Church in West China Invests over 10M for Social Service

Gan'en Church of Xi'ning, Qinghai has spent 16 million yuan to provide social services since its founding, according to its senior pastor Rev. Zhu Hanwen. A part of the funds comes from donations worth more than 2 million yuan from CCC&TSPM and other brother churches for the 2010 Yushu earthquake relief.

The church serves the society through poverty alleviation, education assistance, disaster relief and medical aid.

The poor families and lonely elderly people living in cities of Qinghai, Wenchuan and Ya'an of Sichuan and Wenxian of Gnasu have benefited from the relief fund of over 2 million yuan.

The church has aided at least 1600 poor students, consisting of over 540 high school students and undergraduates; as well as the rest from middle schools and primary schools throughout the territory. It has even sent voluntary teachers to teach in Yushu for two years.

Regarding disaster relief, it has donated over 6.7 million yuan to send relief supplies to the affected areas, such as Yushu and Ya'an. The church has paid two visits to the latter.

In addition, it organizes an annual free clinic to serve the local Christian and non-Christian citizens; and organizes voluntary medical teams to offer clinics or distribute medicine to mountain villages and parishes.

Rev. Zhu says that to be light and salt and to serve the society is the duty of Christians.

In the early days when Christianity entered into China, the churches made contributions by running schools and hospitals. Similarly, Christianity can contribute in these fields today in the same way.