Approved to be established on July 12, 2001, Xifo Church in Tai'an County, Liaoning Province was originally a place for family activities. In August 1999, four bungalows were purchased to serve as the activity places of the church.
In August 2004, it was rebuilt on the same site. The new church covers an area of 1,125 square meters with a floor area of 485 square meters. The exterior of the church presents a Gothic architectural style. Inside the church, there are tables, chairs, sound equipment, air conditioning, and other facilities, and a cross hangs high in front of the main hall.
On the left and right sides of the church are offices, libraries, and so on. The main hall can accommodate more than 500 people for worship and other activities. At present, there are four preachers and about 350 believers, which is of a certain scale in the local village.
Sister Li Jing believed in the Lord in 1989. Since then, she has regarded the family affairs of God as major events and has taken it as her duty to shepherd the believers. She also gave her only daughter to the Lord.
Her daughter was an excellent student at Tai'an High School, but when it was time to face the college entrance examination, she told her mother that God had called her. Enlightened by God's revelation, Li supported her daughter to go to a seminary and become a full-time preacher after graduation. Today, she is a pastor of a church in Anshan City.
Xifo Church became the main place of Christian faith in Xifo town. After the earthquakes in Wenchuan, Sichuan, and Yushu, Qinghai, the congregation donated 4,000 yuan to the disaster areas. They visit poor households and nursing homes during the Spring Festival and other festivals, with a donation that has reached more than 3,000 yuan.
According to the Tai'an Ethnic and Religious Records published by the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau of Tai'an County in 2017, among the believers of Xifo Church, there are 11 large households with more than 100 mu (16.47 acres) of land, 18 professional households with more than three vegetable greenhouses, and nine specialized households with more than 50,000 yuan of annual income in the clothing business. Twelve large pig farmers receive an annual output of more than 10,000 pigs per year and the other 12 large households raise more than 10,000 chickens per year.
(This article was written by a staff writer for Gospel Times from Tai'an County, Liaoning Province.)
- Translated by Stephen Huang
