Extraordinary Times: The China Update

Chapter Titles

00:01:27 Surveillance of China

00:04:25 Financial Struggles of the People

00:06:22 The Need for Bibles

00:07:08 Persecution of Chinese Believers

00:11:48 Searching for Hope

00:18:34 Stories of Chinese Believers

JOY: Welcome to God’s Church on the Move, the podcast that takes you to the spiritual hotspots around the world where God is actively at work. With me in the studio today are Ron and Karis Pierce. Welcome guys. 

RON AND CHARIS: Hi Joy.

JOY: Hi. You have been traveling and you have an update from China. We’d love to hear it. Yes, we just returned from a trip there.

RON: It was very, very revealing. We, we met outside of China. With friends and pastors who were on holidays, shall we say, okay, in other words, they were out of the situation. So that’s why, because some people realized, I cannot go back into China because of what we do and telling you folks what’s going on around the world as well. Their little ears. In all places and those ears can pick up our activities and therefore they’ve advised us not to go back in. But that doesn’t mean to say we aren’t in tune with what’s happening and we have ways. We have ways. So, yes. 

JOY: Secret ways. Excellent. 

RON: So, therefore, yes. And we’re going to talk to you today about some of the things that are going on. Charis, why don’t we divide this into two parts. First of all, let’s talk about the environment, what’s going on in the country as a whole, and then give folks some ideas from those interviews that we did. 

CHARIS: Sounds good.

RON: Okay. Let me start with this. China is under surveillance and I’m not talking about just China, the Christians. I’m talking about every member of society, every child, everybody is being watched. And this is through cameras, through spies, neighborhood watches, microphones, cameras, you name it drones. There’s just Absolute surveillance. In COVID, this backed off somewhat, because the police officers were laid off. They couldn’t go out, you know, for various reasons. It’s ramped up again now, apparently. And therefore, all of the pastors are looking for ways to enhance their ministries, win people to Christ, in sort of a covert way. And they’re doing this they call it, the one pastor says, you know, we’re, we’re Oh, what was it? 

CHARIS: Guerrillas. Guerrilla tactics. 

RON: Guerrilla tactics.

JOY: Oh, nice. Yeah. You would love that. 

RON: So it was more like guerrilla tactics of how to do it. So they find ways in and around and modify and jump in, jump back out. And he says, we have to just discover what’s going on with the individual situations. But he says, we can predict now what the police will do. And therefore, they find ways, and it’s amazing. So they’re meeting in house church movement groups, which means house churches very, very few large gatherings. The odd time in the countryside, or if there’s an exception to the rule, and let’s say the owner of a hotel happens to be a Christian, or his mother is a Christian, or his great Grandmother was a Christian or something of that nature where there is a sympathy to it and they’re willing to take the risk of gathering together in a larger area. But most of the time, this is in houses from what they said. 

CHARIS:There was one group that gathered together that the hotel owner was a Christian and he used his staff as security to protect them. 

JOY: Oh, wow. Nice. Oh, yeah. 

RON: But that’s a very rare occasion. We met with one major leader. Can I give you his name or location, but major, and he gave us these sort of words. He says, economically, it is very bad in the country right now. The, he says, I’ll edit a lot of this. He says the leader of the country does not know what he is doing. Now you can fill in the names in the blanks. He says he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Ordinary people have just been put out of work. They, there’s no security. Many have gone home to the farms, not enough money. So pressure is on the local governments to give more money to the national government. Okay, the big boys and therefore they’ve, they’re milking the actual people for more. They’ve increased the fines, say it was a parking ticket before of 10, now it’s a parking ticket of 100. And the health insurance, he says, is terrible. He says, what happened was, is that you used to pay X number of renminbi for you know, just basic health care and therefore you would get certain amount of coverage. Well, he says, that’s changed. He says, it’s gone up, the price has gone up five times, where most people don’t even make that much money. And he says the benefits have dropped. So he says virtually there’s no more health care in the country, but people pay for it. And he says the government is just milking everything they can out of the society and out of the economy. But he says the economy is failing right now. A spiritual environment, he says, the pastors are on the move constantly. Evangelizing and church planting is, is never stopped. All the persecution, it’s normal, he says. Even the younger generations are learning now how to grow up under that. But they see God’s hand at work in everything. Everything. The young people are willing to give up their education, their money, worldly pleasures. Everything is going to the side so that they can win people to Christ. So one of my questions to him was, okay, first of all, are people accepting the Lord? He says, yes, in large, large numbers, huge numbers. And I said, secondly, do you have Bibles? And he says, 

JOY: it’s always a dangerous question. 

RON: Yeah. I asked it. Everybody. I asked every single person, everyone. And they all said, no, a few of them said the three self patriotic movement, which is the government run church. You can get the odd Bible from them if they have some from before, but he says, this one guy says, but they’re very expensive. Mm hmm. And he says, most of the time, we search for Bibles, cannot find them, cannot download Bibles on the internet. We heard this numerous times. And everybody over here says, why don’t they just go and download the app? They don’t allow that in China. They’ve blocked it. You can go to the app, but you can’t download from the app.

JOY: And then if you were able to download, wouldn’t they monitor that and then? 

RON: Could be. It’s just, they just blocked it at the very beginning so that you can’t even go near it. You can look at it, first page, like Genesis 1. 1, you can read over a thousand times, but after that it’s nothing there. And so, now you’ve got these people who are searching for Bibles. Now, we are doing Bibles in China. Cannot tell how. I’ve told this to people before. This last year we did five. 480, 000. This year our goal is 800,000. So we’re looking at that, but it’s, it’s very, very good. The churches are being shutting down. There is persecution. And the one brother said to us this, he says, that’s life. Right. He says you don’t complain about it, you just operate through it. No, having no persecution is an oddity. There are guys in jail for their faith. They go in sometimes six weeks, sometimes six months, usually not more than that. But he says the surveillance it’s, it’s terrible. They’ll attach tracking devices to your cars. So that they’re trying to figure out where the leaders are going and then they will trail them there. Then they’ll break into a gathering. So he says their leaders, they gather three, four times a year on large numbers and they just find places and ways to meet. So that’s the situation right now. 

CHARIS: The other thing too is when they’re arrested, a lot of times the family doesn’t know where they are until they’re released. So they will just be gone for six months and then find out once they’re released where they’ve been. And that’s it.

JOY: That’s, it’s unbelievable that it’s almost like kidnapping. 

RON: Yeah. And there are no rules anymore. No. They, they’re taking money right out of the bank accounts. Yeah. A lot of the guys were talking about it and the main leader that we work with has verified it.

JOY: They’ll just come in and take, People’s money out of the bank account. Like regular citizens? 

RON: This is everybody. They just they’ll just go in and you’ve got oh, what would you say? You’d have 1, 000 in your bank account. You go back the next day, you’ve got 500. You make a big case out of it. You ask questions. You try to pressure them. You make a scene. And the next day you have nothing. Wow. 

CHARIS: Or you’re disappeared. Or you’re, yeah. Or you disappeared too. That’s what the other thing. 

JOY: Wow.

RON: In other words, they’ll just pick you up and take you away. So, this is a police state. With teeth. And it’s growing and the persecution is there, but it’s not just Christians. They’d want to stop the message of the gospel, yes. But what they’re really trying to do is control and rob. 

CHARIS: They also said that the reason that The pastors are being arrested now, it’s not for religious reasons, but it’s for corruption. They’re using that as the excuse instead of religious excuses. 

RON: What that means is you wouldn’t get arrested for having a church meeting. You would, they would say, well, you were taking an offering. You’re a thief, you’re a thief. So you’re stealing. So we’re going to charge you with theft. Or you were disturbing the public quiet by singing. So, you’re arrested. Therefore, they find different ways, non religious, but That’s the purpose behind it. 

JOY: And what about the three self churches? Are they still being persecuted? Last we talked, they were a little bit.

RON: Yeah. Surprisingly the three self is, it’s probably less people going there, but also in many of the situations, they are going in and they’re finding that there are pastors that are coming to the Lord and they’re coming out to house church meeting training sessions on the Bible. So one pastor that was there. The, the leader just told me this the other day, actually, after we got home. He says he says, yeah he says one of the pastors that was there was talking about, he was three self. He didn’t want anybody to know that he was three self at this meeting. And but he says, yeah, he says all you do is you go to these religious gatherings and the three self and they preach propaganda at you. Communism thought. He says there’s no Bible. So he says, we have to go to other places to find. Teaching on the Word of God, and that’s in the house church movement. 

JOY: Right, so there, and in the past there hasn’t been that many three self churches anymore, right? Like, are they falling to the wayside a little?

RON: I don’t know whether you’d say that. They’re probably there. Some were closed down, yes, absolutely. But overall, they’re just, numbers are dropping, and It’s, it’s losing its luster because the church, the house church movement, believers, true believers are growing in great numbers. Now, there are some believers within the three self and some people double dip. In other words, they’ll go to a three self gathering on a Sunday or something. Then they also belong to a house church. And so they’re living a double life. And so they’ll do that. So this is. You can’t make rules in China of anything, because everything is a broken rule. 

JOY: Well, in the house church, and they’ve always been, it’s like a fluid moment movement. They try, they do what they can within the country to make it work. 

RON: Exactly. With guerrilla warfare tactics. I love that. Yeah. One of the reasons they said why so many people are coming to the Lord, people are looking for hope. Yes. Because the situation there, the economic situation, the, the corruption in the government, everything, there is no hope.

CHARIS: And the the other statement that I had highlighted here was that communism is pushing people to Christianity. 

RON: That’s both of those exceptional. I forgot about that. The, the pushing people to Christianity. It is so obvious now that communism And everything that goes along with it, the atheism and everything, is so wrong, so empty, so false, that people are saying, what is truth, and they’re looking at the Christians. And I remember from one of our interviews one brother said he says something like, they follow us. They’re asking friends and friends of friends where the house church movement is so that they can go and attend. So, therefore, there’s an It’s an underground movement within China that there’s no hope, nothing to be trusted in, in the government. And they’re not, they don’t have the trust of the people, but these Christians, they’re off to the side and where do they meet? Not for, to report them, but to find them, to find hope. And that’s what Charis was talking about. That’s the hope they’re looking for. So, shall we jump in now, now that we’ve gone into this for a few minutes why don’t we, Charis, why don’t we start telling some stories of some of the people that we were interviewing?

CHARIS: Sounds good. Okay. 

RON: You start off because we’ll let you begin and I’ll be the color commentator on this one. 

CHARIS: Sounds good. We met with one church planter her code name is Cheryl, and she became a a believer when she was. Her husband had passed away, leaving her with two kids and her doctor had shared the gospel with her and she she accepted the Lord and told the Lord, as long as you keep me and my kids from starving, I will serve you forever. And so she, over the course of time, she got sick three times. 

RON: Cancer, wasn’t it?

CHARIS: Cancer was one of them. A blood disease was one of them. All different times. Each time, the doctor came in and said, you’re not going to survive the week. And each time the Lord healed her. And so she, she committed to serving the Lord. She was, she’s determined you know, yeah, in three, in a three year time period, she started four house churches, over 500 believers. Yeah. And at that time in 2018 the police came and raided three of the house churches at the exact same time. And the pastors of those house churches said that no matter what happens, the church will continue and we will proclaim the gospel because we’re not afraid of you.

RON: I remember, Charis, and I’ve got this in our notes, when church grows, persecution grows. That’s right, yeah. That was her little quote that she threw in. And the second thing on that, just while you were doing that, I just remembered they, They lost their buildings, didn’t they? 

CHARIS: They did, yeah. The bulldozers came.

RON: They came and bulldozed them right afterwards, yeah. Right afterwards, yeah. After they raided it. Yeah. 

JOY: Is that because they were a little bit bigger? So they were a bigger target? Because it sounded like a coordinated attack. Probably. Well, there’s a spiritual energy that is released when there’s a revival. And there’s The forces of Satan notice this, and therefore they take harsher action against some of the hottest spots in the world, spiritually. And that’s probably what’s going on here. They wanted to make those zealous Christians an example. So what are we going to do? Well, bulldoze them, all right? 

JOY: You would think by now they would learn that doing something so drastic is only going to make the passion for the Lord.

RON: We can see it. They can’t. No, it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s a spiritual thing almost. There’s a blindness there. 

CHARIS: She also said at that point in time, I mean, we were so overwhelmed by her testimony, but then she continued on and said the church is still still growing because of the miracles and she was talking about how there are so many people being healed that she said there are so many people sick, but so many are being healed and they’re coming to them thinking that they’re doctors. And she said that we’re not doctors. Jesus is the doctor. Wow. One example they gave one of the church planters that she works with during COVID they, there was a whole family that got COVID and was about to die, and they went to the family, prayed for the family. The whole family was healed and the whole family became Christians. So so it’s. The stories that she was telling were just amazing. Last year, they planted five more churches, and so far, I was going to say, so far this year they’re on their sixths. And she said that when someone gets healed, many come to hear the story and come to believe. 

JOY: It takes one good healing to start a movement.

RON: Exactly, and in the house church she attends, some are intellectuals, some are professors, but can’t confess their faith because They would lose their job as teachers. So even government workers, she was saying, as well, are coming to the Lord, and they donate what they can, etc., like that. So, it’s not just the lower class, shall we say, and the poor and huddled masses and all that sort of thing that are coming.

Now, it’s other people that are thinking through, they’re seeing through the communist lie, the atheistic lie, and they’re coming to the Lord. 

CHARIS: And I forgot to mention her work is all in the urban areas, so in the city, which is, you usually hear of these stories in the villages, but yeah, there’s, she’s doing all of her work in the city.

RON: She also said since COVID, there’s more eagerness to listen to the gospel. Now I thought about that and I thought, I wonder why that would be, but they, they were talking about, as Charis said earlier, everything falling apart in their lives. And it’s almost like. It’s COVID upon COVID upon COVID. In other words, you’ve got communism, then you had the disease or the, the virus. 

JOY: The lockdowns.

RON: The lockdowns. Then you had the economy falling apart. Now you’ve got the persecution and surveillance absolutely everywhere. And it’s almost like they’re getting hit every single angle. And now people are eager to listen. This, this is different. than we’ve had before. Before it was sort of one offs. God would do a healing, etc., and something like that. People would watch, etc. Now this is a societal collapse of faith in the government. And they’re starting to come. I expect even more are going to be coming to the Lord. We’re going to have to move on, but I’m going to end with this one. When, when Charis and I were sitting there listening to her talk and there was a lot in her eyes.

CHARIS: Oh, yeah.

RON: Like she’d look at you with this joy, this exuberance, et cetera. And she said, She said, not everybody’s healed all the time. He says in the gospel is not healing. The gospel is Jesus. She says, we just pray for people and people are healed. So I asked her, I said, well, listen, we’ve got a prayer operation in India going right now. And we send prayer requests over there. And I, I said, would you mind if I sent To you, prayer requests of our friends in Canada, United States, who send them in to us, and can I forward them on to you? Well, she said 

CHARIS: She lit up. Just lit up. Wow. Yes. And she wanted specifics. 

RON: She wanted names. I wanted names.

CHARIS: Exactly. The the last thing, I know that was supposed to be the last thing. Oh, it’s time. You asked her, Whether they needed Bibles. And I wrote down here in capitals because she was very emphatic about it. She said, we definitely need Bibles. She said, we cannot buy Bibles, even if we had the money, we cannot buy Bibles. So like you said, you did ask everybody. 

RON: I just wanted, I wanted to be able to tell friends like on a situation like this on a recording and doing it. I wanted people to say, well, it was just that, people try to figure out ways of doubting that they have Bibles, simply because we have the internet, we have stores, okay. 

I wanted people to understand, no, this is everywhere. This is everybody. This isn’t an exception to the rule. This is the rule. There are no Bibles.

CHARIS: And all the people we met with were All different parts of China, so it wasn’t all just in one area. Yeah. 

RON: Talking about different parts of China, Charis, let’s go to that fella on the last day. Who was from up north. He said persecution is everywhere in his district and he says, In some villages, they can still hold larger meetings. This is way up there in the northeast province of the country. And he says it’s cold. It was minus 27 or something he said, Celsius, etc. 

CHARIS: Well, he explained that it took a very long time for him to come meet us.

RON: Was it three days?

CHARIS: It was. Yeah. Wow. It was a very long time. Yeah. And, and that was like, car, train, it was, there was a lot of different. Car train, high, high speed train. 

RON: Yeah. I think it was three days. Yeah. And then he was going to meet, et cetera. And we won’t go into the why he was out having a holiday. But, then, then he had three days to get back home. So this is way out there. 

CHARIS: This is a commitment. 

JOY: I hope you guys at least bought him lunch in between or something. 

CHARIS: Speaking of that, he had, he had his first hamburger ever.

JOY: Oh, wow. Oh, is that right? Yeah, at lunch. 

RON: I didn’t know that. Yeah. Yeah. 

JOY: Okay. And that makes it worth it.

RON: And so, and the other thing was, because he was from this village so far away, this was the first time he had ever met a foreigner. Wow. And it was you with your red hair. That’s amazing. How fun. I did. I forgot and I didn’t know. Yeah. Okay. Well, okay. Here we go. So When he was a little boy, he had worms in his head.

JOY: In his brain. Brain worms. Brain worms. 

RON: And in that town, there were ten people or so, about the same age, they all had worms. Well, he lived they went out in the street preaching. I grew up in a Christian sort of background. Went to one house, and a father, was possessed by demons. Every evening, they said, the father would go crazy. And he went back in the evening to pray for the family. The family was wondering, what are you doing this for? What, who are you? And why do you pray for us with our problem of a father that goes nuts every night, shall we say, crazy mad. And they, they said this, and he says if, if I can come, And if the demons flee, then believe my message, because I want to tell you about Jesus, who can set him free.

So you watch and you see. So, what happened was, he shared with the whole family, and after he came in and started preaching in the household there, the demons disappeared, the father was healed. Hmm. And therefore they all believed, and he goes door to door and visits all these people in their villages. He’s more rural than anybody I think I’ve seen for a long time.

Yeah. He says in the very cold weather, there’s nothing to do with the crops, everything’s shut down. So he says he will go in, and he will preach the gospel, and he will take them, The chapter by chapter through the Bible. So he’ll just sit down and read the Bible and explain it page after page after page. And there’s nothing to do. So you’re sitting around probably an old stove with cold weather all around, having a little bit of food. There’s nothing. There’s no television. There’s nothing like that. And so he will do this. And he says he also goes into the fields in the springtime, and he will find somebody that needs help, and he’ll preach to them while they’re planting the crops. Or they’re bringing in And he’ll be helping them plant the crops. He’ll help. He’ll be the hired help for free, and he’ll go in and do that and preach the gospel at the same time. 

JOY: That’s very industrious. 

RON: This guy was quite different. He, he was really called to be a pastor to find a way to do it. I don’t think he had Too much in the way of education, but he had enough to be able to read and understand and write and relate to the people in his area. I think that was the very good thing. Says this, he says, it’s important to have good relations with the police. And I still thought, thought to myself, that’s interesting. So he respects the authority, but he’s not going to let that stop him from sharing about Jesus. So there’s balance to this man, absolute balance. Charis anything else as we wrap up here? 

CHARIS: No, I don’t think so. I think it came across though one, the, the obvious thing was the need for Bibles that that was very obvious in everybody that we talked to. But also the fact that. The persecution is still there, and that is not changing and that’s not hindering them. They are, they are persecuted. Persevering, they’re pushing through. 

RON: There’s something very common in China, and we’ve mentioned it before, I’ll end with this from my point of view, and that is, they refer to it as the way of the cross. The way of the cross is you’re going to suffer, you’re going to suffer for Jesus, you’re going to go without. You’re going to lose a lot in worldly terms, but that is the way of the cross. And in China, they live by that. And therefore, their expectations are, okay, we will suffer for Jesus because we’re right, and the forces of Satan are coming against us. With the millions of people, who are probably yearly coming to the Lord. When I say probably, I’m convinced of it, but for the doubters out there, let’s, let’s, let’s cut them some slack and say, we don’t know how many, but at the same time, with this vast number of people coming to the Lord, you’ve got to realize that when they accept the Lord, they sit down with the new believers and they say, okay, this is what’s going to happen to you. Do you want to continue? In other words, you want to accept Jesus? Fine. But it’s going to cost you something. Be prepared to pay the price. 

JOY: Can you imagine if that was our witnessing strategy here in North America? I know. They’d go running the other way. 

RON: Well, many people don’t want to pay any price. 

JOY: They definitely don’t.

RON: But their world over there is pretty realistic. Ours is a fairy tale existence at times. 

CHARIS: The, the phrase that I had highlighted for What you were talking about there was that they know that they have to pay a price, but they know that Jesus paid the bigger price. 

RON: We will end with that. 

JOY: All right. Well, thanks guys.We talked about Bibles. China needs Bibles. Empower Ministries is providing Bibles. If you would like to help with that, go to ronpearce. org. We have lots of China projects right there waiting.