When Pastor Cao first came to Longchuan church, very few people were literate and some even couldn't write their names. He worked hard to preach and build a church, attracting some of the secret Lisu and Jingpo believers. Later, in order to develop the minority preachers, he endeavored to get a plaque and a site for the Bible Training Center.
The training center was established in the village with the help of the church, but the students had to stay at believers' houses. In 1993, with some help from CCC & TSPM, fellow workers bought land with an old house on it and moved into the new church in 1994. In 2015, with faith from God, Pastor Cao and his fellow workers turned the old bamboo and tin made training center into a half church and half classrooms with desks and blackboards.
"I was born and raised in Burma (modern Myanmar) and taught in the seminary there for 13 years. I came to China in 1980 when I was 29 and there was no church in Longchuan County(at that time), only some secret believers from the Lisu and Jingpo minorities. So I started preaching and building churches and training centers." When asked about his experience, Onesim, a pastor from the Lisu minority told us in his non-standard Yunnan Chinese dialect.
Longchuan County belongs to Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Dehong, located in the far southwest and bordering Myanmar. Many years ago, Onesim Cao and his Lisu wife, Pastor Li Lude (Ruth), settled here and serve at a local church together bringing pastoral talents for Longchuan churches for the last 27 years.
Rev. Cao speaks the Lisu, Burmese and Jingpo languages, but not mandarin and he's not very proficient in the Yunnan dialect, so he needs translators for the Han people to understand him. Four years after the training center started, Pastor Li Lude joined him. She is currently the only female pastor among the Lisu minority and was anointed in 2003. Because they have a lot of land the couple would have the teachers and students do some farm work such as growing sugarcane, vegetables and fruit, and keeping pigs and chickens.
Pastor Li Lude shared once that apart being a pastor, she also has farm work, she is a wife, and she has to take care of her family. The couple takes care of their incomes separately with Pastor Oni Sim donating 20% of his income. He believes that one tenth goes to God, and the other one tenth is for orphans and widows. Pastor Li holds a different opinion. She sticks to one tenth only because her children will go to her for money instead of their father, and their father is not good with money so she has to take care of the farming.
They both serve in the church with little monthly support from surrounding churches. The teachers for the Bible school are all volunteers without pay, and teach while farming. The students only pay their board wages when they start school, but they need to help grow vegetables and cook for themselves.
Pastor Li Lude also rents 30 mu (20,000 square meters) for growing sugarcane. Other than this, she also keeps pigs and chickens at home. In 1999, she received an award from the Longchuan government for growing sugarcane. On the certificate it wrote "We hereby certify Christian School: 99/2000 year, pressed 207.26 tons of sugarcane, hence be rewarded Outstanding Planting School, Longchuan People's Government".
While Pastor Cao focuses on the business of the Bible Training Center, including teaching and leading the church, his wife bears the family burden and some teaching too. Pastor Li told the Gospel Times once, "Non-believers' wives will complain, but not me. Wives are helpers and I'm a helper. I will do everything I can although it can be stressful."
There are 37 students (mostly Lisu, with some Han and Burmese). The couple thinks every day of how to train and feed them, they have revival meetings in the country churches, and their children need tuition for high school and college.
Pastor Cao goes to the country churches for communion and training and if his son's available they will go together. "I suffer gout these years with my right hand aching and numbing, and my feet are uncomfortable too," he says, touching hands and feet as he speaks. It was later learned that he also suffers from indigestion and has been having gruel for over a year now. However, what he talks of most is how to build a new kitchen and pay the teachers when the Bible Training Center building is finished.
