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Chinese Christians Helping Tibetans

A KAF field report issued May 2, 1999
by Pamela Logan

Dear Friends of the Kham Aid Foundation,

We've got a place of our own in Chengdu, thanks to the Sichuan Holy Love Foundation, and its founder Mr. Meng Changshou. It's quite a surprise to me that Chinese Christians are interested in helping Tibetans. To explain how this has happened, I will relate a little of Mr.Meng's background, and tell you how we're working together.

Mr. Meng grew up in Chengdu during the Cultural Revolution. He was a very angry young man. "When I was a kid, I hated everyone. I joined the Red Guards, because I wanted to destroy everything," he told me recently. After the Cultural Revolution ended and the Red Guards were disbanded, he went into the pharmaceutical business. "I was still angry, and I approached making money the same way attack, attack, attack!"

Mr. Meng's business was successful, and he quickly grew very rich. Somewhere during this time, somebody told him about Jesus. That changed his life. He became a Christian, and decided to leave his business to do good works.

Meanwhile, China was beginning to allow the formation of independent non-profit organizations. The notion of an NGO (non-government organization) is, needless to say, rather foreign to Socialism, and the procedure for legally registering them in China is very complicated. You have to show that your organization does not duplicate the services of any existing group, and you have to deposit a large amount of cash in the bank as a guarantee. The paperwork is formidable, and a lot of bribes have to be paid to get the application processed.

While he was pursuing legal status for his organization, Mr. Meng went ahead and founded a kindergarten and a therapeutic center for disabled children in 1993. In 1995 he completed the paperwork and successfully registered the Sichuan Holy Love Foundation with the Sichuan Civil Affairs office as legal association.

Mr. Meng has built a large school for disabled children on the outskirts of Chengdu. About thirty kids live there, and they have a variety of handicaps some are blind, some are deaf, some are confined to a wheelchair, and some are developmentally disabled. There are very few such schools in China. Normally disabled people are hidden away, without any hope of a real future. Mr. Meng has received some support from international sources a van from Hong Kong, a computer system from Norway, and a lot of clothes and toys from US supporters.

One of Mr. Meng's plans is to bring in foreign experts to teach occupational therapy. For that reason he has built six one-bedroom apartments as a part of his school. He has very generously offered one of these apartments to the Kham Aid Foundation to use as our office and dormitory for field workers passing through Chengdu. The money that KAF will save on hotels thanks to him can be used for our programs for Tibetan in Kham.

The Sichuan Holy Love Foundation does not confine its activities to handicapped Chinese kids. Mr. Meng plans to build a school in Serxu County, which is the most remote and poorest county in the Tibetan part of Sichuan. This area has been very badly affected by recent winter blizzards, which have wiped out a lot of livestock. Elsewhere, Mr.Meng's foundation has been transporting clothing and other goods to leper colonies in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, another impoverished region of Sichuan. He has also built a home for the elderly in Chengdu.

If you met Meng Changshou now, you would not believe he was ever an unhappy child. He is bubbly and energetic--in fact he is utterly tireless. "I'm 43 now, and I don't have even a little sickness," he told me. He is a skinny guy, with untidy hair, who dresses in faded, wrinkled clothes and often takes meals with his staff. Although his foundation has a couple of cars, he still often gets around town by bicycle.

I have been staying in our new office at the Sichuan Holy Love Foundation for the last week, and I have to say the people are extremely welcoming and kind here. Mr. Meng gave me the key to his personal office so I can use it anytime, as well as the key to the complex gate. The workers are always inviting me to eat with them. One old lady came around on Tuesday night to invite me to Bible study. She was scandalized when I told her that I am a Buddhist. "Why don't you believe in Jesus?" she berated me, waving a Bible. "You should believe in Jesus!"

My shortcomings in the Jesus department not withstanding, they have all remained extremely friendly and helpful.

Mr. Meng and I are now making plans for a joint project that will help both his charges, and Tibetans in Kham. Thanks to David Altman in Nebraska, we have found a source of donated used wheelchairs and other devices for the disabled. Mr. Meng has considerable experience in navigating customs regulations to bring donated items into Sichuan without paying the usual 100% duty. He is now investigating whether this will be possible for the wheelchairs. Assuming he finds a way, we plan to bring in roughly a hundred wheelchairs, plus other devices such as walkers and braces. A portion of these will go to Mr.Meng's organization, and the rest will be taken up to Kham.

Mr. Meng is planning to visit the U.S. in June, and would like to make contact with Christian organizations there for the purpose of publicizing his foundation and raising funds for it. If any of you have contacts among the Christian community (especially Chinese Christians), we'd be very grateful for an introduction. He can be reached directly at holylove@public.sc.cninfo.net, by telephone or fax at 86 28 731-3429. Or you can write to him through the Kham Aid Foundation.

Sincerely,

Pamela Logan