July
18, 2000
Dear
Ministry Friend,
I
just returned from smuggling Bibles into Communist China. I found
a small missions organization that had contacts with the underground
church there, and teamed up with 12 other people with similar
vision to take in Bibles. We had a total of 26 suitcases full
of study Bibles for pastors, regular Bibles, tracts, and worship
tapes (all in Chinese), plus many of my teaching tapes. In addition,
I took in a high-speed tape duplicator which I was told will be
run almost 24 hours a day, meeting the needs of believers in at
least 25 churches.
We
prayed and fasted before landing in Beijing. God miraculously
got all 26 suitcases through airport customs without being x-rayed
or opened!
I
visited 3 underground churches and met many leaders of the persecuted
unregistered Christian movement in China. Revival is truly occurring.
There were less than 1 million Christians in China when the Communists
gained control in 1949. There are now 70 million believers. One
village I visited had no Christians 2 years ago, now 60% of the
village is saved.
The
Communists allow an occasional "registered" church to
exist to give the West an impression of religious freedom
and to be able to control what is preached and practiced. In a
large city I went to with a population of perhaps 700,000, there
was only one registered church allowed. Open Doors Missions estimates
that only half of the "pastors" of the registered churches
are even saved, so you can assume many in the congregations are
not. When I visited a registered church, I seized the opportunity
and gave my testimony, shared the plan of salvation, and led the
entire group assembled in a verbal salvation prayer. Normally,
evangelism is forbidden, and it's against the law to minister
to anyone under the age of 18 (however, many children and youth
were present for that special afternoon service). I was told that
secret police were present for all the services, but spiritual
hunger of the people caused them to not fear arrest.
One
underground pastor came to our hotel at night. He had been arrested
four different times, and had just been released after a 2 year
sentence for his faith. He had been beaten many times, was missing
a tooth, and looked many years older to those that knew him previously.
He was eager to receive Bibles, and had personally distributed
tens of thousands.
The
government allows the printing of a very limited number of Bibles
each year to give the appearance of religious freedom. They are
divided up into small allotments for each registered church and
delivered once every three months. Even though the believers usually
risk having their name and address known to the government in
order to publically buy one, their spiritual hunger results in
all the Bibles being gone in a few days. I had meals on two occasions
with major leaders of the underground church. Pastor X. had been
in prison over 23 years, was beaten regularly, and was once tortured
74 days in a row for at least 7 hours a day because he would not
renounce his faith. When he felt he could not take any more, he
unscrewed the lightbulb in his cell and tried to electrocute himself.
However, when he found the current was too weak to kill him, he
cried out to God and the torture ended. His plight became known
to Voice of the Martyrs who started a letter writing campaign
to the United Nations. Because of pressure from the U.N., China
released Pastor X. He has been arrested twice since, but still
ministers and now works to get other Pastors released from prison.
I
also had lunch with a 93 year old retired Chinese medical doctor
named Mabel. She is called the "Corrie ten Boom" of
China because she hid Christians in her home (including Watchman
Nee and his wife for over a year) during the Communist crackdown
in the 1950's.
I
also had supper with Pastor Y. who was in prison over 21 years
for his faith. His wife raised his six children during this time
by herself while the government would not let her work a paying
job. Pastor Y. prayed, and was never sick even one day during
his 21 years of forced labor. God has given him great favor and
he now pastors his house church in Beijing with only occasional
problems from the government because he is so well known by visitors
from the West.
Beijing
has a population of over 14 million, and the government only allows
7 registered churches one for every 2 million people! So
unregistered pastors squeeze 50 to 100 people in their houses
for secret church services all over the city. I met 3 Americans
at one such service who had been arrested the night before for
passing out tracts. They had their Visas canceled and had been
given 5 days to leave the country. Such is life under Communist
rule.
I
went to Tiananmen Square, the sight of the 1989 massacre of the
students for freedom. I first did a "Jericho" prayer
walk around it. Right when I fully completed the prayer walk,
I was able to strike up a conversation with a Chinese artist who
could speak English. Of the 1.2 billion Chinese, over 500 million
have never even heard the name of Jesus. I asked the Chinese man
if he knew what Christians were. He said, "Is that some kind
of taxi?" I explained the Gospel to him and when I was through,
he prayed a salvation prayer!
I
also prayed over other Chinese spiritual strongholds such as the
Forbidden City (site of palaces of previous Chinese leaders),
the Temple of Heaven (site of occult ceremonies each year), the
largest Buddhist temple in China, and other such locations. I
prayed and laid hands on the Great Wall of China, which is over
3,600 miles long. It is a spiritual symbol of the rich and powerful
oppressing the poor. (Peasants were forced labor to build it to
protect the leaders of China). Hundreds of thousands of peasants
died during its construction they were buried in the wall
itself resulting in something like 100 bodies per mile. It is
really a 3,600 mile long tomb!
One
special thing God did was related to our airline connection in
Seoul, Korea. We had an overnight layover, and got special permission
to go to the 4 kilometer wide DMZ (border of North & South
Korea). We launched special, flat plastic helium-filled balloons
with the Korean Gospel of Mark printed on them for the North Koreans.
But we also obtained permission to go down into a long cave dug
southward under the border by the North Koreans in preparation
for an invasion of South Korean. We were able to go north in this
tunnel to within 170 meters of the actual border we were
literally under the DMZ! We laid hands on the soil and had a mighty
prayer meeting for God to hold back a Communist invasion from
the North. (A little known fact to Western media is that just
before Chairman Kim of North Korea recently met with the South
Korean President to try to attract Western aid for his starving
country, the North Korean Chairman launched a campaign to kill
leading Christians in North Korea. Over 1,000 had been killed
in the 3 weeks leading up to my trip. Koreans were referring to
it as a "river of blood.")
I
previously had a scale of 1 to 10 to measure commitment to the
Lord. But some of the pastors I met must have registered something
like 28, so I have revised my scale! I hope their testimonies
inspire your faith like they do mine.
This
trip to take "Words of Life" to a desperate and dangerous
area of the world was a great success. My primary focus is the
spiritual need of America (which Communism threatens), but every
believer should support world missions in one way or another as
God leads.
Thank
you to everyone that prayed or gave in any way for this outreach.
Many lives will be changed for eternity. Together, we are making
a difference with the Word of God.
Reaching
Farther,
Dale
Leander |