Ying grew up in the countryside. That’s all she had ever known. But her husband has moved the two of them to the city and opened a restaurant, saying that they’d be able to make more money there to send back to their family. Their family: her parents, and their two daughters who they couldn’t take with them to the city because changing their registration for where they would go to school is nearly unheard of.
Now, several years into owning a restaurant and having two more children who are now registered to attend a school in the city, her family is spread out over two locations. Occasionally they are able to get all four children together, the older two girls traveling up to the city for school holidays. But she can tell they are getting more used to being raised by their grandmother than by her, their own mother. She misses them terribly but knows there’s no way to change things now.
Ying wears her head covering like a good Muslim. She doesn’t eat pork or cook it for others. She decorates her restaurant with pictures of the Kaaba and the obligatory green and gold Shahada over the doorpost. She’s far too busy to ever attend prayers at her local Mosque but she’ll fast during Ramadan while wrapping dumplings for all of her daytime customers who won’t be fasting.
Her heart is in two locations, half where her older daughters are and the other half with her younger two. “It’s just the only way to make money and provide for our family,” she says. “Now that we’ve made this decision, there’s just no way to change it.”
Pray
- Pray for Ying and her family as they live in separate locations and that through this hardship, she’d find comfort in Jesus and His gospel.
- Pray for Muslim mothers as they seek to raise obedient Muslim children and that they’d see the emptiness brought about from seeking to do all the good things but still falling short.
**All names have been changed and the picture is not of the storyteller in order to protect the identities of those who have shared their stories and lives with us over the years.