1900 - Li Liushi & Five Relatives

June 22, 1900

Yanshan, Hebei

One of the ‘Bible women’ of Yanshan County was Li Liushi who was used by the Lord to bring the gospel to her home village of Yang Xiaoying. She was a much-loved woman, celebrated for her hospitality and graciousness. Because of the God-given wisdom displayed in her life, even non-believers sought Li’s advice and counsel. Such was her reputation that when the Boxers first came to Li Liushi’s village they allowed her to go free, although five of her relatives were captured and executed.

On June 22nd a Boxer named Huang Dang—who didn’t share the same sentiments about Li as the other Boxers—came to her home with a mob of men and seized the Bible woman. To Li Liushi’s horror, she recognized the man as being

“one she had nursed as a child, during his mother’s illness. They were a poor family, and she had taken the child into her home, for long periods at a time, and loved him as if he were her own son. ‘Let someone else seize me!’ she exclaimed, ‘and not you, Huang Dang, for whom I have cared as my own flesh and blood! I am willing to go, but let someone else bind me! I am not sorry for myself, but I am grieved to the heart that you should do this thing.’ Huang pretended not to understand her. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ he said, ‘I hope to be the first to smite you.’”[1]

Li Liushi bowed her head and prayed, “Lord, I pray you forgive him, for he knows not what he is doing.” She continued praying for a few minutes, before the men who had come for her grew impatient and dragged her off along the path. Even though Li was cooperating, along the way “Huang suddenly became filled with demoniac rage against her. They fell upon her with their swords, slashing her to death, and Huang struck the first blow.”[2] And so Li Liushi was murdered by the very same hands that she had lovingly helped when he was a little boy.