The Boy by the River

By Robin Mattheson

It was the kind of meeting you see in movies—strangers scanning faces in a hotel lobby, searching the crowds, hoping to catch a glimmer of recognition in someone’s eyes. Then we saw it! That smile was unmistakable. “Shao Feng! It’s really you!”

By this time the grin that graced his rugged features had erupted from ear to ear. As we shook hands vigorously, this handsome Chinese businessman marveled, “It’s a miracle of God! No one could deny it!”

We certainly agreed, for we had last met Shao Feng 13 years earlier, on one of our first visits to China. At that time he was a teenage boy, full of dreams and questions. We had met him by the side of a river one day, where he struck up a conversation with us in order to practice his newly learned high school English vocabulary. He asked about our life abroad, what we did, and how we lived.

 That’s when we told him about Jesus and how in Him we had found an answer to so many of the questions that at one time had seemed so baffling. We explained how we had found a Savior who loved us enough to die for us and who would help us live forever with Him. Sitting with us on the banks of the river as the sun went down, Shao Feng prayed with us to receive Jesus into his heart.

We talked and talked for much of that night and most of the next day. We spoke of love and hate, of the world’s aching past and Heaven’s bright future. We talked about sadness and happiness, and how one day Jesus would wipe away all tears from our eyes. We saw hope born that evening in his young heart, and we knew that even though we would have to leave Shao Feng, God’s presence would remain with him forever.

We didn’t see him again until that wonderful day in the hotel lobby 13 years later. We had written him a number of times, though, sending encouraging little cards or notes of greeting. Oddly, we had received no replies. We weren’t sure if it was the censorship of the mail or problems with the address, but finally, after receiving no response to our many letters, we stopped writing. Years passed and we moved. We moved again and yet again.

Then one day it came. A fat envelope arrived in our post office box, covered back and front with forwarding addresses and stamps. We opened it to find a 10-page letter! The eager young boy we had known had matured into a successful businessman. Since we had last seen Shao Feng, he had finished his studies, traveled abroad, and experienced many changes in his life. He’d known happiness and sadness, love and loneliness. China had passed through nearly as many changes as had our friend—from Tiananmen Square to economic reforms and the current open-door policy to the outside world.

Shao Feng wrote that he’d found a measure of success in his work and adventure in his life, yet the yearning for something more remained deep in his heart. He realized after several years of futile attempts that such emptiness could only be filled by God’s love.

“Can you help me regain that peace I had found by the river so long ago?” he asked.

It would be several more years and a number of letters and phone calls before we would actually meet face to face again. Searching the crowds that happy day in the hotel lobby, we found those same bright eyes. We thought we would burst from happiness, thanking the Lord over and over for bringing us back together again.

As we sat at a table in a quiet restaurant, filling each other in on the details of all that had transpired since we’d last seen each other, Shao Feng pulled a crumpled packet from his suit jacket. Gingerly unfolding the worn paper which had been carefully reinforced with tape along the creases, we saw a dog-eared poster proclaiming “What Everybody Needs Is Love!”

“Over the years, whenever I was discouraged I’d read that and think of you. It gave me peace. I carry it with me wherever I go.” He also pulled from the packet the many letters and notes we had written him, and told us how much each one had meant to him.

Shao Feng is now studying God’s Word and learning more about the Man he met by the river as a boy.

Every hungry heart shall be filled, and they that seek shall find (Luke 1:53; Matthew 7:8). Almost everywhere we look, we see other young people who remind us of the boy we met many years ago. They also search for hope, truth, and a purpose in life. The Man of Love is waiting to come into their lives too. We pray we’ll be able to lead many of them to Him.