Warrenville resident returns to China, hoping to find ideals of her childhood

This summer, Warrenville resident Grace Bryer returned to her homeland -- China.

Over the years Bryer has journeyed several times to the country where she was born and, for years, was raised while her parents worked as missionaries. She worried while watching China struggle through phases of invasion by outsiders and harsh military rule.

But Bryer came back from her last visit with hope, after participating in what she believes could be the country's most important phase: spiritual awakening.

"It's an exciting time," she said.

As China prepares to host the world next summer at the 2008 Olympics, its people are growing in new directions and looking for new answers, Bryer said.

Bryer's long history in China gives weight to her opinion.

"It's my home," she said. "I have a Chinese heart."

The child of a Chicago-based Moody Bible Institute missionary father and Canadian mother who met in China, Bryer was born in the county in 1936 -- the same year the Japanese invaded the country and the Second Sino-Japanese War began.

Bryer was cared for by a Chinese cook and nurse; she spoke Mandarin, wore Chinese clothes, played with Chinese children and ate Chinese food.

"I really understand the culture," Bryer said. "When you've lived in a culture, you don't have to acquire it. It's sort of in you."

Her father worked with opium addicts and her mother taught Bible studies to women.

As the war intensified, Bryer remembers bombs raining on Nanking, where they were staying. In 1941, the family was put under house arrest. In 1942, they escaped on a Swedish boat when Bryer was 6.

"It was a huge evacuation. Our family was put on this huge boat," Bryer said. "Others who were weren't so fortunate were sent to concentration camps."

In 1947, when Bryer was 11, the family returned to the country, and she was placed in a British boarding school in the northern Lushan mountains, where she saw her parents once a year. They were in Nanking, working at a mission.

Three years later the family was forced to flee again when the Communist regime evicted all foreigners.

For the next 40 years, Bryer watched the country from a distance. She married and raised children in the United States, as China grew more opaque behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1989, Bryer tried to return as a teacher, following in her parents' footsteps. The trip was called off abruptly when the Chinese government brutally repressed protesting students in Tiananmen Square.

Then, in the 1990s, the country suddenly opened.

"The Chinese realized that they were very far behind," Bryer said. "They didn't know about electronics or computers. So they invited American educators."

Chinese officials also wanted the Americans to teach morality to boys and girls who had grown spoiled as only children under the "one child" policy, she said.

The teachers were underground missionaries forbidden to speak openly about Christianity but who introduced the ideas to students in private when possible, Bryer said.

After training, Bryer became one of them, doing stints in China in 1992, when swarms of police still stood on street corners, and 1995, when the military presence lessened.

Her first goal was to teach English.

"My second goal was to reach out and share God in any way that was discreet," Bryer said.

This summer, Bryer was a senior citizen and one of the oldest American volunteers to take the monthlong trip.

"It has been so exciting to see how (the country has) grown," she said. "The Olympics are bringing openness and freedom. More people are wanting what foreigners have."

Chinese people approached her in the street just to ask questions. She found students more curious about God. Sunday schools have discreetly opened.

It all gives Bryer hope because it reminds her of her childhood and the China she grew up in, which was welcoming to foreigners and open to what Bryer considers one of the most important freedoms -- faith.