The 49-year-old Suo Haisong is a native of Linzhou City, Henan Province, and now lives in Yaodu District, Linfen City, Shanxi Province. Becoming a Chrisitan in 2015, Suo is currently serving in the Fellowship for the Disabled of Linfen Church and Mengjie Church. Used to be a construction supervisor, he suffers from high paraplegia due to an accident in 2011. This accident also became an opportunity for him to embark on the road of serving the Lord.
He had heard that there were believers at his native place, and his mother-in-law believes in Jesus, but he had never thought of converting to Christianity. Later, Suo joined the project team to work in Linfen, which happened to be near a church. That Christmas, he was invited into the church by a friend.
In July 2011, when he was working near Taiyuan, an accident caused him to be paraplegic from the waist down. After countless physiotherapy treatments, he spent hundreds of thousands of yuan, which emptied all his savings. But in the end, Suo had to reluctantly accept the fate of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
The great blow of his sudden disability caused him more pain than he could live with. Later, his sister-in-law came to see him with a deacon from the church, who prayed for him and preached the gospel to him. During his hospital stay, the church's other believers also came to visit him, which touched him deeply.
For the first time, he realized that Jesus loves him all along. Later, he began to believe in God and read the Bible, and went to church in a wheelchair.
At the height of his difficulties, the congregation helped him go through the lows of his life. I still remember that when his third son was four years old, he got sick and was hospitalized. He had to pay more than 500 yuan to the hospital every month, but at that time, his family did not even have enough money to buy a kettle and diapers. The wonderful God really prepared all things for him. Wei Cheng’en, an elder of Linfen church, sent his granddaughter to give him 1,000 yuan, to meet his urgent need. In addition, believers from Mengniu Farm, First Pastoral District, and Fourth Pastoral District donated money to help him several times. Pastors from “A Glass of Water”, the city church’s charity organization, and the fellowships for the disabled, often came to visit him and send money and goods to him. God’s grace carried his family through many memorable times.
At the beginning of his church service, he felt so inferior in his wheelchair that he only dared to sit alone in the corner and listen to the sermons. Pastors of Linfen church did not look down on him because of his physical condition; instead, they encouraged him many times not to give up.
In the second half of 2015, he came to the fellowship for the disabled and participated in the activities every Saturday. In the beginning, there were only a few people in the fellowship, and at the most, there were only about 20 people in the fellowship. Although there were not many people in the fellowship, it is a very active group. What touched him most was that there were two able-bodied volunteers to served and received disabled people. They would wait at the door during each service, to push their wheelchairs in and out of the church.
Later, he was assigned to lead Bible readings on the Internet. Before leading the scripture reading, he often had to prepare in advance. For the text he was about to read, he would read through it several times, look up the words he did not know in the dictionary to get the general meaning, then read each word slowly, and finally record it. Sometimes this process had to be repeated several times.
His constant reading of the scriptures also helped him develop the habit of reading the Bible and gradually learning the practice of prayer. His spiritual life was improved, which is the biggest benefit of his participation in the service.
Gradually, he began to participate in the streaming process of Sunday worship. As he became more and more proficient in his service, he also joined several online communication groups such as First Pastoral District, Fourth Pastoral District, and Mengjie Church, as well as several online spiritual platforms in Liaoning, Jiangxi, Qinghai, and other places.
Through the communication and sharing with Christians from all over the country, he felt that he understood many spiritual truths, and sometimes learned to enlighten some weak believers with God’s word.
Once, a sister from Jiangxi said on WeChat, China's most popular social media, that her family was not harmonious and she was very upset. And he greatly comforted her by exhorting her with the words of Proverbs: “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).
Serving God is a very busy job, but he finds it very fulfilling and satisfying. He has found his value in serving God, and his irritable temperament gradually changed. His wife worked outside, and he would do some housework within his power. Sometimes in fellowship activities, he will do the housework first, then go to the church service.
Recently, a church elder asked him to open a spiritual hotline for people with disabilities. He readily accepted.
The church was about to begin volunteer training, and he wanted to sign up for it and equip himself to be a vessel for God’s usage.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
