assurance of eternal life! With that belief, we are no longer afraid of death and all the sufferings in this world. Because of the faith, we are no longer attached to this world but yearn for the heavenly inheritance that the Father has prepared for us. Praise the Lord, I was baptized in the Easter of 2018 and my wife was baptized four months later. Our lives were turned around completely by God. Thank You!

​The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.
~ Zephaniah 3:17 ~