CHI-NA 2014 - A Girl's Class in West Chi-na

Lung-si, Chi-na

Friday, March 21, 2014

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A Girls' Class in West Chi-na

Here is an article from the Alliance Weekly dated January 25, 1941 by my great aunt Ruth Ruhl about a girls' school in West Chi-na where she ministered as a full-time missionary. I was able to spend some time with my Aunt Ruth before she passed away many years ago. I even was blessed to have her lay hands on me and pray for me to receive the anointing as a missionary.

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THE ALLIANCE WEEKLY

January 25, 1941

A GIRLS’ CLASS IN WEST CHI-NA

By Miss Ruth Ruhl, Lung-si, Kan-su, Chi-na

A rare privilege it is indeed to have a class of such lovely girls in this backward part of northwest Chi-na. From ten to twenty attend the services each Sunday. They represent varied circumstances. Most of them come from homes where from childhood they have been taught to worship a living God, but a few represent homes where their ancestors and idols are altars of worship.

If you could only see them—surely you would be interested in their modest ways of charming appearance. Girls of their age, in this unusually idolatrous city, are seldom if ever allowed out of their homes. Even the few married women of the class dare not venture on the streets unless accompanied by an older woman—never by their husbands. For that reason it is an unusual privilege to have a class of just such girls attend a Bible class so regularly.

Plum Fragrance comes accompanied by her mother. She leans heavily upon an umbrella for a cane, as she suffers with arthritis. We are praying God to truly save her and her parents. They seem to attend services only with the healing of the girl in view.

Everyone looks on as Ruth, the recent bride comes in. She is not a bit bashful about showing off her beautiful scarlet, velvet gown, which sweeps over her daintily embroidered shoe tops. Her Christian parents said they would never give her to a heathen home (i.e. allow her to marry an unbeliever). But because Ruth was 21 years old and still unmarried, they became impatient and married her into a very idolatrous home against the approval of the church. To have girls of twenty still unmarried is a great worry to Christian parents. Almost all heathen girls are married at, or before the age of eighteen. Christian young men are as scarce proportionally in Chi-na as in the United States, so a grave problem faces the parents of our lovely young girls. The parents, of course, make all arrangements for the marriage of the young people.

Rose was married into a Christian home. We are always so glad to see her coming into our meetings with her beautiful baby, David, whose fat, golden brown cheeks are ever being pinched by so many admirers.

But Cinnamon Flower doesn’t care much for her wee baby because it is only a girl.

Jade Bell—I wish you could see her—is such a beautiful girl that several Christian parents of our church here and of churches in other stations have asked for her for their sons. We continually pray for just such girls that the parents will not yield to the temptation of marrying them into wealthy heathen homes. Scores of heathen men send their “middle men” to Jade Bell’s home continually, asking for her, with appealing promises of many new garments, silks, cupboards, boxes, and jewelry. She is a third generation Christian; and although her grandfather is over a hundred years old, he still preaches the gospel upon every possible occasion.

Happy Sister usually looks so sad. Today when we asked her about her troubles, tears came upon her swollen eyes. As she raised her hand to wipe away the tears we could see on her arm a large bruise—just one of the many caused by beatings given by her mother-in-law. Yesterday, in a fit of anger, the mother-in-law put her out of her home. Mrs. Cart has often been exhorted by church members and others to be kinder to Happy Sister, but her heart is very hard. The girl’s husband is a soldier, and his being away from home gives the mother opportunity to treat his wife as a slave. When the father becomes demon-possessed or sick, they are glad to come ask for prayer; but otherwise they choose to live in sin, and at times almost kill the girl. Last night after being thrown out of the home, Happy Sister stayed at Rose’s home; tonight she will stay in Little Sister’s home. She was bought for a small sum of money when only a little girl, and married into the Cart home when she was fourteen. What is her future?

Little Sister with several other Christian girls has gone away to school. We trust and pray they will not be influenced to forget the gospel.

Week after week we inquire after the health of Little Grace. Three weeks ago she was baptized when several others were. That day after walking home from the stream, she was annoyed by sharp pains in her limbs. They have increased and her whole body suffer from pain that keeps her helpless and bedridden, and she seems to get no better. We have been to her home and prayed with her. It is a severe test for a young girl of only fourteen.

These girls, and many others whom I have not mentioned, love to study the Word. Please pray for several others who would love to come regularly but whose parents forbid them. Especially pray for Happy Sister; she is so sad.

CHI-NA 2014 - Ruhl-Neff Family Tree and Records

Min-chow, Chi-na
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
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Ruhl-Neff Family Tree
Here is a handwritten copy of my grandparents and great grandparents family tree:
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Various Records from the Ruhl-Neff Family
My mom was given a packet of old scanned documents of the Ruhl-Neff family from Chuck Fowler, husband of Nita Fowler, who are my relatives and were missionaries in Indo-nesia. It is really neat to have access to such documents enabling me to trace my lineage of missionaries back to three and four generations ago.
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Christian Young

1850 Census

1860 Census

1870 Census

1880 Census

1920 Census

A.B. Simpson Historical Library Document

Certificate of Birth for Frank Ruhl and Howard Ruhl

Certificate of Marriage for John Ruhl and Charlotte Frankford

Certificate of Registration Record

Church of the Brethren Record

Elizabeth College Records

Naturalization Record

Passport Application to Chi-na

Passport Application to Chi-na

Ship Passenger List from Ho-ng Ko-ng

Certificate of Death for William Ruhl

CHI-NA 2014 - Back to the Kan-su-Ti-betan Border

Min-chow, Chi-na

Saturday, March 1, 2014

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Back to the Kan-su-Ti-betan Border

Here is an article from the Alliance Weekly dated June 20, 1931 about my great grandfather and grandmother, Rev. and Mrs. William Ruhl and their ministry in Min-chow, Chi-na:

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Christian Young

THE ALLIANCE WEEKLY

June 20, 1931

BACK TO THE KAN-SU-TI-BETAN BORDER

by Rev. Thomas Moseley

...At Min-chow we find the Rev. and Mrs. William Ruhl, pioneer missionaries, who have weathered the storms of thirty-five years on this far away field, and who have watched the work grow from the single missionary centre with a handful of scattered inquirers, to a score of established stations and out-stations, with their hundreds of baptized Christians.

When they first reached the field, they were reviled by Chi-nese, Mo-hammedans, and Ti-betans, but now, because of their “labor of love and patience of hope,” they are revered by all. It has cost them much suffering and sacrifice to keep true to the vision of pioneer days. Their noble example in regard to their family has been a pattern to all, and especially to us. They have left their two daughters in the United States, ten thousand miles behind, and also leave their only son in Central Chi-na, thirty-two days' journey from them by mule trail and railroad. But not a word of complaint. They were the first Chi-nese workers to get back to our field. As they made the long overland journey, Mrs. Ruhl wrote, “What joy to be here for Him.” Mr. Ruhl is Chairman for the Chi-nese work, and needs our prayers as he would lead on the youthful indigenous Chi-nese Church to spiritual manhood.

MICRONESIA 2014 - Sunday School, Power Rangers and Jesus

Kolonia, Pohnpei

Saturday, February 1, 2014

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Sunday School, Power Rangers and Jesus

Our "Tribal Gatherings" or home fellowships continue here in Pohnpei and we have now added a weekly Sunday School for the children to learn about Jesus. To illustrate the life of Jesus with children in a cross-cultural context, we sometimes have to use whatever is available to us. As of late we have been using Power Ranger action figures to do so, which brings quite a bit of comedy to our stories. Today we told the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand as well as when Jesus gave His authority to the disciples to cast out evil spirits. The black Power Ranger works well for illustrating Satan and we are using the blue Power Ranger to represent Jesus. The kids love it and are never satisfied with us just telling one Bible story. If they had their way, we would be playing Power Rangers and telling them stories about Jesus around the clock. Fun stuff!

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Christian Young

MICRONESIA 2014 - Kultivate Kolonia

Kolonia, Pohnpei

Saturday, January 11, 2014

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Kultivate Kolonia

Earlier last year I was praying to the LORD as to what my role was as a missionary here in Pohnpei. In a vision two words appeared: Kultivate (I know that it is correctly spelled with a "C") and Kolonia. I felt in my spirit that my focus was to be here in Kolonia town and would have to do with both worship and youth ministry. The way in which this vision is coming to pass is completely different than what I had originally thought. I was thinking that it would have to do with the House of Prayer and a future youth center in Kolonia. Now I see that God is using our interaction at Paradise Radio 89.5 as a fulfillment of this vision.

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Last night my dad and I were able to go on air and literally sing over Pohnpei. We did a live worship set singing in both English and Pohnpeian and after receiving words of knowledge about our listening audience we prayed for them and for Pohnpei. Paradise Radio is not a Christian radio station, and before the New Year played all secular music. This past week I put together a playlist of all modern and relevant Christian music in genres such as Christian rock, Christian reggae, Christian rap, Christian hip-hop and worship music. We had had originally thought that the Christian music would be played on Paradise Radio for only one day a week, as Saturday evenings has been when we have been on air. Yet Ryan has introduced the Christian music into the rotation of what is played on air every day. Now when we we listen in to 89.5, every other song glorifies God. Even our original worship that my dad and I have written and recorded is being aired every day.

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God has given us a much broader audience than I could ever have imagined here in Pohnpei. And I am so glad to be a part of cultivating a harvest of souls here in Kolonia.

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Jonas Young

MICRONESIA 2014 - Laid en Epiep

Kolonia, Pohnpei

Thursday, January 9, 2014

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Laid en Epiep

Our Pohnpeian family ran out of store bought meat the other day and didn't have the budget to but more chicken, so David, Jonas, Edward and I decided to "laid en epiep" or go line fishing at night from Misko Beach and caught over twenty fish which fed our family for another couple of days. As missionaries in Micronesia, we live off both the land and sea. We are working on a vegetable farming project here in Komwonlaid as well. We will put up a blog post on it very soon.

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Christian Young

MICRONESIA 2014 - Paradise Radio 89.5

Kolonia, Pohnpei

Saturday, January 4, 2014

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Paradise Radio 89.5

The amount of doors that Papa God is opening for us here in the Federated States of Micronesia this New Year are mind-blowing! Last night my Micronesian brother-in-laws; Ryan, David, Tommy, along with my son and I embarked on a new adventure in the world of radio DJ. Ryan, originally from an outer island of Yap helped to spearhead Paradise Radio in Pohnpei many year ago. Paradise Radio is NOT a Christian radio station, but plays a mix of mostly reggae, hip-hop and rap from artists in the Pacific islands and from around the world and is one of the most popular radio stations in Pohnpei. Yet Jesus has been doing amazing things in Ryan's life lately, and now we have all partnered together to introduce relevant Christian music and talk shows on Paradise Radio.

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Last night we imported modern Christian rap, reggae, rock and worship music into the radio DJ computer program and aired these songs for many hours. Ryan started out by introducing us on air using our studio names. We had so much fun clowning around in between sets of songs. One time David put on a Puerto Rican accent and I did a British accent, while we all exchanged in friendly banter with one another. Other times, Ryan and I hosted a time of prayer for the lost, broken, sick and hurting people of Pohnpei and shared stories of redemption through Jesus Christ in relevant ways. We were all in tears at times as we poured our hearts out about our own lives and how the love of God through Jesus is changing us all as we follow him. We will be weekly hosting programs like this on Paradise Radio and are so excited to see Jesus change the lives of our listeners as many Micronesians listen in to Paradise Radio 89.5.

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Christian Young