Agape Way

PO Box 16275
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27516
PROFILE
April 25, 2016

CONTACT: Samantha Sugerik, Volunteer

Sugerik@live.unc.edu

Dr. Wanbing Frank Li, founder of Agape Way, came up with the
idea for the nonprofit from his own life story and experiences. Frank
was born into abject poverty in a rural village in the Sichuan
Province of China. Unfortunately, Franks ability to get an education
despite facing such adversity is quite an uncommon story.
He was able to finish his secondary education and attend
Nanjing University to study biochemistry. This was quite a feat,
considering he is the only one from his year in school in his village
to finish his secondary education. After finishing his undergraduate
degree, Frank went on to graduate school at the Chinese Academy
of Science in Beijing. He left China in 1984 to continue his graduate
program at the University of Toronto and ended up finishing his
education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He
obtained a PhD in geology and started his career working at an
environmental company in the United States.
In the summer of 1996, twelve years after leaving his village
in China, Frank found his relationship with Christ and obeyed his
calling to give back to that village and the terrible poverty he had
left behind. He left his job at the environmental company and
devoted his life to full-time mission work. Thus, Agape Way was
created. Frank wanted to devote his life to serving and helping the
impoverished people of southwestern China. Because he had been
in their shoes in his childhood, he understood just how crippling
poverty could be to individuals and to a community. His connection
to China also allowed him to understand the needs and culture of
these villages in southwestern China. He and his wife Anna have
been able to return to his home village several times and are always
saddened by what they find.
Frank achieves the goals of Agape Way through three
categories of volunteer work: education, Christianity, and life
coaching. Through the organization, he hopes to train teachers, fund
schooling, donate books, provide life coaches, advocate for
community volunteerism, and help others come to know Christ as
he did in 1996. Through Christianity and the other aspects of Agape
Way, Frank hopes to improve the quality of life for those in

southwestern China and help to build communities that give back to

their neighbors, are able to provide adequate schooling for children,
and that live through and for Christ. Simply put by Frank himself,
Agape Way is about changing lives.
Frank continues to work as the only full time employee of
Agape Way to this day. He and his wife live in Chapel Hill; she works
full time in addition to helping out with Agape Way when she can.
They have two daughters who are both currently following in their
fathers footsteps by attending higher education.