Just As I Am

by Billy Graham

  On another Sunday—one when I was scheduled to preach at St. Ann’s—I lost my sermon, which I had prepared especially for the occasion. I knew I had it with me when I stood up to sing; but when I sat down, I couldn’t find it. I was still searching my pockets when it was time for me to take the pulpit. So I extemporized a sermon on an old faithful, the story of the Prodigal Son. It seemed to go well. And when I returned to my seat, there it was: the text of my sermon. I had been sitting on it. So much for my extended preparation!

  The Bush family tempo was more subdued at the White House than at Kennebunkport when the younger children came around, but they were not overlooked by any means. After the State of the Union address in 1990, Ruth and I made for the second-floor Lincoln Bedroom to settle in for the night. The Pres-ident loped down the hall as if headed for the Queen’s Bedroom. But then he opened a hidden door in the wall and dashed up to the third floor, where the children always stayed when they came to visit. Instead of simply collapsing into bed after delivering a major speech to Congress and the nation, he wanted to say goodnight to those kids.

  In 1986 some of the local North Carolina Republicans, knowing Ruth and I were friends with the Bushes, wanted to bring Vice President Bush out to our place when he flew into the state. They thought we might enjoy a get-together, but they also knew it might be politically useful to their cause. George knew that too, so he stayed away on purpose. Protective of my privacy and my nonpolitical stance, he wrote to explain that he did not want to expose me to the inevitable publicity his visit would bring. Ruth and I would have loved to see him relax in one of the rocking chairs on our porch. But we knew he was right, and we deferred to his good judgment.

  The First Couple seemed to delight in showing the second floor of the White House—the family wing—to others. On the eve of the National Prayer Breakfast one year, when Ruth and I were again spending a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, the President called about twenty minutes before supper, while we were getting ready. “Hope you don’t mind,” he said apologetically, “but I’ve got about 60 members of the Senate and House coming up for a little tour of the living quarters. They’ve never seen it.” Ruth grabbed her clothes and made a beeline for the bathroom.

  When I stepped out of our room, I saw General Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney with a group that filled the upstairs hall. They had just finished a briefing with the President.

  “Billy, you show them down at that end,” the President said to me, “and I’ll take them up at this end.”

  So I took about a third of them to the Queen’s Bedroom and the Lincoln Bedroom—checking to make sure Ruth was concealed—and tried to give them a guided tour, telling them what little I knew from my several visits there.

  At his inauguration in 1989, George Bush invited me to lead the various prayers during the public ceremony. I protested at first, pointing out that it was customary to have clergy from other traditions participate also (often a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and perhaps an Orthodox leader). He remained adamant, however, saying he felt more comfortable with me; besides, he added, he didn’t want people to think he was just trying to play politics by having representatives of different faiths.

  When the inauguration was over, we were invited to a luncheon in the Capitol Rotunda. Arriving there, we heard that the Bushes had gone to bid farewell to the Reagans, who were departing Washington. Since we had been friends with the Reagans for so many years, we wanted to see them off also. I took it upon myself to slip out. A Secret Service agent kindly took me to where they were embarking, but I got there just a little too late. I watched with mixed emotions as their helicopter lifted into the air, wishing I had thought ahead and arranged to say a final good-bye to a couple I admired so much.

  After the luncheon, we were taken—to my surprise—to the President’s box in the reviewing stand to watch the inaugural parade. During a break in the parade, the President motioned for me to come to him. “Billy, would you and Ruth mind going back to the White House and seeing my mother? She’s up there watching the parade, and I know she’d just love to have you with her.”

  I said we would be delighted. Around ninety and in very frail health, Mrs. Bush had been flown in for the event in an ambulance plane with a doctor and a nurse. We found her in the Queen’s Bedroom, propped up in bed, her eyes as blue as indigo and her face aglow. She looked like a queen herself, in spite of her fragility.

  I sat there and held her hand for a few minutes, then asked if I could pray. She nodded with a smile, and I said a few sentences of thanksgiving to God that in His grace, George Bush was now Presi-dent, and I asked the Lord to lead, guide, and protect George in the years ahead. When I was finished and looked back toward her, she had tears in her eyes and spoke in a whisper. “He’ll need it.”

  Shortly afterward, I called him “Mr. President” for the first time, instead of “George.” It was an awkward moment, and I stumbled a bit. He knew my dilemma, since many of his other friends felt the same way. He looked a bit wistful, and his gaze went to the far distance. No matter how much a president might wish it otherwise, there is a loneliness to that office that can never be completely overcome. That loneliness is one of the burdens of leadership.

  The second White House state dinner during the Bush years was in honor of the Gorbachevs in 1990. I was seated next to Raisa Gorbachev, with President Bush at her other side. On my other side sat Jessica Tandy, who had won the Oscar that year for best film actress in Driving Miss Daisy. In anticipation of that seating arrangement, I asked Ambassador Dobrynin ahead of time what I could talk to Mrs. Gorbachev about. He said religion and philosophy were favorite topics of hers, and I found that to be true. We had an interesting conversation (through her interpreter). Though reported to be a staunch Communist, she admitted to me her belief that there had to be something higher than ourselves.

  Since the Bushes left the White House in 1993, they have invited us to get together several times, in Houston or Kenne-bunkport, just to visit; whenever possible, we have done so. We have exchanged notes and talked on the telephone. “Thanks for checking in,” he often says.

  Our paths cross at other times also, and I will never forget how proud they were of their son George at his inauguration as governor of Texas in January 1995. I had been asked to lead the inaugural prayer, and as I did I was once again reminded not only of the Bushes’ strong family ties but also of their strong commitment to public service—a commitment which they have passed on to the next generation.

  33

  The Pacific Giant

  China 1988–1994

  All our married life, Ruth has talked about China—and with good reason. China was the land of her birth, and the place where she spent the first seventeen years of her life. In 1916 her parents, Dr. and Mrs. L. Nelson Bell, went to China from their native Virginia as medical missionaries. In time Dr. Bell became the chief of surgery and superintendent of the largest Presbyterian mission hospital in the world, located in the town of Tsingkiangpu, North Kiangsu (now Jiangsu) Province, in east-central China, about 150 miles north of Shanghai. On June 10, 1920, Ruth was born there in a small Chinese house. The Bells already had a daughter, Rosa.

  Growing up in China gave Ruth a love for the Chinese people and their culture that has never left her. China is the world’s oldest continuous civilization. I read somewhere that the Chinese invented (or discovered) half the objects upon which the modern world rests. Sometimes I think Ruth eats, sleeps, and breathes China! She has taught me to love China too, including its food; at least once or twice a week she fixes us simple but authentic Chinese dishes. She has even succeeded in teaching me to use chopsticks with a fair degree of proficiency.

  For many years, Ruth’s greatest desire was to return to the land of her birth and to take me with her. She wanted to show me the places she loved and introduce me to some of the people she knew. She even prayed that it would be possible for me to preach in China. But if ever a dream
seemed impossible, this was it!

  Ruth left China in 1933 to attend high school at the Pyeng Yang Foreign School in Pyeng Yang (now Pyongyang), northern Korea. Trips back to China were sporadic—it was about a sevenday trip, both going and coming—but she made it back most Christmases. After high school in 1937, she came to the United States, where she enrolled at Wheaton College. In 1941 the Bells were finally forced to leave China because of the Japanese occupation; Ruth could return no more. The Chinese Communist victory under Mao Tse-tung in 1949 and the virulently antireligious policies of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s seemed to nail the door permanently shut.

  The collapse of the Cultural Revolution after Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China in 1979 marked the beginning of a new era. However, the guiding political philosophy in China continued to be a form of Communism that had been adapted to the Chinese situation. Atheism was still part of the official ideology, and religion was not encouraged.

  By 1979 a few churches were being allowed to reopen, although they were subject to numerous restrictions. In 1980 Ruth and her two sisters, Rosa Bell Montgomery and Virginia Bell Somerville, and their brother, Clayton Bell, journeyed back to the country of their birth for a memorable visit. They found that much had changed in their old hometown of Tsingkiangpu. (“We felt like Rip van Winkle,” Ruth said later.) At that time Tsingkiangpu was closed to foreigners, but special permission for their visit had been obtained through the good graces of former President Richard Nixon.

  Much of the old hospital compound was still standing, including the Bells’ home and the old Chinese house in which Ruth had been born. The larger home Ruth had grown up in was in sad disrepair—looking, as Ruth wrote, “like an old lady no longer loved or cared for.” The women’s hospital and other buildings were now being used for an industrial school. The little guest house where they were housed during their visit—each in a private room—had been freshly painted, and the bath had running water.

  The hosts in Tsingkiangpu had frantically called the Friendship Association in Beijing to say they had no one who knew how to cook American food. They were greatly relieved to be told, “They want only Chinese food.”

  That first evening they had unexpected company: three members of one family—a brother and two sisters—all of whom had been delivered decades ago by Dr. Bell. The oldest, now living in Shanghai, had heard that Dr. Bell’s children were coming home and traveled up-country to see them. “Most of the older Christians have died,” she told them, “but the younger ones are carrying on.”

  The 1980 trip was unquestionably one of the highlights of Ruth’s life. But it also increased Ruth’s determination and prayers for the two of us to visit China together. Going as a tourist was no longer difficult, but securing permission for an extended preaching tour was quite another matter. Frankly, for several years I doubted if it would ever be possible.

  I hoped and prayed right along with Ruth. My interest in China was motivated by much more than just a desire to visit her homeland, though. For one thing, China was now the world’s largest nation, with a population of over 1 billion people; almost one out of every four people on the planet was Chinese.

  More than that, almost every observer agreed that the twenty-first century could well become the “Century of the Pacific Rim.” The future, they said, would belong to East Asia’s burgeoning economies, with their teeming billions of people. My previous trips to Asia had convinced me they might well be right.

  Furthermore, during China’s history, Christianity had made very little impact on that society. It had always been perceived as an alien, exclusively European or “white man’s” religion. Chinese authorities had failed to distinguish between those foreigners who went to China to exploit them and those who went to serve them. And the often-sordid history of Western colonialism in China only reinforced their belief that exploitation lay behind anything foreign. What a challenge to a Christian evangelist!

  Because Ruth was so familiar with the Chinese situation, I asked her to coordinate the investigation and planning for a possible trip. She had already been talking informally with a small group of experts on China; at our request, they became an active working group to assist us.

  That group included Sidney Rittenberg, an American who, because of his youthful idealism, had chosen to remain in China after World War II. For a period of time, he had been the only American member of the Chinese Communist Party; he had also been a close confidant of many of China’s top leaders and was a superb English-Chinese interpreter. At two different times, he was accused of being an “imperialist spy” and imprisoned for a total of sixteen years, often in very harsh circumstances.

  In spite of his years of suffering, I have never met a man with less bitterness toward his oppressors. At one stage of his life, he had memorized large sections of the New Testament. Now he and his Chinese wife, Yulin, were consultants for companies seeking to do business in China.

  During a trip to Los Angeles in 1980, Sidney and Yulin saw us on television and immediately felt that this was a message China needed. Sidney’s intimate knowledge of the Chinese bureaucracy and his sensitivity to China’s long and impressive cultural history were invaluable to us.

  Also assisting Ruth was Christian filmmaker Irvin S. Yeaworth. Called “Shorty” by everybody, he had accompanied Ruth and her sisters and brother on their visit to their old home in 1980 and had prepared an informal documentary film of that visit. He visited China several times on our behalf for advance discussions with officials about the invitation and our possible itinerary.

  Dr. Carol Lee Hamrin, a Chinese affairs expert at the U.S. State Department and professor at The Johns Hopkins University, briefed us and helped us understand China’s changing political and social currents.

  David Aikman, Time magazine’s former bureau chief in Bei-jing, brought to our discussions a firsthand knowledge of China’s church situation.

  Shortly before the trip, which was finally planned for 1988, I asked my associates Blair Carlson (who was born in Hong Kong of missionary parents) and John Akers to act as administrative coordinators. They worked closely with one of the co-sponsors of the visit, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (usually called the Friendship Association), a semiofficial agency dedicated to better relations through nongovernment contacts.

  In 1985 a preliminary invitation had arrived from Bishop K. H. Ting, head of the China Christian Council, whom Ruth had met during her 1980 trip. After a series of negotiations, a firm invitation arrived, asking us to preach in churches in several cities in Septem-ber of 1987. I promised to give the invitation priority, pending further research into the details of the invitation.

  “Please be assured that my association will do its best to comply with your requests,” the president of the Friendship Association, Zhang Wenjin (who had been ambassador to the United States), wrote. “Even though it’s your first visit, I believe you would not find [China] a strange land to you as it’s the birthplace of your wife, and I am sure you’ll make many friends during the visit.”

  The proposed 1987 date threw me into an immediate quan-dary. I was asked by Pope John Paul II to participate with him during that same time period in an unprecedented ecumenical service of worship during his visit to Columbia, South Carolina. It was not to be a Mass but a service of Scripture, prayer, and preaching. I was to speak on the subject of the family.

  I was looking forward to that event, especially since the pope and I had a cordial relationship. Tex Reardon of my staff had been asked to advise the Catholics on some of the arrangements. (We had held a Crusade in the same stadium only a few months before.) John Akers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, was on the broad-based Protestant committee planning the service. I did not want the pope or the committee to think I was looking for an excuse to avoid the service.

  By mutual agreement with our hosts in China
, the official invitation was not to be made public until late July. But when I told our Vatican contacts and the committee confidentially of the invitation to China, they were very understanding. In fact, our Roman Cath-olic contacts were especially supportive of our plans. They knew I had asked to meet with the leader of the officially recognized Cath-olic Church in China, which was not permitted to have formal relations with the Vatican.

  I was, of course, excited about the possibilities in China. At the same time, both Ruth and I felt unprepared for the trip and even somewhat apprehensive. We yearned for more briefings on the situation as well as more time to prepare my messages. I realized too that I lacked a basic knowledge of Chinese protocol. For example, I kept forgetting that the family name came first in Chinese; I kept referring to China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, as Mr. Ping.

  The months prior to our planned visit were as busy as any others in our ministry. In June and July, we were involved in a number of Crusades throughout the Rocky Mountain and Northern Plains states. It was an unusual series of meetings, utilizing our associate evangelists as much as possible, but with me often preaching the closing meeting in each city. The series ended with a ten-day Cru-sade in Denver’s Mile High Stadium. Toward the end of August, which was only a few weeks before we were scheduled to arrive in Beijing, we were in Helsinki, Finland, for another Crusade.

  Ruth’s own ambivalence about the trip was reflected in a postcard from Europe to our staff in Montreat. In it she said that her prayer was the same as the words of Moses quoted in Exodus 33:15: “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence” (KJV).

  Part of the problem was that we all knew China was a complex and difficult place. A great deal of care was needed to avoid mistakes or pitfalls that would bring embarrassment to our hosts or discredit to the Christian believers.