Not Your Average Ministry Training!

Yun describes some of the subjects in their missionary training school:

1.  How to suffer and die for the Lord.

2.  How to witness for the Lord.  We teach how to witness for the Lord under any circumstance, on trains or buses, or even in the back of a police van on our way to the execution ground.

3.  How to escape for the Lord.  We teach the missionaries special skills such as how to free themselves from handcuffs, and how to jump from second-storey windows without injuring themselves.

Perspective on Government Persecution and Missions

"We have also come to understand that the past thirty years of suffereing, persecution and torture for the house churchues of China were all part of God's training for us.  The Lord has perfectly fitted us to go as missoinaries to the Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu worlds."
So Yun does not pray against the Chinese government.  He prays for Chinese Christians to learn to endure and be pleasing to God.  "There is little that any of the Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu countries can do to us that we haven't already experienced in China."

Bbbbbappptismmmmm

Yun tells of the first baptisms he performed:

"The only safe way was to cut a hole through the ice on the river and baptize the new believers in the freezing water during the night while the police were sleeping.  On many occasions we baptized hundreds of people in the rivers and streams of southern Henan.  Sometimes the Lord did a miracle so that nobody felt the freezing water.  Some even commented that the water had felt warm!"

I have yet to meet anyone that desperate to be baptized!

Evangelizing Desperate Souls

"God poured His Spirit out to many desperate souls.  Like thirsty men in the desert, they gleefully drank in the water of God's Word.  Even though I was just a teenager, the Lord enabled me to lead more than 2,000 people to Jesus in my first year as a Christian."  (p.40)

When God crosses the paths of desperately thirsty people with that of a young man who has given 100% of himself to the kingdom of God, amazing things happen.

Memorizing God's Word

After getting a Bible in answer to prayer, Yun travelled to another village where a group gathered to hear what he had to say.  He had never taught and he didn't even know what it meant to preach.  "I could only recite the Bible from the chapters I had memorized, so I recited the entire Gospel of Matthew out loud, from chapter 1 to 28."

When he opened his eyes, people were repenting with tears.  They pleaded for him to stay and give them more.  So he recited the first twelve books of Acts.

He was only 16 years old.

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What if you couldn't buy a Bible?

As a teenage boy, Brother Yun wanted a Bible desperately.  He had never seen or touched one.  He didn't know anyone who knew what a Bible looked like.  He was desperate enough to get a glimpse of a Bible that he walked many miles to the village of a man who had spent 20 years in prison for his faith.  The old pastor told him, "The Bible is a heavenly book.  If you want one, you'll need to pray to the God of heaven.  Only He can provide you a heavenly book.  God is faithful.  He always answers those who seek Him with all of their heart."  Yun returned home and every evening for over a month he prayed the same prayer, "Lord, please give me a Bible.  Amen."  No Bible appeared.

Yun returned to the man's house and begged for a glance at his Bible!  He was told he needed to fast and weep.  "I went home, and every morning and afternoon I ate and drank nothing.  Every evening I ate just one small bowl of steamed rice.  I cried like a hungry child to his heavenly Father, wanting to be filled with His Word.  For the next one hundred days I prayed for a Bible, until I could bear it no more.  My parents were sure I was losing my mind." (p.28)

I have several Bibles on my shelf.  I can get online and find thousands of translations and versions of the Bible for purchase.  Even in the small town where I live I could drive 10-15 minutes in several directions and buy a Bible.

I'm wondering if I would pray like Yun did if all of my Bibles were to disappear and I had no way to buy one.

Summer Reading Program!

My kids always participate in the Summer Reading Program at the Rainbow City Public Library.  This year they have one for adults.  You can read about it here.  So I've changed what "I'm Reading" to reflect the books I checked out today, one of which I'll be hearing.

The Inspiration of Martyrs

"On 1 September 1901, a large ship docked in Shanghai Port.  A young single lady from Norway walked off the gangplank onto Chinese soil for the first time.  Marie Monson was one of a new wave of missionaries who, inspired by the martyrdoms of the previous year, had dedicated themselves to full-time missionary service in China".  ("The Heavenly Man" p.19)

Inspired by martyrdoms, Marie Monson went to China and stayed over 30 years.  Not being overly concerned with making a good impression on the Chinese church leaders, she preached a straightforward message of repentance and the fires of revival swept throughout the villages of central China wherever she went.  That's what can happen when martyrs inspire you to go, not stay.