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The
following excerpts are from AsiaNews.it:
Jiuji
(AsiaNews/Ucanews) – For the past 42 years, Kong Zhenlan, a
Catholic in China's Shanxi province, has been bringing up handicapped
orphans and abandoned children along with her own kids, and that has
inspired one of her sons to become a Catholic priest.
Kong's
son Father Anthony Fan Changliang says the adoption of orphans is
related to a local tradition in their Jiuji Catholic village in Qi
County.
Before
the communist revolution in 1949, the ancient Catholic parish in the
village maintained a tradition of charity to help the orphans.
In
the two decades that followed the revolution this noble tradition and
all the charity works were stopped as religions were oppressed,
Catholics say.
In
the 1970s, there was an increase of abandoned children but there was
no orphanage. Father Fan said that in 1977 his mother began to adopt
abandoned and handicapped orphans.
The
lack of medical care and children’s poor health made mortality rate
quite high, said Father Fan, who was a teenage at the time. The
deaths of some children and the unbearable financial burden on the
family saddened him.
For
a while, he said, he lost the faith. But the words of his mother made
him think deeper. "To love the poor is to love Jesus. Each of
the kid is a little brother, a little Jesus. When we take care of our
little brothers, we are taking care of Jesus," she used to say.
Only
after graduating from the novitiate did Father Fan fully understand
and support his mother's mission, he said.
“We
are all brothers and sisters, there is no difference," he said
when asked how many biological and adopted brothers and sisters he
has. "It is a blessing" that his mother is able to give
love to the kids, "a love with faith, and she enjoys doing it,"
he said.
Since
the age of 24, Kong and her husband Fan Bucheng have been engaged in
this charitable activity. Now, they are both 66-years old.
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