Seventh-day Adventist Chinese hero David Lin sleeps

Lin spent 15 years in political incarceration during the years of severe Communist rule in his home country of China, all because of his faith.

He served the Seventh-day Adventist church in ministerial or administrative work for more than 50 years, most of it in China.

He was born in 1917 in Manila, Philippines, the second son of a Chinese diplomat, a graduate of Columbia University in New York City. During his childhood years, David lived in the Philippines, Canada, Shanghai, and Jakarta, Indonesia, all places where his father served as a diplomatic consul for the Chinese government.

During this period he not only learned his mother tongue but also English and Bahasa Indonesian.

In 1927 when Chiang Kai Shek came to power in China, his father lost his official position under the defiant Peking regime. The family then moved back to Shanghai where David and his brother attended a school operated by British educators. Three years later they moved to Peking where the brothers attended the American school.

In Shanghai, as a youngster, David decided that he want to become a minister, a statement that stunned all of his classmates. At that time the family attended a Methodist church.

In 1932 family moved to Hankow to work in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and it was there that the family came in contact with a Seventh-day Adventist member who arranged for them to attend Bible lectures in a local Adventist church.

Upon graduation from high school, David went on to attend an Adventist college, the China Training Institute, where he majored in Bible. When war interfered with the school program, David went to Hong Kong where he was able to arrange to go to the United States where he attended the Pacific Union College, Angwin, California. He graduated from this school in 1941 with a major in theology and then went to the church’s seminary in Takoma Park, Md., a course that he did not complete until 1946.

In the fall of 1942, in the middle of World War II, he was called to teach Chinese at his alma mater. After a year of teaching, he went to Honolulu where he served as a literature evangelist, selling Bibles and religious books. He returned to the west coast in 1944 where he coordinated the Chinese Bible Correspondence school of the church’s radio ministry, “The Voice of Prophecy.” He printed all of the lessons by hand because there was no Chinese type available.

At the end of World War II he returned to Shanghai with a group of American missionaries and immediately started working with the church’s radio department. In 1949 the provisional office of the China Division of the church turned overall duties to Chinese staff in Shanghai and he then became secretary of the church’s China Division.

Because of the war situation, the Adventist mission had its assets frozen in December,1950. For two years, without a job with the church, David made slide rules for a living. He spent his spare time translating an Adventist book, “Desire of Ages,” from English to Chinese. Over a period of years he translated many books into his native language.

In April, 1958 David was arrested by Chinese authorities on a counter-revolutionary charge because of his faith and in 1960 was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He spent this time at a water conservatory where he pushed wheelbarrows, operated a power winch, and served successfully as an x-ray technician, a power station switch operator, and a tractor electrician on a state farm.

Fortunately in the years that he worked for the state he received humane treatment but spent these many years with little contact with his family, his wife, children, and mother.

On March 28, 1991 David was fully exonerated and the record of his imprisonment was erased from his be record. During the years that he was incarcerated, the family faced financial problems. But their needs were supplied. When his 15-year term was over, he was transferred from a state farm to a mining establishment where he translated technical literature. He was employed there for five years, received regular wages, and was able to enjoy church privileges.

When he retired, he moved back to Shanghai and served as pastor of one of the largest Adventist churches in China. When he once again retired from this assignment, David followed his children to the United States where he has been a resident. He spent many of his retirement years doing translation work as well as providing educational facilities for Chinese home country of China.

His children are all located in the USA. They are Flora, a nurse in the Washington, D.C. area; Roger, of Seattle, Washington, an employee of Microsoft; Ruby, of Highland, CA; and Angelina, a physical therapist. His wife, Clara, resides with her family.

Funeral services for the Chinese leader will be held at the Loma Linda Chinese Adventist Church on Sunday, February 20, at 4 p.m.

(as reported by Don Roth in Charles Tidwell’s FED newsletter)

I met this great leader of God’s children in China in 1999. During the 1970s i had read many of his articles in “The Layworker” magazine, and was impressed, along with my mother, with his non-compromise, give-it-all-for-Jesus without becoming fanatical mindset. May you rest in peace, man of God, and may your sleep be short, and soon we can all go home to be with Jesus forever.