Meet Mr. Pan. He was born, grew up, spent most of his life, and is now growing old in Niawen village in Congjiang County, on the southern edge of Guizhou Province. Let's take a brief look into where life has taken Mr. Pan.

Niawen is well known for its lumber production, both when Mr. Pan was young and up till today. After finishing middle school, Mr. Pan took an opportunity that would be the only time he left Congjiang County.

The lumber from Niawen is secured together into a wide flat and floated down river through Congjiang, Sanjiang, Liuzhou, Wuzhou, and then down the Pearl River down to Guangzhou near Hong Kong. Men have to tend these massive flats through all the bends and shallows of the rivers, and Mr. Pan was once one of these river pilots.

The river portion of the trip took about three weeks to cross two full provinces before arriving in Guangzhou. After arriving and selling off the wood, Mr. Pan and his friends slowly made their way back to Congjiang over the next week by train and foot. Though nothing dramatic happened, it was an event of a lifetime, a chance to see what was outside of Congjiang County.

In his 20s, during the early part of the Cultural Revolution in China, Mr. Pan served in the village Red Guards. His primary function in those days was to serve as a human sign post, of sorts, to those walking the trail between Xiajiang (then, the county seat of that area) and Guzhou (modern day Rongjiang county seat), because of the high volume of traffic between the two areas and also because the route was not obvious for those who did not know the way.

After serving a couple years as a sign post, he was asked to serve as an elementary teacher in a Dong village up in the mountains to the north of Niawen. He ended up teaching, as the sole teacher for the school, for nine years.

Though he did not expressly state it, I have a feeling that marrying a girl and settling down in Niawen less than a year after leaving the teaching position, is clear evidence of his motivations for leaving the position and returning home. Since then, he has not left Niawen much. He has occupied himself with taking care of the family land and raising children and grandchildren.

In the Spring of 2003, Mr. Pan was witness to something even the elders of the village had never seen: a tornado. Mr. Pan's family home was one of two houses completely leveled in the 9pm tornado. Though none in his home were injured, Mr. Pan's parents, family, and some grandchildren were forced to build and live in a temporary shelter put up by family and friends. Here pictured one week after the tornado, his sister-in-law, Pan, his brother, and wife wander around the rubble of the house, with their temporary home in the background.

On July 4th, 2004, through a foreign disaster relief aid contribution given through the county government, the Pans and the other family whose house was demolished, held ceremonies to erect their new homes. The frames were built by the local capentery team, and the final carpentry work for walls, windows, and doors will most likely be finished out by Pan and his family.

Pan has heard very little of the Gospel, and is very content with the traditional worship of idols and animistic beliefs. May the Lord be praised in Pan, his family, and in the whole of the village of Niawen as he reaches out to them.