December 7, 2004
On the front page of today's Wall Street Journal (subscription only), a long article about Xu Qian Qian, a deformed Chinese girl-child sold, by a father in intense poverty and privation, to a cruel begging family.
After years of lying on the sidewalk with cigarette butts and candy wrappers, terribly disabled and misused, rescue comes from a true Good Samaritan.
In January 2004, Liu Ruohan, a 33-year-old local resident, decided to help. Mr. Liu says he is a small businessman and practicing Christian, without providing further details, and says his motivation was religious. He went to the neighborhood police station and waited an hour ...They advised Mr. Liu to stay out of the matter. ...A week later, Mr. Liu returned to the bridge and scooped up the little girl. ...By chance, [her watcher] ... had left her watch post. Mr. Liu rushed the girl to a hospital. He says a doctor who conducted a cursory exam estimated that basic treatment would cost about $12,000....Unable to pay, Mr. Liu took Qian Qian to his home and hid her.
After newspaper publicity, the girl's captors have been prosecuted, medical care found for her.
What makes this an Advent story is this unresolved scene, when her sad and sheepish father finds her again.
Qian Qian is cool toward him. "My Dad knew he wasn't taking me to see a doctor," she says....As a nurse's attendant swabbed the deep cuts on one of Qian Qian's heels, [the father who sold her] knelt down and pulled off the powder-blue sock on her other foot. He looked at the puncture marks and bruises below the ankle. "Did he do this to you?" he asked. "Did he do this to you?" Qian Qian didn't say a word. She twisted her face away from her father and with eyes wet, stared up at the hospital lights.
Forgiveness, reconciliation, fruitfulness that transcends injury. In due time, the other half of the miracle and worth waiting for.
This is a story for a modern Chinese opera. Vistas of misery, starvation, despair, cruelty, desperation, 21st-century economic dislocation, ancient customs good and evil, scheming greed, deliverance by quiet genuine heroism. And a final challenge for the spirit.
If a reader or two wants to read the entire article, and missed it in print, let us know at good_and_happy "at" yahoo "dot" com.
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