One gathering was held in Shankou Town gathering site, Hepu County, Beihai City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on April 29, attended by only 12 local believers, along with a few "outsiders," totaling less than twenty individuals.
The gathering site has been relocated multiple times since 2012. Believers used to meet in their village homes and eventually moved to the current location in 2018.
Due to the limited clergy from the Hepu County churches and Hepu CC&TSPM, services are held every Saturday, which is convenient for pastors to spare time to preach and host sacraments as they are busy in other churches on Sundays.
In that day's communion ceremony, the oldest male Christian, aged ninety, took his elderly wife in his electric car, while a female believer, nearly ninety years old, came on her cane with four "legs" to attend the church.
The other meeting point is located in Xichang Town in Heping County, Beihai City, where there is a shallow coastal aquaculture base for oysters, prawns, clams, and mudskipper fish, as well as a sugarcane plantation.
Here, nearly 40 members gathered on April 30 to read the Bible, pray, and praise.
Rev. Zhang Ye Zhong, president of the Beihai Christian Council (CC), hosted the service and delivered a sermon on the significance of being baptized and returning to the Lord in the local Cantonese dialect. Then he led the sacraments.
Eleven seekers were baptized, which was surprising to many given the size of the group.
The Xichang Town gathering site has been meeting since 2012 and regularly conducts services in the home of a female believer named Mo Yilan's house after experiencing several moves and hardships.
(The article is originally published by the Gospel Times, and the author reported from Beihai, Guangxi.)
- Translated by Poppy Chan
