We recently received word that two special friends, Pastor and Mrs. Yang, who founded the Christian Mountain Children’s Home in southern Taiwan, have both passed away. Their story is one beautiful journey of God’s love and grace. Join us in praying for the family as they grieve the loss of both father and mother. We share this recent news post with you.
Talk of the Day — Good Samaritan pastor dies aged 105
2013/05/25 20:24:24
Rev. Yang Hsu, better known in Taiwan as “the father of aboriginal orphans” for his lifelong service and care for disadvantaged children, especially indigenous orphans, has died of multiple organ failure at the age of 105. With “making friends, raising orphans and spreading the Gospel” as the purposes of his life, Yang raised more than 1,000 abandoned, abused, neglected or orphaned children throughout his life. 
He founded the Christian Mountain Children’s Home in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan in 1955 to provide shelter for orphaned aboriginal children. The home was originally located in a downtown area and was later relocated to Kaohsiung’s mountainous region of Liouquei. Over the years, the home, also known as Liouguei Orphanage, has become a must-visit place for Taiwan’s presidents.
The orphanage is scheduled to hold a concert June 15 in memory of Yang and his Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying, who died of cancer May 6 at the age of 83. The following are excerpts from local media coverage of Yang’s life and his contributions to local society:
United Daily News:
Yang Hsu was born into an academic family in northern China’s Shandong Province and moved to Taiwan in 1948. When the Liouguei orphanage held a party last year to celebrate his 104th birthday, 500 people who grew up in the orphanage returned to give their good wishes to Father Yang.
Liu Hsing-chien, the orphanage’s social work division chief, said Yang was among the first group of graduates of the Taiwan Baptist Christian Seminary. In 1964, he bought a piece of land in Liouguei, Kaohsiung, from the Taiwan Sugar Corp. where he erected a permanent shelter for dozens of homeless children he was raising in a downtown chapel.
Forty years ago, then-Premier Chiang Ching-kuo spotted a national flag flying on a mountaintop building during an inspection tour of Kaohsiung’s mountainous region in a helicopter. Chiang later found out that the building was a Christian shelter for Aboriginal orphans and he visited the orphanage shortly afterwards. During his time as president, Chiang made five more visits to the orphanage.
Yang En-dian, a physically challenged artist who paints using her feet and her mouth and who was raised by Yang and his Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying from infancy after she was brought to the orphange in a basket in early 1974, said she was very grateful to the couple. She was born without upper limbs and was abandoned by her birth parents. “Without the Yangs, I could not have grown up,” she said. “When I started to learn to paint with my feet and mouth, he apprenticed me to painting masters to inspire my painting talent. He also collected information and materials for me,” Yang En-dian recalled. At the age of 20, she joined with other foot-and-mouth painters to hold a painting exhibition.
“It was the first time I had ever publicly displayed my works. Someone bought one of my pieces at a price of more than NT$100,000. I was very happy and decided to continue my painting career. A few years later, I came to know that it was Father Yang who had borrowed money to ask one of his friends to buy the painting on his behalf,” she recalled. “Father Yang told me that it was a worthy deal because it had given me encouragement and helped me build up my self-confidence,” she added. (May 25, 2013).
Liberty Times:
Yang and his wife made their church in Liouguei a home for Aboriginal children who had no food and no money to pay for school. As word of their philanthropy spread to neighboring townships, they had to repeatedly enlarge the facility to cope with the additional orphans. The orphanage at one point provided shelter for up to 112 orphans at a time. Over the decades, Yang sheltered and raised over 1,000 aboriginal orphans and homeless youths.
At present, the orphanage still houses 72 children. Among the youngsters the orphanage has helped is Rachel Liang, a singer from a popular TV singing competition similar to Britain’s Pop Idol. Liang, now in her 20s, was sent to the orphanage with her younger sister after their parents died one after the other in the 1990s. (May 25, 2013).
China Times:
Yang’s wife of over 60 years died of cancer May 6, but nobody told him that sad information out of concern for his health. Yang underwent kidney stone surgery May 16 and made a good recovery. He was ready to be discharged from hospital but died early May 23 in his sleep, probably because of his advanced age, a hospital spokesman said. (May 25, 2013).
(By Sofia Wu)
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