A congregation of 300 grows, sharing one Bible!

We invite you to share the following story with your congregation. It should take no more than 2 minutes to read aloud. You might also wish to include the story in your church newsletter.

God works in amazing ways. Last fall, Jeannette Hanson (Mennonite Church Canada Witness worker in China) discovered an isolated fellowship of believers in the remote village of “Anren”. This village is so remote from major centres that the villagers spoke their own dialect which Mandarin speakers couldn’t understand. The surprising thing was that a small church was growing in Anren without any outside influence. This church began in the 1980’s when a migrant worker returned to the village with a single Bible after working in Fujian province. Quite quickly a fellowship grew as they read, memorized and copied stories from this one copy of the Bible. For about 10 years, from the mid 1980’s to the mid ‘90s, this group of Christians was so isolated that they literally had no idea that there were other Christians anywhere! Still, this small group of Christians eventually grew to over 300 people meeting in the shed or garage of the young leader, Shi Chufen. Eventually, a pastor in a neighbouring county heard of this group and established contact with them. Since then, Shi Chufen has gone to study at the Sichuan Theological Seminary in Chengdu. Together with local officials, Jeannette Hanson has been working with this church, in assisting them as they work towards their goal of constructing a church building for the believers in Anren. We are grateful to God for His Word.

Gordon Janzen, Mission Facilitator for Asia & Middle East. This story is part of Equipping #45 April 2004