What Treasures Lie Beneath the Mists of an Enchanted Land

It is the beginning of April, 2018. I click the submit button on Amazon's CreateSpace and launch Paul Yin's book into the public domain. It is called "Explosions of Joy". What were people going to think about it? Would they trash it and tear it apart? Would they note its worth or its unworthiness! This had been a kind of scary process, putting my stuff out there in the general market.

But in reality, it is not my "stuff". It is Paul Yin's writing, flowing in eloquent prose from a near photographic memory. What amazing command of the English language this man has for a native Chinese speaker! And Trina Kraus is a superb co-author with Paul, taking nearly 90,000 words and massaging, aligning, trimming and generally adding "pixie dust" to create an enthralling reading experience. We tried to follow all of Marlene Bagnull's expert advice in editing and polishing. We were told to keep it to under 60,000 words and now I am glad we did. We now have enough material that there could be a ready sequel. And Paul, who they gave only a week to live after his heart failure 1-1/2 years ago, is alive and thriving in Beijing. His life is generating new books even as I write this. He has an unassailable, positive attitude toward life.

How is it that I, a farm boy from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, became the contributing editor for the man who brought psychology to China? I can remember I was on my first trip to China as a medical engineer giving guidance on developing anesthesia machines to a Chinese company. The airplane was descending over the mountains of Mongolia on its approach to Beijing. The sun was setting behind the horizon to the west. The sky was lit in pastel purples and pinks merging with the deep blackness of space. Below me were the sharp, black spines of rugged mountains pushing up out of a blanket of white mist. The thought penetrated my mind. "I wonder what treasures I will find hidden under those shrouding mists in this land of enchantment". Paul Yin has turned into one of those amazing treasures and this book is just a small piece of the great joy it has been to have him as my "accidental" friend.

And though it was indeed accidental, Paul and I agree that it was really more providential. It was June 21, 2013. I was in China for perhaps my fourth time. My software engineer colleague, Vid Ruksys, and I were sitting at a booth the Lei Café at the Beijing Airport, waiting for our typically delayed flight back to America. Apparently, our talk, actions and demeanor attracted the notice of a Chinese man sitting across the restaurant. He came over to the table and started the conversation with a statement sure to raise surprise in our minds. "Well, those Broad Street Bullies just aren't what they used to be!" What was this obviously Chinese man doing bringing up a historical reference to the Philadelphia Flyers? How did he know them and how did he know we were from Philadelphia? That was just the beginning salvo of a conversation that lasted for the next several hours as he settled down at our table to await his similarly delayed departure.

And what a delightful passing of the time it was. We got brilliant insights into not only the amount of information this man had packed into his brain about American sports teams, but also music, psychology, and the contrasting social structure between America and China. It was unfortunate that airline efficiency meant that the delay only lasted 3 hours! This conversation could have gone on all night.

As it turned out, in many ways it did go on more than all night; it has lasted for the past 5 years! We exchanged email addresses and I wrote to him upon my return to America. And then events conspired to add an additional connection between our lives beyond the elongated conversation at the Lei. Less than two weeks later, on July 6, 2013, Asiana Flight 214 was landing at the San Francisco airport and came in too low. It crashed into the embankment and somersaulted its way down the runway. Forty young people from China were aboard that fated plane. I get an email from Paul that he was now in Quzhou, the town where these girls were from, serving as a grief counselor to these girls and their families. Suddenly there was a solid connection between this tragedy on the one side of the Pacific Ocean and the lives of these girls on the other side of that vast ocean.  

Then on March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared en route to Beijing. "What are you doing now?" I asked via email. "One disaster is wrapping up and now another is just beginning. I'm at the Lido Hotel ministering to the families here. I have set up my headquarters at the Starbucks," came his reply. As the world was blanketed with 24-hour news coverage about that missing plane, I suddenly see my friends picture on CNN being interviewed by Anderson Cooper. In the days and weeks that followed, Paul, in his red, Arsenal scarf, became the voice of the grieving families as they breathlessly waited for news of their loved ones. 

I got laid off from my engineering job in July of 2014. This job had provided my opportunity to travel to China about 3 times a year previously. But between January and June of 2015, God provided me with two free trips back to that land of Enchantment to visit, tour and experience its wonders. On both trips I was able to connect with Paul, first for a whole day of delightful tea and conversation in his home across from the SOHO center and then for a rather expensive steak dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel in Beijing. These were delightful occasions when talk could flow freely without the restraint of potential censorship on WeChat conversations.

Things took a decidedly negative turn on November 11, 2015. I got a WeChat from Paul saying that he was in the hospital with a massive heart failure and the doctors only gave him a week to life. "Fortunately, they say it is incurable," he told me. I was completely perplexed by that statement, telling him that I never heard those words strung together in one sentence before. Apparently, there was nothing that they could do for this congenital heart problem so he said they would not be spending a lot of money trying. But in response to all of this bad news, he wrote a letter to his heart, thanking it for all of its 53 years of uncomplaining service and attempting to strike a bargain with it. If it would just keep on beating, he would listen and care for it much more assiduously in the future. He still had things in his bucket list that he was hoping to accomplish with its cooperation.

He wrote that letter on my birthday, December 22, 2015 and by January of 2016, his heart was responding positively to his letter and to various Chinese herbal medicines. I told him that I believed God had given him a reprieve to write his memoirs. He assured me that he didn't believe that God had kept him alive just to breath. He took up the challenge of putting together his life story by starting to dig up his old yearly newsletters which had become his habitual way of communicating with his friends back in China during the 22 years he had spent in California. He sent these to me along with other commentary on his life. Pretty soon I had the foundation for a very compelling book assembled on my computer.

But I am an engineer, not a writer. I knew I didn't have the horsepower to actually commit this material into a real book. But God apparently also knew of my incapacity in this regard, so he arranged for the woman behind me in Sunday School class at the beginning of September 2016 to raise her hand with a prayer request. After teaching English for 16 years, the new school year was starting, and she had yet to have a solid teaching position secured. "Please pray!" Well, after class I asked her if she might consider helping me edit this book, given her skills as a English professional. She was ecstatic to take up the task! Suddenly I had someone on my team who could identify and correct a dangling participle and who could add those eloquent flourishes and edit, revise and organize the material into a thoroughly readable manuscript.

With Trina on board, we made a lot of progress in shrinking the original 90,000 words down to the 60,000-word size that we were told was appropriate for a memoir like this. We were about ready to say that it was ready for publication when a thought occurred to me. We really had not sat down with Paul to go over this work word-by-word and make sure it was reflective of his voice and accurate with its facts. It was just then that my boss at work called me aside and said that he really did not have work for me for several weeks. "Could I take some time off?" Well, certainly. I would go to China and meet with Paul! I started to arrange the trip. Paul was free and would gladly take me around and introduce me to the venues and the characters in the book. But then he had a better idea, or maybe it was God's idea! "Why don't I come to America for 10 days?" Wow! Now that was definitely a better idea. This way he could meet Trina and the three of us could do the final edit together.

And that is just what happened, with the added benefit that the first Sunday of Paul's trip fell on Super Bowl Sunday. There is no conclusive evidence of this, but in retrospect, it seems that what God had in mind was to create a way for His name to be broadcast across National TV. As it turned out, for three years now, whatever city in the USA that Paul happened to be visiting, their sports team won the national title. This was the year for the Philadelphia Eagles to be in the Super Bowl, and with Paul visiting the City of Brotherly Love, naturally the Eagles won. And anyone who was watching TV after that event can recall how much God's name was lifted up by the members of the Eagles team. It was glorious to watch, and I duly credited it to Paul's presence in my house!

One other benefit to Paul's being here was that the Christian Writers Conference was also being held locally and we could go there and get lots of great help. And Paul was able to be at church for the second Sunday and I interviewed him during the Sunday service. What a great pleasure to interview this amazing man and draw out a lot of his stories for the congregation to hear. Now, they too could understand more fully the fascination that I had displayed with walking beside the man for so many years. They can all join me in praying that God indeed continues to strengthen him and his heart so that his ministry to the world can continue unabated. 

God does some really crazy things in life sometimes! Even crazier than creating something like a platypus. And Paul and Trina and I are one of those crazy constructs - welded together into an amazing trinity by forces too wonderful to contemplate! We have already seen this book profoundly affect lives and we pray that it will continue to be a source of healing and joy to many people around the globe. It is truly an unexpected treasure extracted from beneath the mists in that land of enchantment!