We had long heard of Sun Yaowu, a faithful servant who has devoted his whole life to God living in Shanxi Province.
Devoting to ministry
Born in a farmer’s family in Village Xingpo, Guanghua Town, Xiangning County, Linfen, Sun came to Christ at the age of 22.
He encountered the Lord Jesus when occasionally passing by Gucheng Church located in Xiangfen County. He was baptized in that church in 1961 and then preached the gospel to his fellow villagers. At that time, there were no bibles for the local believers. He wrote to CCC&TSPM and later received more than ten copies of the Bible. Afterward, the number of the congregation grew to more than 100. That spring, the local authorities suppressed the church until all religious activities were suspended in 1967. The number of the congregation decreased to over ten.
After 1980 when the policy of religious freedom started to be complemented in China, he read the reopening news of churches in other places on Heavenly Wind, the flagship magazine of the TSPM church. The church was reopened after he talked with Shanxi CC&TSPM. The number of members increased from 270 in June 1983 to 360 at the end of that year. The leadership of the registered church in Xiangning County was established in 1986 and he was elected as the chairman of the county TSPM. He went on to preach the gospel in more than ten surrounding counties and cities such as Xinjiang and Wanrong.
His ministry took unexpected turns. A five-day large gathering of more than 500 Christians from surrounding counties was temporarily held at a primary school classroom due to no proper venue. It was reported to the regional bureau of religious affairs. What’s more, the slogan of the meeting was pasted on a telephone pole on the street rather than side a “place of worship”, causing him to be warned by the police.
There were also twists and turns in getting the church property back. Zhang Shouyi, the founder of Xiangning Church during the last Qing Dynasty, lived in the church for years and entrusted the church to Gao Deliang who graduated from Hongdong Bible School after his death. The baton was then passed on to Yan Chunfu and his foster daughter Yan Shuzhen succeeded him. In 1951, the foreyard, backyard, and a small building were occupied by a primary school. In 1987, Yan Shuzhen cried that she was helpless to get the property back at 85. Sun Yaowu and the representative of the congregation requested that the police, the united front work department, and the secretary of the county committee would return the property to the church. The request was denied until relevant material was found in the archives. At last, more than 20,000 local Christians had their place of worship in 1996.
God opened a way for the craving of the seal of the county CC&TSPM after the authorities mutually made excuses. Affected by the rife inside the church, most believers left. The church built its building two times and there were many stories.
Sun was ordained as elder in 1996. Growing old, he worked in surrounding churches to preach sermons, exhort members, and serve them. Due to the pandemic and rural migration to cities in the last two years, the membership has declined from more than 300 to over 100.
He has led the construction of five churches in Shaping Village, Taitou County and also built Xingfuhe Church. He writes couplets every Easter and Christmas. Even though it is inconvenient for him to work due to leg pain, he often prays for other believers and exhorts others with the Bible. He has created a WeChat group for the congregation and often forwards devotional articles to them.
Tasting God’s grace
On the day in the second year of his walk with Christ, his wife could not speak. His father-in-law suggested asking a witch to perform a Buddhist ritual, but he resolutely refused. An experienced doctor of traditional Chinese medicine said she was unable to reach a diagnosis, urging them to return home. He heard that a leopard beat several sheep to death, so he had to sing hymns with prayer along the way back home. He saw two lights shining everything around him and there was a thundering voice: “Go back soon!” When he was back, his wife recovered and told him not to step in the vomit.
Once while he was passing by a village, a Chinese scholar tree covered with corn broke its thick branch, but he escaped without injury. He would have been dead if he had walked half a step further. There was a day when he was walking to the church, a mountain man fired a gun and there was a person calling people to hide. Walking too fast to hear the call, he remained safe after the shooting flew with the wind.
During the Cultural Revolution, his property was confiscated. A policeman was secretly sent to monitor him for more than forty days. A relative attempted to persuade him to forsake his faith, but he replied that he could not lie to God or men. He hid a big box of Christian books under a cliff for years. In the 1980s, Nanjing Union Theological Seminary was collecting spiritual books for correspondence and he sent some of the cherished books to the seminary. They were returned later.
Though he only attended literacy classes, he went over five dictionaries time after time and kept reading the Bible, praying, copying the Scripture, and devotional notes. He has written more than ten volumes of book reports and many exegeses and expository sermons.
Imitating God’s faithful servants
Sun also shared testimonies of two brave Christians who deeply influenced him. Chen Kunshan from Jiang County studied in a church school and worked as a Chinese doctor after graduation. Working in Taiyuan Hospital, he was cast into a wolf-dog house by the Japanese army. Kneeling down in prayer with gratitude, none of the seven or eight dogs bit him, like how God shut the mouths of lions for Daniel. Seeing him alive, the Japanese soldiers praised him as a“good citizen”, permitting him to return home.
During the Cultural Revolution, he was criticized for being “a lover of prayer”. Then he was commanded to pray on a high chair for hours in the hot sun. Once more, feeling restless at home, he prayed to God and he was told to preach the gospel. Without a penny, he walked to the bus station and the railway station. It turned out that there was always a person willing to buy a ticket for him.
Zhang Guixiu, a sister from Xi County, was baptized when she was running a business in Gucheng County, Linfen. Back to her hometown at an old age, she founded a church and 100 people came to Christ. During the Cultural Revolution, she was hung with a steel plate that weighed more than 30 kilos on a parade through the streets. The wire was inserted into her neck. Wearing a paper hat that was meant to denounce her, she felt proud of the Lord rather than humiliated. A Red Guard heard her story that a tough Christian would not denounce her faith even after a struggle session. When the church was reopened, he followed Christ. On a visit to her, he burst into tears on the bed immediately after entering the door. Eventually knowing what happened to her during that period, her husband who persecuted her for many years began to believe. When she was dying, she wrote to see the congregation for the last time. Sun, on behalf of the church, rode a bicycle for the whole day over the hills. He had close communication with her.
(The article is originally published by the Gospel Times.)
- Translated by Karen Luo
