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Blessed Hope International Mission, Inc. & Chaplains for Christ International Mission 
Bibles for China
June 21—July 1, 2009
You will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them. Mark 13:9
I, together with Bryan Revor and William Ripple, have just returned from anunforgettable 10 days in China. Since I have returned I have been pondering onthe experiences in our trip and especially on what God is doing in that part of theworld, despite decades of communist regime. For the three of us it was hard tocomprehend some of the things happening in China thus making it very difficult tofully describe and unpack it all in one letter. With the help of the many notes Itook and the post research I did I hope to paint for you an accurate picture of thegrowth of Christianity and the role of the Communist regime as
we saw
and heard.First, I would like to take you on the journey with us and then take a few stepsback and reflect on how I understood what was happening.Our trip was a follow-up trip to the one Rob Brown, William Ripple, and Constantin Lupancu did in 2008,which resulted in 1,000 bibles being distributed in rural area of China. We left Chicago on June 21 and after 14hours of flight, we reached Shanghai. We were only allowed off the plane after people masked in whiteconfirmed there was none with high fever on the plane. 4 hours later, we took another 2 ½ hour flight to Xi’an,in the Shaanxi province, from where we took a taxi towards Baoji. That took another 2 hours. From themoment we landed into China I was impressed by the friendliness and respectful manner of the people and theadvanced stage of development. Our hotel room in Baoji was small with hard beds but was nevertheless welltaken care of. We used this hotel as our home base, taking our trips to various village churches to distributebibles and fellowship with the local believers.Because of dire experiences in the 2008 China trip and other grim reports on religious persecution in China Iwas very disturbed in the morning to find out we are sharing the hotel with over 200 policemen in training andthat our Christian hosts who came to pick us up in cars were loudly talking about how the Bible distributionwould occur. Among the people who accompanied us was the lady who kept thebibles in her apartment until our arrival (seen at the bottom right corner) and XieGong (lady with the purse) who was instrumental in founding and growing many of the churches we visited in the Baoji area. Pastor Xie Gong is 67 years old and hasdedicated her life for the churches around Baoji. There were other ladies in theleadership of the churches who came with us daily in our 2 rented vans, for whichthey arranged.Baoji is surrounded by hills, mountains and lots of small towns where people make a living by agriculture. Formany generations they have cut large parts of the hills and transformed them into flat agricultural land. Cavesare cut into the high side of the mountain and transformed into homes where somepeople still live. It was harvest time and most believers were in the fields. Wewere told that it sometimes takes hours before they could descend and ascendmany hills to get to the nearest church. Therefore, we met only with theleaders/pastors of the churches and some people who lived in proximity. Weworshiped, prayed, laid hands on the sick, and most importantly gave them theword of God: The Bible.
 
Description of some of the churches we visited:Shuang Baiyang Church
started with just $5 and 48 people. Now they werenumbering at about 180 and growing. They were very grateful for the Bibles asthey could not afford to buy literature for the new believers. In 1998 they boughtland and started working on building their place of worship. By 2002 they hadfinished their building all by volunteer work. They had built a house for people thcame from far away so they could stay for a couple of days and study the bibletogether. As most peasants have only crops and no money, they had to borrowmoney for the church construction which they are repaying quarterly. Their love for Christ was evident insinging, praying and hospitality. They did not let us leave until we received their gifts in nuts, beans seecucumbers. The Bibles and small gift we brought were received with great joy and thankfulness.attheirds, andseeopleeost.
Xinjie (New Street) Church
began in 1978 with 10 people in an old Englishchurch which was later tarred down by the government. They received a newproperty on which they built the current church which had 250 members. Becautheir old church was torn down, we asked them about persecution, they answeredthat there is none and that they could worship freely. They also said that the pin the mountain get together in their houses during the week and on Sunday theycome down to the church for service and to eat together. I rejoiced at their smiland strong, YES we believe, after we read from Acts 2 - the day of the Pentec 
Ganyu (Mountain) Church
is well deserving of its name, as it is right in the heartof the mountains, almost at the very top. The small parcel they received from thegovernment was not big enough to build a church sothey cut the mountain over a period of 3 years and thenbuilt their church. They numbered over 100 members.About 20 lived in the town at the bottom of themountain where they meet during the week in a smallhouse of a lovely sister in Christ. We left a box of Bibles at the church and one inthe small town where they direly needed them for the new believers.
Guchuan Church
started in 1995 with 2 people when our host Xie Gong went topray with another believer for a sick person in that town. The sick person got welland some people believed. Later someone came to Pastor Xie Gong who hadinflated hands. They were hurting so bad she could not touch anything. When PastorXie Gong washed her hands she did not hurt at all, and two days later the handswere back to normal. Some turned to Christ. Later, another 15 families believedafter a diabetic was healed. A local lady told us another story about how she hadcancer and only had 3.5 yaunn (50 cents). After a dream she had she gave 2 yaunn to the church and used the1.5 left for one piece of medicine to treat her cancer. Right after taking the medicine she was healed. PastorXie Gong continued visiting this town twice a week until the church grew stronger and a local leader wasestablished.What a joy to see the gospel of Jesus Christ go forward with power and penetrate inplaces that otherwise would have never opened to Christian beliefs. They broughtforth some other sick people and we prayed for them. The presence of God wasthere. Later we visited a family where Willie prayed over the wife who had cancer.Even still, we pray God will receive her tears and accord her healing because of ourLord Jesus. Later we asked them about governmental interference in their churchactivities or beliefs and they said there is none as the government itself sold them
 
the land to build the church. They laughed when we mentioned pastors beingimprisoned for being Christians. Praise God for the liberty he accorded!The people seem to be living well by working the land. They have very good food.For each lunch we got about 10 different kinds of foods: all kinds of vegetables,chicken, pork, wild plants, noodles, and rice of the highest quality. All this food foronly $30 for about 25 people.
Baofu Road Church
in Baoji started in a house with 5 members (first lady from theright was one of the founders) 15 years ago and now it has over 500 people. Ourhosts told us this church meets every night, and we should visit it while we were inthe city. When we got there they were having bible study on the first level andchoir practice on the second level. The choir was singing so beautifully about theirlove for Jesus, how good of a friend He is, and how theywill never let go of Him. I was so much reminded of days when I grew up in Romania. It was the same atmosphere, only the faces andthe language were different. One of the leaders, Sidney, who was holding the Biblestudy, came to talk to us when he was done. He spoke English so we could talk without translation. He had become a Christian through a professor at a universityand now he had given up his job to dedicate himself fully to the ministry.theWe had a long conversation with him about their church belief and the needs of the churches in China. Sidneyshowed us some of the Christian books he bought from US; specifically a Chinese version of 
The Moody Hand  Book of Theology
. It was clear that Sidney and Baofu Road Church had a clear understanding of the Bible and astrong belief in the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. What a delight to see that God has His “seventhousand in
The World 
, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal.” Sidney told us that the church aroundChina is in dire need of qualified ministers that could teach in local small churches, many of which have nopastors. After the last earthquake in southern China, Sidney with a group from his church went there to helpand pass out Bibles. Those who believed were coming the next day to their church to stay awhile so they couldbe taught in the Scriptures.Sidney reiterated that in general there is no persecution or governmental interference in the church.Furthermore he stated when it comes to getting a job Christians tend to get the upper hand because they arethought to be better trusted. He also assured us we would have no problems buying Bibles within China andpassing them out in the
 
churches.
Shijaai Church
was founded and pastured by a family who has been Christian forthe last 5 generations. There was a 79-year-old lady (I will call her Grandma)whose grandparents converted to Christianity when the British arrived. Since shewas 15 she helped her father spread the Gospel. She said she would cry becausepeople will not listen nor believe, when told about Jesus. They made fun of her andtold her she was crazy because she did not wear earrings and bond her feet likeeveryone else. When communists came to power they took her Bible away and toldher not to believe. Because she did not give in, they did not pay her for work andwould not sell her anything. But God took care of her needs through other people. With a heartbreakingexpression on her face, Grandma said those were such bad times she does not want to remember them.The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and in 1982 they called her to a 3-day meeting to inform everyone aboutthe new religious policy. She was very sick and told them she can’t go. They insisted because she was famousin that area for her strong belief in God. Grandma went but could not talk because she had throat cancer. Thatwhole night believers prayed for her and the next day she could eat rice. While walking up to the meeting on
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