Nora Lam
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Nora Lam (September 4, 1932 – February 2, 2004) was a Chinese
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
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minister to
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, and founder of Nora Lam Ministries International (NLMI). Lam was born in China and lived there until her escape to Hong Kong at age 26.


Early life

Nora Lam was born September 4, 1932 in a missionary hospital in
Peking } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
(now
Beijing, China } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
). Abandoned at birth, she was adopted six months later by Dr. and Mrs. H.T. Sung, a prominent couple in
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
. Both her adoptive parents were members of a wealthy elite in the Republic of China. Her paternal grandfather, Sung Han-Chang, was a well-known banker and financier involved with the Bank of China in Shanghai. Her maternal great-grandfather, Ye Hongying (葉鴻英) was also a well known industrialist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist in the late-Qing and Republican Shanghai. Her adoptive father was born September 11, 1900 and was educated in Lyon,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, where he was trained as a physician. Little is known about Lam's early life apart from the accounts in her own published memoirs: "For Those Tears," coauthored with Cliff Dudley, and "China Cry" coauthored with Irene Burk Harrell. Lam, then still known as Sung Neng Yee (宋能爾), recounts growing up as a member of a privileged elite. She attended the McTyier primary school in Shanghai for six years. After the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in 1939, Sung and her family fled their home to live at her step-grandmother's home in Shanghai's French Concession. In 1941, she attended the McTyeire Home and School for Girls, where she first heard of Christianity. During her time there, Sung writes about her vision of a
guardian angel A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that guard over people played a major role in A ...
, appearing in the form of an old man, who continually advised her throughout her life. In 1942, at age ten, her family fled the Japanese again, this time to her grandfather's home in
Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...
,
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
's war time capital in southwest China. There, she attended an American missionary boarding school, and recounts an interesting detail where she befriended the daughter of Christian warlord Feng Yuxiang.


Return to Shanghai

After the war ended in 1945, the Sung family returned to Shanghai. Her father began practicing medicine again at the Huantou Textile Hospital, and Sung was enrolled in the academically prestigious Mary Farnham School, a boarding school for girls run by
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
missionaries. Influenced by many of her classmates, Sung professed to be a Christian on the eve of her middle school entrance exam. By age 16, however, she had stopped professing to be a Christian. The period surrounding the Communist takeover of China was an uncertain one. Sung in fact left China briefly, planning to live with her aunt in Taiwan. However, the impoverished living conditions in Taiwan prompted her to return to the mainland after ten days. Following the end of the
Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...
in 1949, she enrolled at Huatung Political Science & Law College in
Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...
with aspirations of becoming a lawyer. She graduated third in her class in 1953 and became an assistant professor teaching law and history. She met and fell in love with Cheng Shen Lam, another law student at the university. In 1955, realizing that she was pregnant, she and Lam were married. Their son was born later that year.


Life after the Communist takeover

Lam's biographies emphasize the rupturing nature of the Communist revolution, and tell a story of intensifying persecution due to her family's wealth, western connections, and Christianity. Particularly significant in Lam's narrative is the theme of suffering and resistance to persecution under the new Communist state. Due to her parents' wealth and western training and to her own experiences with foreign missionaries, Neng Yee was interrogated by
Communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
officials, who wanted to break her of any bourgeois tendencies. As she was questioned, she began to question herself, realizing that she still believed in Christianity. In her autobiography,
China Cry ''China Cry'' is a 1990 American biographical film set during rise of the communist state in China, based on the book by Nora Lam. It is set in the 1950s based on the true story of Sung Neng Yee. Born into a wealthy Chinese family, she is first ...
, Neng Yee claimed she was sentenced to death by
firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are us ...
but somehow survived. In 1957, her husband, whose parents lived in
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, was also interrogated by officials as part of the first
Anti-Rightist Movement The Anti-Rightist Campaign () in the People's Republic of China, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged "Rightists" within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the country as a whole. The campaign was l ...
. During this time, Neng Yee gave birth to her second child, Ruth Lam Kendrick. One month later, Neng Yee's father, who had previously lost his job and had been forced into
reeducation through labor Re-education through labor (RTL; ), abbreviated ''laojiao'' () was a system of administrative detention on Mainland China. Active from 1957 to 2013, the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as pet ...
, died from experimental drugs that officials tested on him. In 1958, just as Mao Zedong's
Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
was beginning, Cheng Shen was able to obtain an
exit visa A visa (from the Latin ''charta visa'', meaning "paper that has been seen") is a conditional authorization granted by a polity to a foreigner that allows them to enter, remain within, or leave its territory. Visas typically include limits on ...
to Hong Kong to visit his ailing father. He took daughter Ruth with him. Neng Yee, acting as a guarantor for his return, was forced to undergo hard labor despite being pregnant with their third child. After petitioning Beijing, she was granted an exit visa to visit Hong Kong during her
maternity leave Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, Paternity (law), paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" an ...
. Her mother's escape to Hong Kong followed two years later.


Life in Hong Kong

After reaching Hong Kong in 1958, the couple's third child was born. The Rev. Paul Kauffman served as their pastor in Hong Kong, but the couple soon had marital difficulties. Sung Neng Yee, now known as Nora Lam, claimed spousal abuse, divorced her husband, and was remarried to S. K. Sung, an elder at the church. Lam's life in Hong Kong has been the subject of intense scrutiny and controversy, especially in light of an investigation conducted in the 1980s by California attorney John Stewart. Whereas Lam's account in "China Cry" emphasizes her victimization and suffering of physical abuse by her spouse, Stewart's investigation found that Lam and S.K. Sung fabricated the case in order to legitimize their re-marriage to conservative evangelical audiences.


Life in the United States

The US
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The l ...
significantly reduced immigration quotas and gave Nora the chance to immigrate to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. With a sponsorship from American evangelist
Kathryn Kuhlman Kathryn Kuhlman (May 9, 1907 - February 20, 1976) was an American evangelist who is best known as a 'faith healer' who hosted healing services. Early and personal life Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman was born near Concordia, Missouri to German-American ...
, with whom she was acquainted during Kuhlman's visit to Hong Kong, Nora was able to immigrate to the U.S. with her children, mother, and first husband Cheng Shen, in 1966. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen.


Transnational life as an evangelist and miracle healer

Although the latter part of Lam's life was based predominantly in the United States, her greatest legacy was arguably in the evangelistic tours she conducted in Asia. Since the 1970s, she traveled annually to Taiwan, conducting evangelistic tours, miracle healing services, preaching widely. While her biographies recount that the tours to Taiwan were a result of coincidences, or divine providence, her own personal connections also proved essential. Her mother was a personal acquaintance of the first lady, Soong May-Ling, and Soong, together with the wife of vice-president Yen Chia-Kan, both attended and supported Lam's first ever evangelistic tour to Taiwan. At the same time, her husband S.K. Sung was also well-connected in Pentecostal Christian circles in East Asia, having served as the chairman of the Hong Kong chapter of the Full Gospel Businessman's Association. S.K. Sung, and his close affinity with General Samuel Wu Sung-Ching, possibly also provided Lam networks into the Guomindang Christian Anti-Communist elite. In the early 1970s, Lam's evangelistic rallies were among the large-scale public crusades which conducted miracle healing, and evangelistic outreach specifically targeting children. Like other large-scale evangelistic meetings of the time, such as Billy Graham's five days of crusades in 1975, Chou Lien-Hwa's preaching tours across Taiwan, Lam was able to amass huge crowds . However, unlike many others, Lam's claims to fame lay largely on the power of her personal testimony, and her purported ability to heal the sick. In 1974, Lam founded Nora Lam Ministries International in San Jose,
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and began bringing American missionary/tourists with her, on her annual missionary crusades to Asia. Crowds as large as 100,000 were in attendance at her evening crusades in
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. In 1976, she famously led the televangelist Pat Robertson, and Ralph Wilkerson of California's Meloydland Christian Center to Taiwan, where they all received a Cultural Award from education minister Jiang Yizhi, in recognition of their contributions to US-Taiwan cultural exchange. Lam also played a central role in negotiating a partnership between CBN and Taiwan's China National Television, where she hosted an evangelistic television program on divine healing, during the 1970s and 1980s. Lam received the Korean Association of Social Work Award, a medal from the Pacific Cultural Foundation, an award from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, and a special award from Sung Ro Won Children's Home in Korea, along with the respect of national leaders. Lam and her second husband adopted two children from Taiwan.


Later career

In December 1990, Lam's story made American national headlines with the release of the film "China Cry." It was produced by the California televangelist Paul Crouch and his Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). While the national news media focused on the seminal event of TBN's first foray into filmmaking, it brought the "Nora Lam story" to mainstream American theaters. As film critic Jin Yang argued, the metanarrative of suffering and redemption fit with anti-communist Cold War story about American need and ability to "rescue" the Chinese. In that regard, "China Cry" fulfilled expectations and stereotypes about religious "persecution" under communism, and the heroic victory of the free/capitalist world. However, the film's release prompted greater scrutiny of Lam's private life, and a series of reportage in the mainstream and evangelical press, which noted that national organizations like the Assemblies of God, and the National Association of evangelicals, had denied her membership. Whilst Lam and her defenders critiqued that White missionaries were jealous of her "success," critiques focused intense attention on the circumstances of her divorce. Interestingly, most of the criticisms came from scrutiny of her divorce and re-marriage, rather than the claims of miracle healing and bodily resistance."Critics question Nora Lam's Life Story." Christianity Today, 1991 Nevertheless, an accusation was made against Lam in the television documentary " American Gospel: Christ Alone" that at a miraculous healing meeting she avoided a teenager named Justin Peters who had an obvious disability, being
cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensa ...
. When approached by his father, she asked about the family's financial situation on the basis that the more money you give to the Lord's work the more likely he is to answer your prayers. The decline of Lam's ministry was also shaped by the changing nature of anti-communist politics of Taiwan. The end of martial law in Taiwan in 1987, and decline in influence of anti-communist Guomindang Christian leaders whom Lam could rely on for support, no doubt hastened the end of her career as evangelist in Asia.


Death

She died in California on February 2, 2004. She was survived by two sons, three daughters and seven grandchildren. Her oldest daughter Ruth Lam Kendrick is president of Nora Lam Ministries International, now rename
World Children's Fund
which continues to support Chinese house churches, Christian orphanages and children's programs around the world.


Book authored

* ''China Cry: The True Story of Nora Lam'' (1990) * For Those Tears (1972)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lam, Nora Protestant missionaries in China Chinese Protestant missionaries Chinese evangelicals Leaders of Christian parachurch organizations Christian writers Writers from Beijing 1932 births 2004 deaths Angelic visionaries Chinese autobiographers Chinese anti-communists People with acquired American citizenship Hong Kong people Chinese emigrants to British Hong Kong