There were three golden periods after Protestantism was introduced to Huangyuan: the early stage, after the "Hehuang incident", and after the 1980s.
The first golden period was the early stage of Protestantism. During every service "there were Tibetans coming for the salvation stories and they filled the church" and it gave Mr. and Mrs. David Plymire a lot of comforts.
The second period was after the "Hehuang incident" in 1929. Through the excellent performance of the Gospel Church in rescuing patients and helping the poor, it gained the trust of the people and attracted many new believers. "On Christmas of 1929, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Plymire were very excited because there were four new believers baptized. They truly believed in Christ from their hearts. Even though the weather was cold and the river was almost frozen, their passion was not!" "In early March of 1930, another 24 new believers were baptized." Between Mar 1930 and Oct 1932, more people joined the Gospel Church. Mr. and Mrs. Victor Plymire went back to the US during that time, and they were told by the two Han church workers when they got back that, "there were almost 100 people who repented and joined the church. Many people converted, especially at a farming village north of Donghuoer (also known as Dan Junggar). Now, every Sunday the church is full of people, and we have to have two services because there are too many people."
The third period was after the 1980s with the number of believers continually increasing.With Reform and Opening, and modernization, there had been rapid development in the economy. But it also divided and disintegrated the moral system of traditional Chinese society.
The "Economic Leap didn't provide enough spiritual support for the new social structure, but contained a possible danger: by following the trend of 'Globalization' the coordination of social organizations and the balance of spiritual belief are in the hands of 'economic leverage' and 'market regulation.' This could only deeply stir the traditional patriarchal ethic system and ideological system, or abate the traditional social structure. Christianity and other religions have big development room because of that, and even became substitution and remedy factors in social groups." Due to that many people started to believe in Christianity. Compared to the time before the founding of new China, the motives of believers became more complicated. They were no longer concerned about salvation. As the perception of religion changed, the religious prejudice regarded as feudal superstition was dismissed, and some young believers started working on the research of Christianity from the religious cultural point of view.
