October 6, 2006

China Notes 18

Visit to Yunnan

From September 3 to 13, Wei Hong accompanied the Reverend David Bridgman of Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship on a visit to lay leader training centers and churches in Lisu ethnic minority areas in the Nu River valley region of western Yunnan province. This is an area with one of the highest percentages of Christians in China. It is also a particularly poor region because it is very mountainous; even along the Nu River valley there is very little flat land, so most people have to live and farm on steep mountain slopes. The purpose of the visit was to learn more about needs of the training centers and churches in this region, particularly special reconstruction needs resulting from damage caused by heavy snowfalls last year. The following are notes from Wei Hong’s journal entries.

September 3

Arrival in Kunming. Taken to dinner by the Reverends Luo Desheng and Yu Wenliang. At dinner, Yu introduces the sites to be visited, which are mainly in Lisu ethnic minority areas. (Yu is Lisu; Luo is Hani.)

September 4

In the morning we take a flight to Baoshan, the capital of Baoshan prefecture, which has 13 ethnic groups and 2,430,000 people. Met by the Reverend Ah Baoju (Nu minority) and Elder Pu Sanyi (Lisu minority). Ah will travel with David and me. The group’s driver will be Elder Pu Sanyi, a Lisu from Lu Shui county.

Baoshan Minorities Bible Training Center

We are received by the Reverend Xu Xianzong (Dawoer minority), the head of the training center.

The Center was opened in 1988 in Qing Hua church in a nearby village, Xu’s home church. The current building in Baoshan was purchased in 2003. Currently there are nine teachers at the training center and three staff members. Of the nine teachers, four are graduates from the B.A. program of Sichuan Seminary, three are graduates of the three-year program at Sichuan Seminary, and two are graduates of the three-year program at Yunnan Seminary.

The Center’s training program takes two years to complete. Since 1998, 284 students have entered the program. Of these, 152 students have already graduated, and 132 are still in the program. Most graduates of the program are currently serving in local churches, but some have entered higher-level training programs in regional seminaries. One has entered the four-year B.A. program at Sichuan Seminary; five have entered the three-year program at Sichuan Seminary; twenty-five have entered programs at Yunnan Seminary. The students come from a variety of ethnic minority groups—Lisu, Jingpo, Naxi, Miao, Pumi, Dai, Lahu, Hani, Wa, Nu, Dulong, Yi, and Dawoer, as well as Han Chinese.

During the visit, David shared with the students and I translated.

After the Center, the group visited the grave of well-known missionary J. O. Fraser at Qing Hua church, where the training center was originally started. (His grave was originally higher in the mountains, but it was moved here after the land where the original grave was located was expropriated by the government.)

We left for Liu Ku at 4:00.

September 5

A phone card problem needed to be solved, so the group went to a local phone company where the head manager, a Bai and non-Christian, was able to arrange for David to use an international line. Upon hearing that the group was visiting Lisu churches, the manager noted that there are many churches in the hills lining the valley of the Nu River, and that on Sundays the people go to church instead of working. He also commented that these Christians are good people—they don’t smoke or drink, there is no need to lock doors in their villages at night, and even things left by the side of the road are safe.

We are met at 11:00 by Moses Li, head of the Lu Shui county Christian Council and Three-Self Movement, and Zhou Badi, the head of the local religious affairs bureau, and taken to visit a site where a village church will be built. This village was originally much higher up in the mountains, but the land there was simply too poor to sustain the village, so the government moved the villagers to a site lower on the mountainside and built new homes for them. The government also sold the villagers a piece of land for the church at a very low price, but the actual building of the church is left up to the villagers.

In the afternoon, we visited the Lu Shui County Lay Training Center. It was founded in the 1920s by Fraser, but the original center was closed in 1958 and reopened in 1980. The training classes can accommodate 150 students, and offers both one-month and three-month courses. Some of the students have only graduated from primary school; others have graduated from middle school.

Courses include Christian life, pastoral care, introduction to the Bible, Paul’s letters, and religious policy. The content of the one-month courses varies according to the needs of the students. For example, if the students are mostly women, the course may focus on women’s issues. Their main need is for dormitory space. At present, there is no dormitory, so students just roll out bedrolls in the classroom or church sanctuary.

There are currently 36,000 Christians in Lu Shui county of a total population of 160,000. There are 310 churches. Last year, an unusually heavy snowfall destroyed more than 40 churches, many of which still need to be rebuilt. Of these, two are in special need of assistance because the congregations are especially poor.

We were going to visit another church, but the visit was cancelled due to rain.

In the evening, the head of the local Religious Affairs Bureau invited the group to his home for dinner.

This morning, as the group traveled north from Liu Ku (which is the capital of Lu Shui county and Nu River prefecture), we passed Pihe village. This area is populated by the Nu minority, and this is the Revenend Ah’s home area.

At 2:30, we arrive in Fu Gong county, inhabited mainly by Lisu people. We’re received by the Reverend Sang Lusi (Nu minority). This county has one of the largest Lisu Christian populations.

Fu Gong Christian Training Center

At 4:00 we visit Fu Gong Christian Training Center, which was opened in 1988, and currently has three teachers. Its programs run for three months, and three or four courses are offered each year. Now there are 46 students at the center, from the Lisu, Nu, and Bai minorities, ranging in age from 14 to 45.

During last year’s heavy snowfalls, the training center’s dormitory collapsed, so the main need here is to rebuild the dormitory. Rebuilding has started, but is now on hold for lack of funds.

David shared with the students, followed by dinner with the students in the training center canteen. The students’ dinner consisted of cabbage soup, spicy rice noodles, and rice.

This was followed by worship led by the local music worship team, including both singing and dancing. At the end of the service, the guests shook hands with everyone present as a farewell. (This is the local custom.) Then we were escorted down the steep mountain slope to the car by two students.

September 7

We left at 8:00 a.m. and on the road to Gong Shan passed a site where a village was struck by a severe landslide on August 16. Only a few weeks before that, on July 2, they had finished building a church, but it was totally destroyed by the landslide. Now the village needs to rebuild the church while still owing money on the church that was destroyed.

Visited a church in Aludi village. There are more than 370 Christians in the congregation, which is served by one evangelist and eight lay-leaders. During the heavy snows last year, the church building collapsed. It is now being rebuilt and expanded, but the congregation has not yet been able to repay all the debts incurred. Group treated to a lunch of “hand grab rice,” a local dish.

Gong Shan County Christian Training Center

In the afternoon, we traveled to Gong Shan. Dinner that night was courtesy of the Gong Shan Religious Affairs Bureau, after which we visited Gong Shan County Christian Training Center. Received by the Pastor Yexi (though not an ordained pastor, he is respected very much by the churches and people as a pastor. So people call him “Pastor Yexi”), the head of the Center and also of the Gong Shan county and Nu River Lisu Prefecture Christian Council.

The Center was completed in 2003 (though the kitchen is still under construction), and offers a one-year program that is divided into two five-month segments over two years. There are currently 49 students. To be enrolled, students must be recommended by their church, have strong faith, and must have an especially strong willingness to serve. Most students are between 17 and 45 years old, but there are also two retired government workers now in the program who are more than 50.

Students’ previous education ranges from primary school to middle school. If students don’t have a primary or middle-school education in Chinese, they must at least have a middle-school education in the Lisu language and must be able to read and write in Lisu.

The Center has three full-time teachers and nine part-time teachers. The full-time teachers are graduates of Yunnan and Sichuan seminaries; the part-time teachers are graduates of the Bible school in Dali or graduates of the local training programs. Courses offered include: the life of Jesus, basic Christian doctrine, the Gospels, the letters of John, the book of Jonah, the book of Ruth, preaching, and pastoral care.

One vision of the Center is a desire to see more growth of the church among neighboring groups who have not heard the gospel and among whom the number of Christians is not so great.

David shared with the students from 1 Peter 1:13-16, again with translation from English into Chinese and then into Lisu. Afterward, the choir, and then the student body, sang for the group in four-part harmony. Afterwards, we visited the home of Rev. Yexi, where he spoke about the local situation in more detail.

In the whole prefecture, there are 707 churches and 100,000 Christians. Most of the Christians are in Lisu areas in Lu Shui County and Fu Gong County. There are fewer Christians in the counties that are predominantly inhabited by the Bai and Pumi minorities. In the whole prefecture there are only five ordained pastors.

In Gong Shan county there are 56 churches and 6,000 Christians, out of a total population of 30,000 inhabitants. (The population of this country is very scattered.) So far, in the county there are no ordained pastors. Much of the leadership is provided by elders, with each serving a district including approximately 10-20 churches. Under these elders, most individual churches have three deacons, at least one of whom is a woman; they also have a worship leader and an evangelist.

In the past, most church leaders were men, but the trend now is to have more women involved in leadership. More and more districts are served by two elders, one male and one female.

In this region, there is need for funds to rebuild churches that were destroyed in natural disasters, to build new churches in areas that are not yet served by a church, and to build churches for extremely poor villages that have been relocated by the government. Another need is for scholarships for students in training programs. Most students can only cover about half the cost of the training programs, so the training centers need to find funds to cover the rest. For example, for the Gong Shan Training Center, the cost is about 7.5 RMB (around $1 US) per day, but most students can only cover about 3 RMB. For students who become sick, the high costs of medical treatment are another financial problem.

Yexi’s story

Rev. Yexi also spoke of his own Christian background. His grandfather was a strong Christian. In the 1950s, when the pressure on Christians grew, many churches were closed, and some Christians even arrested. Many chose to flee over the border to Burma. However, Yexi’s grandfather was one of those who stayed through the years when there was more pressure on Christians. Yexi himself was born in 1967. When he was young, during the Cultural Revolution, he would often see his grandparents doing something by lamplight at night and hear them chanting and reading the Bible, but he didn’t know what they were doing.

Only later did he find out they were Christians and that they were worshiping. (Yexi’s parents were not Christians at that time.) In 1980, his grandparents started a home worship meeting in their home, and eventually Yexi became a Christian and went on to be an active evangelist who traveled throughout the region sharing the gospel and starting churches. Now his parents have become Christians, and his elderly grandparents have moved in to live with them. His grandfather is now over 100 years old.

September 8

In the morning, we visited Bin Zhong Luo, a beautiful scenic area which many have claimed was the inspiration for the Shangri-La of James Hilton’s book Lost Horizon. The township only has about 5,000 people (mostly Lisu, also some Nu), but has seven churches. In the area there are also Lama Buddhism and Catholicism.

On the way back to Gong Shan, the group had dinner at Daladi Church, which was rebuilt in 2006. David shared from Philippians 1:3-6. After returning to Gong Shan Training Center that evening, David shared again from James 1:1-7.

September 9

In the morning we again visited the Center to talk with students, then departed for the long trip back to Liu Ku.

September 10

We left Liu Ku for Dali this morning.

At 4:30 in the afternoon, we arrived at Dali Christian Bible Training Center and were received by the Reverend Deng Jianwei, who introduced the local situation, told the story of the Center, and spoke about the work of the local Christian Council.

Dali Bai Nationality Autonomous Prefecture consists of 12 counties, with a population of 3,420,000. Of these, 1,100,000 are of the Bai minority, 700,000 are Hui (Muslim), and the rest are Lisu, Yi, and Han people.

This area has had a lot of Buddhist and Taoist influence, but many of the Bai people are Taoist. Protestant Christianity came in 1881 through the China Inland Mission, which set up an evangelism center in the city of Dali. The buildings of the current church, training center, and a local hospital were all originally CIM buildings. Rev. Deng noted that despite the fact that the evangelistic center was in Dali, the number of Christians in and near the city is fairly small, only 781. The church in the old city of Dali only has a few dozen believers.

Rev. Deng is originally from Shanxi province in northern China. The first time he came to the area, in 1995, he saw that many people serving in the church had not received any training, that most of the believers were relatively elderly, and that there was a growing problem of drug abuse among the general population of young people. This is why he decided to come here.

Dali Christian Bible Training Center

When he first started working in Dali, he gave two-week training courses. The students came from Baoshan, Lincang, Lijiang, and Dali. After doing several of these, he felt that two weeks was simply not long enough. In 1998 several new graduates of Jinling Seminary (in Nanjing) came to the area, and they decided to start a two-year full-time training course. They used the old CIM missionary apartments as rooms to start the training center in 1999. At that time, the teachers in the center only received room and board, but no salaries.

In 2000 they finished building a two-story classroom building. Later they were able to raise the money for an administration building. (Because funds were limited, much of the work was actually done by the students, allowing them to save 200,000 RMB.)

Now the training program has been expanded to three years. Currently the first-year class has 40 students, and the second-year class has 37. (The first-year students are the first cohort in the new three-year program.) The mission of the Center is to give students a sound foundation in the Bible, in their personal faith, and build the ability of students to pastor their churches and spread the gospel, especially among the (largely non-Christian) local Bai ethnic group. (During the program, students are required to read through the Bible at least seven times, using different approaches. This is in addition to their personal Bible study.)

Courses offered in the program include introductory courses in New and Old Testament, as well as courses devoted to specific books of the Bible. There are also courses in pastoral ethics, church management, church leadership, practical theology, preaching, hermeneutics, Bible education for children, how to lead Bible study, spiritual formation, systematic theology, Chinese church history, world church history, church ethics, church music (including theory, choir leading, and learning at least one musical instrument). Additionally, students are given internships.

The local Christian Council runs a variety of social welfare projects to help disadvantaged groups, such as kindergartens in poor villages that do not charge poor families, financial support for poor middle school students, and potable drinking water projects. There are also projects to support church workers by providing emotional support and care, retreats, and books. Finally, there are various outreach programs, such as a gospel drug treatment for drug addicts and a gospel ministry for the deaf. They also emphasize cross-cultural evangelism, especially among the neighboring Bai people.

September 11

In the morning, David shares with the students at the Center. Afterward, we took a tour of the Center, including the library. (The library has about 500 volumes, including a Bible in Tibetan. The Center also has about 10 computers.)

In the afternoon, we traveled to Kunming.

September 12

In the morning, David and I visited Yunnan Seminary, and are briefed by the Reverend Li Congming, head of the seminary, the Reverend Luo Desheng, vice head of the seminary, and Professor Li Guangchuan.

Yunnan Province has 44,000,000 people, and there are 3,000 churches. There are very few church workers with seminary training. In Nu River Prefecture, for example, there is not a single pastor who is a graduate of a seminary. (The few seminary graduates all teach in the training centers.)

Yunnan Seminary has a three-year program, but can only take in 30 students each year, so at the current rate it would take 100 years to train a seminary graduate for each church in Yunnan. At present, the seminary is planning to buy an old school that is larger than the current seminary and where they can take in more students. They are trying to raise the money to pay for it. (The total cost is about 16,000,000 RMB, and the down payment is 6,000,000. So far, they only have commitments for several million.)

Bible translation

In the afternoon, David and I visit the Yunnan Christian Council office and discuss various ongoing Bible-translation projects. There are currently translation teams working on Miao, East Lisu, West Lisu, Black Yi, White Yi, and Wa translations. One person is working on a Hani translation. The Lahu, Jingpo, and Dai translations are also in need of revision.

Translators are mainly church workers and seminary students, divided into teams of five and six, working mainly in their home areas. Each season they meet once for consultation with United Bible Society staff. At present, they work using desktop computers. While this works well when the teams are at their home bases, it becomes a problem when they gather in Kunming for consultations because the different languages require different input methods, not all of which are available on the computers in Kunming. This means that when the teams come to Kunming, they often have to travel carrying a desktop computer! It would help if they had at least one notebook computer per group.

Another need is for financial support for the translators. The substantial time they devote to translation makes it hard for them to devote enough time to their farming to generate adequate income.

September 13

David and I depart Kunmin

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 246