There are seminaries in metropolises as well as little-known Bible schools in different prefectures and counties which are established for training the pastoral staff in Christianity. They all bear the mission of training apostles for God's Kingdom and Baoshan Bible School of the Nations is just one of them. It's located in Baoshan sity, on the Western border of Yunnan Province, mainly serves minority students in alpine regions of Yunnan Province so as to support the development of minority churches.
The 26-year-old Sister Zhu was moved to tears when talking about her own experience. She comes from a mountainous area of Anning City, Yunnan Province. Sister Zhu is Miao people; she dropped out of school after finishing the primary grades. Since there was no way for her to study God's Word, she was baptized in 1999 but knew nothing about her faith. As a result, she could do nothing but pray. At the age of 22, she got married. Unlike most of her peers, she didn't shut doors to the outside and focus all energy on raising children. Instead, she went to Baoshan Bible School of Nations under the support of her husband, who is also a Christian.
Considering her poor family living condition，Baoshan Bible School didn't charge her cost of living, and half of the book fee was undertaken by school. There are another 9 Hmong believers like her who get help from Baoshan Bible School of Nations.
Sister Dui is Lisu people, she's from Fugong County. She came to Baoshan Bible School after senior high school. She had accepted Jesus since her childhood but she didn't understand God's Word. So her father suggested her go to school. Since her parents are peasants, 600 yuan living cost is a pressure to her family. She hope that she can equip herself with the knowledge she can acquire at school and three years later she can go back to the church in Fugong County to serve Lord.
She said that she leaded a regular life at school, and the living condition is good. She is getting accustomed to the learning environment in there. "Something new in my life is being brought to life." she said.
There are still a lot of many minority students like Sister Zhu and Sister Dui in Baoshan Bible School of Nations. They come from different counties, cities and provinces in China. They have a diverse student body in that they come from 16 different nationalities and ethnic groups: Han, Lisu, Jingpo, Miao, Dai, Lahu, Hani, Wa, Nu, Dulong, Yi, Jinuo, Bai ,Nakhi and Pumi.90 % of them come from alpine regions in poor conditions and can not afford their tuition fee.
Researching the history, Christianity was introduced in to Baoshan City during the period of Emperor Guangxu's reign（1875-1908）to the Republic of China ( 1912-1949 ).
After that time ,although it went through trials and hardships,it was constantly growing and renewing itself. But the churches were mainly distributed in rural areas and most of the believers are peasants.The churches were lack of pastors,especially the young pastors.So the churches need to begin the work of revival by cultivating a new generation of successors in a new society.
Under the leadership of Lord Jesus and Pastor Xu Xian-zong, Baoshan Bible School was granted the approval to be established by National Bureau of Religious Affairs of Baoshan City in 1998. Pastor Xu Xian-zong founded the Bao-shan Christian Training Center in 1998 and used the address of his hometown congregation, the Qing-hua church. Because of the traffic inconvenience, he rented a house and moved the training center to Bao-shan in 2000.In 2002, he spent 950,000 RMB (US$140,000) on 860 square meters (0.21 acres) of land for the present school. The brick and concrete building is four stories high and 486 square meters (5231 square feet). Later on,they built teaching building,students' dormitory, a kitchen and cafeteria.All of the hardware facilities was completed in July,2008.The gross investment is 115 million RMB.
Baoshan Bible School of Nations starts from scratch, now it has 12 teachers of 5 Pastoral Theology Masters ,3 bachelor degree ,3 College degree and 1 Pastoral Theology Doctor.
The length of schooling in this school is 3 years. They issue vocational training diploma. The recruit number of this school since 1998 has reached 586 and 442 students have graduated.
According to Pastor Xu Xian-zong's explanation, now the hardware facilities in school are basically solved, while the software still need to be improved. The teaching expenditure has no fixed income yet. Their teacher's salary, subsistence allowance and fees including water, electricity gas and printing are still issues. Besides, price inflation adds insult to injury. "We turn our eyes on the Lord and put our hope in Him, 'Give us this day our daily bread'."
Translated By: Zhou Meizhuo
