1956 - Yu Chenhua

April 13, 1956

Shanghai

Yu Chenhua.

Yu Chenhua was born at Xinchang in Zhejiang Province in 1901, the year following the Boxer slaughter of Christians throughout north China. His parents and grandparents were devout Christians. When the Boxers came into the town, neighbours told Yu’s grandfather’s that if they worshipped an image of the kitchen god the Boxers would spare his and his family’s lives. The old patriarch responded, “Let them come and kill! In no way will I put up the picture of the kitchen god!”[1]

Yu Chenhua grew up to become a doctor who always preached the gospel as he ministered to the sick. He was a close coworker of Watchman Nee for over 20 years before Nee was arrested in 1952. Yu travelled widely, preaching the gospel and helping establish believers associated with the Little Flock. In the 1930s Yu and his family lived in Changsha, Hunan Province, while he was the director of the Ophthalmology Department at Xiangya Hospital. In 1936 Watchman Nee sent Yu a telegram urging him to come to Shanghai and be an elder in the Little Flock church there. Nee wrote, “If you are sure that it is God’s will for you to come, you should get here even though you are reduced to beggary.”[2] After receiving confirmation that they should go, Yu resigned from his job and relocated to Shanghai.

Yu’s life and ministry was characterized by a sense of peacefulness and godly wisdom. On one occasion two Christian tailors came into the church, angrily accusing one another of wrongdoing. One of the tailors had deposited a reel of cloth at the other’s home one year before, and now wanted it back. The second tailor denied having ever received the cloth. Watchman Nee heard both sides of the argument and said, “Neither [of you] has any written proof. We cannot judge a case like this. Please go home.” The two tailors were walking toward the door when Yu Chenhua spoke up:

“Wait a minute! I have something to say. I believe that one of you is telling the truth, while the other is lying. Brother Nee is right in saying that men cannot judge such a case. However, in God there is nothing impossible. You can hide the truth from men, but you cannot hide it from God! That’s all I want to say. You may leave now.”[3]

After returning home, the second tailor had no peace in his heart as his conscience troubled him all night. The next day he returned the cloth and repented for his sin.

Between 1955 and 1957 the ‘Movement to Eliminate Counter-Revolutionaries’ was launched across China by the Communist authorities. Yu was one of ten leaders of the Little Flock arrested in Shanghai on the night of January 29, 1956. After the police ransacked his house and confiscated everything of value, Yu was placed under house arrest inside the church sanctuary for 20 days before being transferred to the prison for 50 days. His son Joshua later wrote:

“His atheistic tormentors used a diabolical, odd torture to try to break him down into ‘confessing.’ Even though he was weak in health, they forced him to stay awake around the clock, torturing him in this way for the 50 days in prison…. But he continually took God’s super-abundant grace to be strengthened in his Lord.”[4]

Despite exerting every effort to break Yu, he held fast and refused to accuse any Christian leaders of wrongdoing. At one point a janitor of the church secretly came up to Yu and told him he may as well confess because all the other co-workers from the church had already done so. Yu did not know if this was true or a plan from the enemy to discourage him, and he told the janitor, “I, Dr. Yu, can eat well and sleep well because I have a peaceful conscience. Don’t worry about me.”[5]

Yu Chenhua lapsed into an unconscious state three times during his imprisonment, as the sleep deprivation started to have serious effects on his weakened body. A doctor was summoned who declared that Yu would probably not live another 24 hours. The officers in charge of the interrogation were afraid, as Yu’s arrest had been unofficial, and no legal procedures had been followed. If he died in their hands, they would have to give an account. In a scene reminiscent of Pilate washing his hands of Jesus, Yu was transferred to the Hongren Hospital so that the prison authorities could claim his death was not their responsibility.

On April 13, 1956, after enduring more stress on body and soul than a human was created to bear, the 55-year-old Yu Chenhua dropped dead and entered into his eternal rest as a martyr of the faith.

1. Chen Hua Yu, The Path of Life (Alhambra, Ca.: Chinese Christian Testimony Ministry, 2001), 103.
2. Chen, The Path of Life, 122.
3. Chen, The Path of Life, 140.
4. Chen, The Path of Life, ii.
5. Chen, The Path of Life, 108.