Founded in 1998, Baoshan Bible School of the Nations mainly enrolls minority students in alpine regions of Yunnan Province, offering a four-year undergraduate program of fundamental theology for them. However, the school doesn't have a library.
There are about 1000 used books, the majority of which are textbooks, not helpful to theological students at school and the graduates who return to join in training programs.
Appealing for prayer and donations, the school claims that they will purchase official edition books from Christian publishing organizations and bookstores in a world filled with rampant copyright violations.
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. Later on, they built teaching buildings, students' dormitory, a kitchen and cafeteria. All of the hardware facilities was completed in July 2008. The gross investment is 115 million yuan.
Currently it has 200 students, 80% of which are ethnic minorities. Its operational budget reaches 1.4 million yuan for this year.
During the past 18 years, every student only needs to pay 600 yuan to cover their yearly tuition and fees. Nevertheless, twenty percent of students from Miao and Lisu families living in alpine regions of Yunan, Guizhou, Hunan and Guangxi with financial disadvantages can't afford the fees. Then the school doesn't charge their costs, and instead, provide them free meals and accommodation. President Xu claims that he doesn't want them to lose the chance of studying theology just for 600 yuan.
Pastor Xu once said, "Now the hardware facilities in school are basically solved, while the software still needs 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 to the Lord and put our hope in Him, 'Give us this day our daily bread'."
Translated by Karen Luo
