…when the widow and her three children appeared at the gate of (Leslie and Ava Anglin’s) little, already overcrowded home and asked for help, they could not say “no.”

How the needs would be met to feed and clothe and shelter the rapidly growing family was never questioned. All who came to the Home of Onesiphorus must be received. No one was turned away without help. They would have to trust God for their needs - that was all. They would work and pray. Everybody would pitch in. After all, they were following the clear admonition of Scripture and what God orders, He provides was the conviction of the Onesiphorus man. 

And there is still another reason why we take in orphans. “When they are trained properly, they will go out into villages everywhere preaching Christ. Today we are planting the seed of the Word of God. Tomorrow we will see the harvest.”

And so the Onesiphorus man and his wife, Ava, devoted all of their time and strength in helping the helpless and preaching Christ in the Home and out. Thus the work grew. And the vision grew too.

…he began to get reports of a great famine in the Hopei Province, only a few days’ journey from the Home. From travelers passing by he picked up the story in bits and pieces. “The ground is so parched it will grow nothing.” They said. Others reported that hundred of people were starving to death. “Worst of all…is the plight of the children. In one district I must have seen a hundred of them, wandering over the earth, homeless and fatherless. Their parents have died from hunger and disease and there is no one who cares for them.”

A hundred forgotten children …the thought haunted Leslie and Ava all that night. “It is not right,” Leslie said, “We must do something. We must try to find them and see if we can help them. Then go, and God be with you,” his wife said. “While you are away I will keep things going here.”

And that is how Leslie Anglin - the Onesiphorus Man – set out on an eventful trip across a famine-stricken land. Hour after hour he traveled, and with nearly every mile of travel, he cam upon a boy or girl, some naked or nearly so, some gaunt with hunger, some crying, wandering about on the land – lonely forlorn, forgotten.

“Come with me,” Leslie said. “I will find a home for you and food and clothes and provide a way for you to go to school.”

They followed him. It was a strange procession across the land. The tired, weary, burdened Onesiphorus man trudging along in front of a long line of boys and girls whose number grew and grew until it seemed to be nearly a mile long.

It is doubtful if Leslie knew how many had joined the long line of hungry children. Nor did he care. They all needed help. That was enough for him. He could not say “no” to any one of them. And so the line kept on growing.

When he arrived at the Home, Leslie brought them all inside the board fence around the Mission Home. There his shocked wife and her compassionate husband counted heads – 101 of them. There would have been 103, but two of them had died of starvation on the way.

Where the food or clothes would come from to care for this great number, Leslie did not know. Indeed, there was not even room enough for all of them to sleep under a shelter. But Leslie could not turn one of them away. All of them must somehow be cared for. Among the group was a 12-year-old lad named Samuel Hsiao. Except for Leslie Anglin, Samuel might have starved to death within a couple of more weeks.