On Sunday, July 18, I visited Grace Church in Zhoujia Town, Dashiqiao City, Liaoning Province, located on the mountains of southern Liaoning Province.
Stepping on this land, I felt a sense of homecoming: this was the place where my father fought in his lifetime and my mother came to faith in Jesus Christ in the nearby Tangchi Church, which has a history of more than 100 years. Therefore, I can say that the "root" of my faith is here.
The believers entered the sanctuary in accordance with the COVID-19 pandemic prevention requirements. Elder Mu Lina led the congregation to read the scripture and then preached a sermon on the topic of "Lord, Take Me Out of the Sinful Sodom". Although the sermon did not contain any profound theological theory, it was full of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In her sermon, she combined the scriptures and the reality and testimonies of villages to inspire the congregation to reflect on themselves and be vigilant, following the Lord to walk out of the "Sodom" and "Gomorrah" in their hearts and staying away from sins, to be believers with clean hands and a clear heart which please the Lord.
In the past, the churches in Zhoujia Town were basically scattered family congregations and activity sites, all of which endured hardships in the early times. In 2009, the church pastors and co-workers made a prayerful vow to build a church for the Lord. At that time, in order to go through the procedures for building the church, the pastor ran to the township almost every day to seek approval from the relevant leaders, and it was finally completed.
The next step was to build the church. However, the budget for purchasing an existing building, building a main church, purchasing land, and building the fences was over 1.4 million yuan. The town of Zhoujia, where the church is located, is not a rich place. The believers there made a living by farming and working outside, and their annual contributions were very limited. The saving of 20,000 RMB then was only a drop in the bucket to build the church.
At that time, pastors from poor rural areas, bringing all kinds of approvals and procedures for the building of the church, went to visit and sought help from the big churches in big cities such as Shenyang, Yingkou, and Anshan in Liaoning. They were frugal and ran around with the hard-working and persevering spirit of rural believers. They took the lead in giving all the savings they had at home and even borrowed money in their own names.
For God, there is nothing too hard. In October 2009, the township church with a building area of more than 1,300 square meters was finally built, the first church of its size in the area to be approved as a worship place.
Today, Grace Church has become a meeting center for believers from 17 villages in Zhoujia Township, with hundreds of believers on the rolls. The leaders of the Dashiqiao City CC&TSPM, to which the church belongs, also care about the church and supportively train and promote the preachers.
(The article is originally published by the Gospel Times.)
- Translated by Elle Wang
