There, she attended an American missionary boarding school, and recounts an interesting detail where she befriended the daughter of Christian warlord Feng Yuxiang.
[5] Following the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, she enrolled at Huatung Political Science & Law College in Suzhou with aspirations of becoming a lawyer.
Lam's biographies emphasize the rupturing nature of the Communist revolution, and tell a story of intensifying persecution due to her family's wealth, western connections, and Christianity.
Due to her parents' wealth and western training and to her own experiences with foreign missionaries, Neng Yee was interrogated by Communist party officials, who wanted to break her of any bourgeois tendencies.
One month later, Neng Yee's father, who had previously lost his job and had been forced into reeducation through labor, died from experimental drugs that officials tested on him.
In 1958, just as Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward was beginning, Cheng Shen was able to obtain an exit visa to Hong Kong to visit his ailing father.
Lam's life in Hong Kong has been the subject of intense scrutiny and controversy, especially in light of an investigation conducted in the 1980s by California attorney John Stewart.
Although the latter part of Lam's life was based predominantly in the United States, her greatest legacy was arguably in the evangelistic tours she conducted in Asia.
Sung was also well-connected in Pentecostal Christian circles in East Asia, having served as the chairman of the Hong Kong chapter of the Full Gospel Businessman's Association.
Sung, and his close affinity with General Samuel Wu Sung-Ching, possibly also provided Lam networks into the Guomindang Christian Anti-Communist elite.
Like other large-scale evangelistic meetings of the time, such as Billy Graham's five days of crusades in 1975, Chou Lien-Hwa's preaching tours across Taiwan, Lam was able to amass huge crowds .
However, unlike many others, Lam's claims to fame lay largely on the power of her personal testimony, and her purported ability to heal the sick.
[citation needed] In December 1990, Lam's story made American national headlines with the release of the film "China Cry."
While the national news media focused on the seminal event of TBN's first foray into filmmaking, it brought the "Nora Lam story" to mainstream American theaters.
As film critic Jin Yang argued, the metanarrative of suffering and redemption fit with anti-communist Cold War story about American need and ability to "rescue" the Chinese.
[9] Nevertheless, an accusation was made against Lam in the television documentary "American Gospel: Christ Alone" that at a miraculous healing meeting she avoided a teenager named Justin Peters who had an obvious disability, being cerebral palsy.