World Report 350, April/May 2000 -- Asia-Pacific

Adapted from an article in Amity Press Service November-December 1999. Last October, the Rev Ewing W Carroll Jr of Amity’s Overseas Coordination Office visited a rural church on the outskirts of Nanjing and discovered this remarkable story.

The Tang Shan church still overlooks rice paddies and vegetable gardens on one side. But on the other is a massive apartment complex providing private housing for several hundred city families. Nanjing city has grown so much in all directions that its suburbs extend to the village doorstep. The housing complex is less than a few hundred metres from the Tang Shan Church.

Tang Shan Township was at one stage situated some 30kms (18 miles) east of Nanjing, in Jiangsu Province. It was there that Tang Chuiyin or ‘Grandma Tang’ personally experienced the love of God.

Suffered

She had been in a serious automobile accident and suffered serious head injuries. Because of the injuries she was almost paralysed, unable to move much of her body and with her neck completely locked up. One of her nephews, who is a Christian, suggested that she should read the Bible.

When Grandma Tang began to read the Scriptures and she was soon struck by the countless passages which revealed a God who had profound love for all of creation, including her.

As she continued to read and reflect on various biblical passages, Grandma Tang felt a change in her body: she soon realised that she was beginning to be healed.

“I learned through reading the Bible that there is a God,” says Grandma Tang, “and he loves and cares for all of us.” She was so grateful for her healing that she determined to discover more about the God of the Bible and that was when Grandma Tang started to attend regular house meetings. There were only three participants, but every week they met for prayer and Bible study, and occasionally, they were supported by a visiting pastor.

By the end of that year Grandma Tang had become a Christian and was baptised. The ladies continued to meet and their faithfulness and persistence paid off: their meetings started to mushroom. And because the numbers at weekly prayer and Bible study sessions kept growing, the group decided to buy an old house for their meetings. But soon this was too small for the growing church, and they realised they needed to build a new church hall with a multi-purpose meeting hall adjacent.

The Tang Shan Church now faces the challenge of sharing God’s love with a growing stream of city folk.

The believers began to canvass the greater Nanjing area, asking existing churches to donate or loan funds for the work. Many of the Tang Shan congregation also donated or loaned money. Although an outside company was hired to do the major work, individuals also gave their time and skills to help complete their new church.

Grandma Tang – now aged 72 years – is full of enthusiasm for Jesus Christ and for the church she has seen develop. When she talks, the words “Praise God!” punctuate her speech. Her small, wrinkled fingers are surprisingly strong as she grips the hand of every new Christian brother or sister she meets. It is hard to imagine that this woman was almost totally paralysed 12 years ago.

Sparked

Grandma Tang’s enthusiasm has not only spread through her own village, but it has sparked a fire for God within her own family. Her husband, a retired farmer, also became a Christian, and he regularly travels by bus to Amity Press in Nanjing to purchase Bibles and hymnals for distribution to anyone who needs them.

He spends his own time and money doing this and makes no profit, selling the Bibles for the same price he paid for them. On occasion, when he comes across someone in great need who is unable to afford the price (about US$1.40 for a Bible) he hands over the Bible and says: “Oh, you can pay me next time.”

Tang Shan Church has some 70-80 members who gather every Friday afternoon for Bible study, and up to 30 members meet on Saturday afternoons for prayer. But when asked how many people regularly attend the Sunday morning worship service, Grandma Tang is a little embarrassed: “Oh, we only have 800-1,000,” she says.

It may be that in the future Grandma Tang’s church will grow so large it will have to split, planting congregations in the new development area of Nanjing suburbia. And she can reflect on this and see how God can use just a few people in the right place at the right time.

Powerful

The Tang Shan Protestant Church is one of some 300 churches in Jiangsu Province. There are 800,000 Christians in the Province, nearly 98 per cent living in rural areas. Every January, the representatives of the 70 Bible distribution centres run by the CCC meet in Nanjing to consider how best China's Christians can be served with Bibles and Scriptures in the year to come.

“We know one thing, at least,” said Kua Wee-Seng, UBS Deputy Asia Opportunity Coordinator, “that the Word of God remains as powerful and life-transforming as it has always been. And as we begin the new year, the new century, the new millennium, it is good to be reminded again of this power as shown in experiences like the story of Tang Shan Church.” (WR 350/32 - 4/5.00)

World Watch

CHINA — The 18 seminaries and Bible schools of China’s official Protestant church – the Three Self Patriotic Movement – are expanding rapidly in an attempt to overcome a chronic shortage of trained pastors. The 13.3 million members of the church are served by about 2,000 ordained pastors, which places the national pastor-to-member ratio at about 1 to 6,700. However, some provinces report even more alarming ratios. In Zhejiang province there are only 100 pastors for 1.3 million believers, while Hubei province reports that there are 70 ordained pastors for 400,000 Christians. “Most of us finish our courses in our mid-twenties,” said one graduate in Hangzhou. “Then we are sent to churches that have memberships of between one to three thousand.” There is a desperate need for more seminaries. Even with the expansion of the country's seminaries, only 20 per cent of applicants are offered places due to lack of space. Many churches are led by unordained pastors and elders. (WR 350/WW1 - 4/5.00)

Dreaming Big with the Book of Life

MANILA, Philippines — Frelyn Lino is grateful to be a teacher working in Manila. Not everyone has work in the nation’s capital, and it has taken Miss Lino many years of hard work to get there.

Frelyn Lino in a Philippines Air Bus travelling from Manila to Davao, after which she would have a further eight-hour journey home

In December she was going home for Christmas, taking the plane from Manila to Davao, the capital city of Mindanao Island, and this was a luxury she had to save long and hard to afford.

Her Bible is never far away from her: in fact, it is the one book that has played a most important role in her life.

“I am never without it,” she said, clutching it to her as she sat in the aircraft.“I take it everywhere with me and read it often.”

After landing in Davao Miss Lino would face a further eight hours of uncomfortable bus journey to Carmen Boston Davao Oriental. That was where she grew up, where her mother sacrificed herself for the young Frelyn’s education. That was also where she discovered her love of the Bible and its author.

“I was 18 years old when my mother died,” she said. “I almost went mad with grief. She had contracted cancer of the bone through an accident on her bicycle five years earlier. She had a job delivering fish on her bicycle to help pay for my education. I felt as if I was to blame for her death.

“But it was my faith in God and my trust in the Bible that pulled me through and helped me to go on. I particularly took comfort from Job 33:4 ‘God’s spirit made me and gave me life’,” she said.

She found an opportunity to continue her studies in Manila. She financed herself by working as a maid. Now she is pleased to be able to help her elementary students learn all sorts of things but also the value of the Bible.

Vision

Miss Lino has a vision: to become a doctor and return to her home area to help the local people. She speaks Camayo, but there is a special connection in her family to Spanish. Two of her grandparents were Spanish-American, and they spoke a mixture of Spanish and English.

“Where would I be without my Bible?” She repeats the question trying to find the words to summarise what for her is the unimaginable. “I would not have made it to Manila, completed my education, and I would not be in control of my destiny,” she says.

“Who knows, where I would be now. Like so many others, I would probably be married and at home in my village, taking care of my baby. I would not be able to dream of more education and the possibility of helping my own people one day.”

Miss Lino has an inner strength about her that convinces her listener: her goal may be a long way off, but with God’s help and the Bible as her handbook, she is determined to achieve it. (WR 350/33 - 4/5.00) [PHOTOS]