The Story of the Yans

The story of how the Yans came to live with us is a God Story. The following account is an attempt to record the wonders God showed me since Hurricane Katrina came to Louisiana. By recalling the following, I hope to bless others as well as continue to remember God’s deeds at this time.

On Monday night, August 29, 2005, our family watched the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the news. The four of us in my family gathered together to pray and decided that we felt God wanted us to open our home to someone needing a place to stay. Inviting guests to stay with us is something that is not normal for us since we home school, run a business out of our home, don’t have a guest room, and usually eat on the road between activities. However, we all felt a total commitment and call to share our home. At this same time, the Yan’s were reaching a desperate point in their lives.

We have been asked many times how we came to have the Yan’s live with us. The short story: God put them here. The long story follows:

In hindsight, God has been preparing our family for this event for a long time. We felt a pull from the beginning of this year to get out of our comfort zone as far as where we should attend church. One frustrating afternoon after deciding we had absolutely no idea where we should attend church, my dad uttered that Georgia Tech’s Christian Campus Fellowship (CCF) kept coming to his mind. That should have told us something since my dad doesn’t like Georgia Tech and speaks only of UGA. My mom thought that CCF sounded wonderful, but Dean and I weren’t so thrilled. Over the past few months, we have visited several churches in our area to see what they are doing and how God is working through them. We now know that this allowed us to be in a position to connect the Yan’s to the help that they would need. As God taught us, it all starts with our willingness to accept his invitation to join Him in His plan and be obedient to His will. Once we did that, it became obvious what we were supposed to do. As each step of the Yan’s journey developed, God made it obvious to us as to what should be done and when.

The Yan’s are a family from Communist China. They are Mingquan (MING-tren) Yan, the father and part time PhD student and lab worker at Tulane University, Ling Yan, the PhD in cellular microbiology and mother who works in the lab, and Junru (june-ROO), their adorable, nine year old daughter. Both parents are university professors from Lanzhour, China. Ling came to New Orleans about five years ago to work on a National Institute of Health genetic research project. Mingquan, also a cellular microbiologist and their daughter arrived about four years ago. Mingquan has been working with Ling on the same NIH project as well as pursuing his PhD at Tulane. In May of 2005, they purchased a home two blocks south of Lake Ponchartrain where the levies broke during the hurricane.

On Saturday, August 27th, the Yan’s evacuated from Tulane. They planned on returning to their home on Tuesday. Since their car was somewhat older, they rode with friends to Jackson, MS as part of a contingent of several thousand Tulane students that were to be temporarily housed at the Jackson State arena. Monday, Katrina moved inland and the power went out at the arena. The arena had to be evacuated. The shelter organizers then bused many students to the airport to fly to their parent’s home. Another alternative allowed several hundred students to go to Georgia Tech. The Yan’s headed to Tech with one suitcase and a backpack with Junru’s school supplies.

They arrived at the Tech student center in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and spent the rest of that night on the floor. We did not know at that time, but as we were being called to open our home to evacuees, Ling Yu was desperately calling out to a God she did not know for help. She later told us that God told her to “find Christians.” She prayed for a place for her family to go since administration at Georgia Tech had told them they could not stay there long. We are not exactly sure what happened to the Yan family over the next 48 hours, but do know that the answer to Ling’s prayer was on its way. The Georgia Tech CCF went Tuesday to minister to all the evacuees with goods and drinks. Shortly after Ling’s prayer, a CCF representative walked up to Ling and asked her if they would like help. Other evacuees told Ling not to follow “the Christians” because they didn’t know them and didn’t know if they would be safe. However, Ling knew to follow the Christians because of her prayer to a god she didn’t know. Tuesday and Wednesday night the Yan’s slept on the floor in the CCF common room.

Thursday, my dad drove by CCF. He had an appointment north of Atlanta that was postponed