About Us > Our History

In 1988, Hakon Torjesen and Kari Torjesen Malcom, son and daughter of a Norwegian missionary couple, were allowed to visit their childhood home in China, which they had left over 40 years before, after the war in which their father, Peter Torjesen, had been killed in a Japanese bombing raid. Peter, whose Chinese name was Leaf Evergreen, and his wife Valborg had opened their home and church premises in Hequ, Shanxi, to shelter up to 1,000 refugees. Prior to this they had planted churches and done medical and development work in the northwestern corner of Shanxi Province for nearly 20 years. The story of the Torjesen family is fully told by daughter Kari Torjesen Malcom, in her book, We Signed Away Our Lives, available for sale from the Evergreen North American Office.

Hequ county officials in 1988 informed the family that Peter Torjesen's name was on the county roll of the people's martyrs, and they wanted to erect a monument on the 50th anniversary of his death. Three generations of the Torjesen family attended the August 1990 unveiling of the marble monument, upon which the story of Peter's life and work was engraved in gold characters. On that occasion, a request was made to Peter's grandson Finn, who had facility in the Chinese language and extensive international experience, to return to live in the province with his family. The Executive Vice Governor's Office asked them to continue the work of their grandparents with the same spirit and commitment to people.

In September 1993, Finn and Sandy Torjesen and their six-year-old twins left their work in Indonesia to lead the team with two other couples and began long-term residency and work in China. The start-up team took up residency in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and began investigating the most appropriate public benefit service options, while also obtaining official registration of an Evergreen Representative Office. Sole proprietorship has since been granted, creating the Shanxi Evergreen Service, which is a fully registered Chinese entity. Evergreen was incorporated in California as a not-for-profit Public Benefit Corporation. It was granted IRS recognition as a publicly sponsored tax-exempt organization in 1992 and became a member of the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability (ECFA) in 2000.