DAWN Fridayfax 2003 #40

China

Back to Jerusalem: Missions vision in the Chinese church

This Friday Fax is a short history of the development of a national missionary vision gripping a growing number of Chinese Christians: they want to take the Gospel 'Back to Jerusalem'. "The Bible says 'you will be my witnesses... to the ends of the Earth. Where is 'the end of the Earth' for us Chinese Christians? God placed Jerusalem perfectly as the starting point of the Gospel: where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. 'This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the middle of the nations' (Ezekiel 5:5). We recognised: the furthest point on Earth, at which the Gospel will be preached is once around the globe - back to Jerusalem, where it all began!" The vision started with Mark Ma, the Vice President of the Northwest Bible Institute, who founded the 'Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band' with Hudson Taylor III. Mecca Chao, from Linxian, Henan Province, had a vision after coming to Christ. He had prayed to God for direction for his life, and suddenly saw a vision of a piece of paper with the word 'Mecca' written on it. Soon afterwards, he had a vision of a map of Ningxia Province, the centre of Islam in China, with a bright road leading to the west, which he would one day travel. He became part of the Back to Jerusalem group.

Around 1921, God told a group called the 'Jesus Family', founded by Jing Dianying, to take the Gospel back to Jerusalem. They were the first to have the 'Back to Jerusalem' vision. After a while, they lost the vision, which was taken up by the Northwest Spiritual Movement, led by Zhan Guquan. After 1940, a young man named Simon Zao became the leading figure in the missionary vision.

In his early thirties, Simon Zao became the NSM's leading evangelist. In the middle of a snow storm, three believers prayed over a map of China, and God showed them that they should concentrate on Xinjiang, China's northwesternmost province, and the bordering regions. A number of other Christians had similar visions, and made their way to Xinjiang on foot, on camels and sometimes in cars, until a team of 20-30 gathered at the end of 1948. Then the Communist armies took control of Xinjiang, closing the borders. All NSM members were imprisoned as traitors and deserters; the five main leaders received particularly harsh sentences. Simon was the only one who survived. His wife was pregnant at the time, and miscarried. She died after a short time in the women's prison. During the first months of his sentence, the guards tried to make Simon recount his faith; they soon learned that it was pointless. Whenever he prayed, they beat him, until he started praying in secret. They hit him on the back with heavy wooden benches, and kicked him mercilessly, but he refused to recount. His refusal prompted the extension of his sentence, and in the end, he was transferred to the coal mines - a terribly cruel place, in which few survived more than six months. Simon was a small, slight man, and had to mine and transport tons of coal 14 hours each day, seven days a week. Miraculously, he survived, secretly leading a number of his fellow inmates to Jesus. Simon was not allowed to receive any visitors, but he knew that there was no-one who remembered him, in this border city thousands of kilometres away from home. His relatives did not know whether he was dead or alive. The years became decades, and the Back to Jerusalem missionary vision went with him to the grave. The grain of wheat had fallen to earth and died.

During his time in the labour camp, Simon occasionally looked up to the stars, remembering the mission of travelling on foot to Jerusalem. He had heard that his wife and child were dead, and the passion and fire for the missionary vision slowly died. In the early days of his sentence, he often prayed "Lord, I will never be able to go to Jerusalem myself, but I pray that you raise a new generation of Chinese Christians who will fulfill the vision."

After many years of suffering in the coal mine, Simon was almost dead. The government transferred him to a chemical factory, where he was exposed to poisonous gases. His fellow prisoners tormented him even worse than the guards: they once stripped him to his underwear and threw him out into the snow, ridiculing him with the words "Your God can warm you!" For the first few minutes, the cold was like a knife, but when he cried out to God, he was suddenly surrounded by warmth - he soon started sweating as in a sauna, and the snow at his feet melted! Such miracles didn't happen every time, though. The other prisoners' blows once fractured his skull. When he woke up, though, the injury was healed. For thirty of his forty years in prison, Simon suffered brutal beatings. In 1988, he was suddenly released, as an old and broken man, his body marked with signs of the torture he had suffered; he had entered prison in 1948, freshly married, dynamic and full of vision. China had changed completely. There was nobody waiting for him. He managed to rent a small room, where he remained for months in silent prayer. After a while, local Christians heard about him, listened to his story and brought him food and a Bible. His story quickly spread in many parts of China. The local Christians loved 'Uncle Simon' like a father, and soon, people started travelling from all over China to speak with him. He didn't want any attention, but finally agreed to tell his story; after forty years of silence, the old missions vision spread through many thousands of hearts like a fire, many tears were wept. He lived and served another thirteen years, in which time the Chinese church treated him with great respect. Simon Zao returned to his Lord on 7th December 2001, surrounded by Christians who loved him - and in the knowledge that the vision lives on."
Source: www.backtojerusalem.com , P.O. Box 23132, Jerusalem 91230, Israel

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