As I travelled near Deqin in northwestern Yunnan, I came across a man who had a book of miraculous stories.  We walked together through the mountains to get to his house where the book was.  As we walked, he pointed out a rock that marked a spot where he pauses to pray.  Once more as we approached his house he stopped and took a moment to pray for God to give his home peace.  At his house, we took a look at the book which appeared to have been homemade.  It contained an introduction and nine stories.  Since there was so much content, I asked him to let me borrow the book and copy it at the place where I was currently housed.  He agreed, but with the condition that I didn't let the people where I was staying read it.  He told me that they didn't believe it, and then gave me an envelope to keep it in.  The plan was for him to pick it up the following Sunday when he returned to the village for church, so I was to seal it in the envelope upon finishing and then to give it to my host mom.  Some posters on his back wall sparked a conversation.  He had a poster of Mao Zedong and a couple religious posters, some of which appeared to be Buddhist.  He told me he liked Mao Zedong and Bush because they are both presidents of a country.  The Buddhist posters were just for looks, there was no belief in Buddhism.  After having lunch with him, he gave me fruit and nuts and bid me farewell.  Once back at the house in which I stayed, I began a long process of copying 18 pages or so of small Chinese text which I didn't even understand.  It took two days to finish copying!  I translated it back in Kunming with the help of some Chinese students.  The translation is as follows:

True People True Stories

By Zhang Wen Chang

INTRODUCTION

"True People True Stories," is a storybook which is spread far and wide among religious friends in all places of Yunnan.  So called "True People True Stories," this book states the facts and covers time, place, testimonies by witnesses, material evidence and can be checked and verified; These are neither fairy tales nor made up by people.  The stories have been kept true and it would seem strange to add anything to them.  As we were told, we tried our best to record the words objectively and honestly.  We added nothing to the stories and made no comments.

We listened to different people's narrations because some have a different level of knowledge and a different way of thinking; Education levels and narration skills were varied.  Although the same story, there were some differences in the details.  However, these make up just a small part; The content was the same.

Even though most of the stories are short and simple, they are all very interesting and meaningful.  I hope that you can benefit from them.

Many such stories have also been spread among the religious friends.  In this section, we only wrote nine of them which have been popularly spread in the Zhao Tong religious district.  The others we will continue to collect and publish.  I hope that religious friends from different places can keep on supplying us with similar stories concerning faith, religious doctrine and religious history.  Thank you very much.

Finally, thanks to the religious friends who have supplied and narrated these stories.

(Composed in Kunming, December, 1987.)  (next page)