Right before the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), my cousin sent a letter from Beijing telling us that the Housing Department of Beijing University was going to take back apartment #22-109 in the faculty building where we had lived for years before coming to the U.S. Ever since we left China, we loaned the apartment to a friend who was working in Beijing but had no place to live. It had only been two years since we left. As a Chinese saying goes: "The tea gets cold after the guest leaves". We knew our apartment would be taken back sooner or later, but when it really happened. our hearts were heavy nonetheless.

The main master bed-room was 15 square meters; the smaller bedroom 9 square meters. There was no hot water, no toilet and no sink. If you leaned against the wall, the paint would get on your back. Every evening after office hours, the inside and outside of the building were crowded with bicycles. One had to raise his arms high and hold in his stomach to get into the building. Walking up the cracked concrete stairway, amidst the slanting rays of twilight, the smell of the neighbors' cooking was thick in the air. We had spent nearly 2000 days there. Little Ah-Li had learned to crawl, walk and talk there. By the time we left Beijing, he was almost four years old and was speaking with a genuine Beijing dialect.

Having determined to settle down in that apartment for a very long time, I used my furniture as make-shift ladders, scraped the cracked white paint off the wall. I bought a big pail of paint to re-paint the wall, and carried it back home on my bike. Along the floor, I painstakingly glued the vinyl floor tiles piece by piece. Then we applied to install a phone and a gas burner. In Beijing, everything that needs an application always takes much nagging and painstaking effort. The applications were submitted and were later approved. We carefully measured our limited space and had carpenters make a chest, a dining-room table, a bed and bookshelves. The most important items were bookshelves. We had about a dozen of them made in different sizes. My husband had contracted "Book Shortage Syndrome" in his teens. For over ten years, he had developed a hobby of buying books, either during his "discoveries" or in his "shopping- sprees". He carried the books back home and piled them up on the bookshelves. There were a few other odds-and-ends too (a lantern, some coasters, some china for everyday use, etc.). All were picked up from different parts of the country during trips. Piece by piece, we had put together our "home".

The day before we left China, like a person writing his will in advance, we carefully showed our cousin all our collections, and explained how to dispose of them when necessary. Distance makes the time appear longer. Knowing that our "Will" is actually being carried out is like watching your estate being liquidated after you are dead.

In the midst of our feelings of hopelessness, we remembered a lesson we had learned in 1991 when we attended the North and Mid-America Chinese Christian Winter Retreat held in Chicago. The speaker was illustrating the life story of Abraham of the Old Testament in the Bible by using two objects: a tent in the wilderness, and an altar, to summarize the wandering years of the "Father of Faith."

Looking at our situation from this perspective, everyone is wandering in his or her own wilderness of life. Fairy tales always end with "And they lived happily ever after." However in reality, time constantly pushes us forward, no one can stop and build an everlasting home. There is no eternal here on earth. Alas, even our physical bodies are merely tents, each good for only several decades.

I asked myself: "What can I actually take with me when I die?"

Usually our daily activities are centered on the needs of our bodies: the need for food and shelter and security. Once we take this "tent" down, what do we have left?

Abraham wasn't reluctant to part with his wealthy and happy home in Ur. After hearing God's call, he immediately picked up his tent and followed. It seems that I can see him strolling out of his mobile tent to build an altar. There, facing the eternal Creator he was set free from earthly concerns, knowing that he would be with God Himself for now and eternity.

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Ms. Chang came from Beijing and is now a part-time Christian worker in