DAWN Fridayfax 1995 #22

News from China, Worldwide

China: young woman plants 233 Christian fellowships

"Tau-Pan" (name changed) is a 33-year-old single Chinese woman. 10 years ago, while she was studying, she heard God asking her "Who should I send?" She heard the voice three times before following Isaiah's example.

Up until that time, she wanted a career as a businesswoman. That all changed; she planted the first fellowships before the end of her course, following which she was trained in how to help others found churches. This training, along with the Jesus film, have resulted in 233 new fellowships being founded in the last few years in her district of Northern China, which has a population of around 800,000.

Because of the restrictions placed on Chinese Christians, they meet mainly in private houses and other places out of the public view. The fellowships consist mainly of between 30 and 500 people; 35 of the 233 have over 500 members.

"Tau-Pan" now has a team of 30 full-time workers, both men and women, and since 1992 has been able to work in other regions in China, something which was previously severely restricted. She claims to have baptised over 12,000 Christians so far. Previously, there were only 3 small churches in the district.

Healed of cancer: communist district chief is saved

After starting to pray for the Chinese government and the regional officials, "Tau-Pan" and her team heard that the district chief had cancer, and no chance of being healed. They visited him in hospital and prayed for him, as a result of which he was discharged from hospital with a clean bill of health. Following this spectacular event, he was saved and decided to quit his post. He and his wife have now joined "Tau-Pan's" church. Many other communist officials have decided to become Christians as a result of this obvious healing.

Source: Hanspeter Nüesch, Campus für Christus, Zürich, Fax (41) 1 - 271 78 19

World-wide, every 3rd person is Christian, every 5th Moslem

Approximately every 3rd person in the world is a Christian and nearly 1 in 5 Islamic, according to the newest results of statistician David B. Barrett (Richmond, USA). Of the world population of 5.8 billion, 1.9 billion are Christian, 1.06 billion Moslem, 777 million Hindu, 341 million Buddhist, 128 million belong to new religious movements, 99 million Animists, 20.5 million Sikhs, 13.5 million Jews and 1.18 billion atheists or agnostics.

The Catholics are the largest Christian group, with 1.05 billion members, of which around 96% are Roman Catholics. These are followed by 354.7 million Protestants, 189.6 million Orthodox and 57.4 million Anglicans. The others, according to Barrett, belong to indigenous churches in the two- thirds world, which often do not fit into the traditional church structures. Barrett says that Pentecostals and Charismatics number 463.7 million, and are growing particularly fast: there are now six times as many as in 1970.

Source: David B. Barrett

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