1861 - Martha Wang-Luo Mande

July 29, 1861

Yaojiaguan, Guizhou

Martha Wang-Luo Mande. [CRBC]

Wang-Luo Mande was born in the town of Zunyi, Guizhou Province, in 1802. After she married it was found that she was unable to bear children, so they adopted two of their nephews instead. In Chinese culture of the day Wang-Luo had to live with the deep shame and stigma of her barrenness for many years. Life was difficult for Wang-Luo, but became much more so when her husband suddenly passed away. Her two adopted sons became wild rebels and soon squandered all their savings. They left home and abandoned their mother. Wang-Luo moved outside the southern gate of Zunyi, where she managed a small inn and made straw shoes in her spare time.

In 1852 Wang-Luo celebrated her 50th birthday, and in that same year she heard the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time, when a preacher from Yaojiaguan passed through the town. She was fascinated by the new teaching and hungered to learn all she could about it. One day she invited a Catholic priest named Hu to dinner and asked him many questions about the faith. She believed and was baptized on Christmas Day, 1852, taking the Christian name Martha.

The next year Martha set out on a three-day journey to the provincial capital Guiyang, where she had been offered a job in a convent for nuns. She helped with cooking and laundry, and loved the peaceful atmosphere that prevailed there. She was happy, “and her deepest desires were fulfilled when sent to a nursery to take care of small children. She bathed and fed them like the kindest of mothers.”[1]

A large Catholic seminary was being built at Yaojiaguan. When it was finally completed in 1857, Martha was asked to manage the kitchen. That same year a severe persecution broke out. Three Catholic leaders—Joseph Zhang Wenlan, Paul Chen Changping and John Baptist Luo Tingyin—were arrested and detained in an old abandoned temple. Martha served the imprisoned men by bringing them food from the seminary kitchen and washing their clothes for them. The captors mocked and ridiculed Martha for her servitude, but she would not be intimidated, believing that by serving her brethren she was indeed serving Christ.

On the day that the three Christians were due to be executed, Martha was washing the three men’s clothes at the riverbank. One account recalls, “When they were being led to the execution ground, she followed along in spite of the soldiers’ threats: ‘I will cut your head off!’ Not to be scared off, she answered: ‘If they can die, so can I.’ She was beheaded with the others on the July 29, 1861.”[2]