Prayer for China

Dear CoaH,

A while ago, I befriended a college student from Beijing. We met often and talked about Jesus. I invited him to play soccer with me, and we played in a tournament together. One day I asked him how he liked the city of Toronto. His answer caught me by surprise. "Compared to Beijing, it is a sleeping city." When I visited Beijing several years later, I knew what he meant by a sleeping city. Beijing was big and lively!

China has come a long way. Merely 150 years ago, the nation was on the brink of collapse. The Ching Empire fought the British in the Opium War and lost. Instead of tightly closing its doors to the West, the British and her allies forced China to open even more ports. China also lost in the Sino-Japanese War and had to hand over hegemony in East Asia to Japan.

Then, began the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, and everything changed. China today is one authoritarian nation under the formidable leadership of President Xi Jinping. We have seen how the Chinese people were locked up, even millions of them at a time, to conform to the government's 'zero Corona' policy. The government strictly controls its people, and dissenting voices are not allowed. Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests have been thoroughly blocked, and millions of Uighurs in Xinjiang province are very much detained or contained. We hear of punishment or torture, but the Chinese government flatly denies it.

Prayers for China must continue. Communism and materialism that deny God's sovereignty are stealing the souls of its people, but God is at work. There are about 60 million Christians in China, nearly half of whom are underground church members. They are subject to crackdown and persecution. Registered churches always face government scrutiny, and their freedom of expression is severely compromised. Let us continue to pray for China and its 1.4 billion people that they will come to experience the saving power of God in Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

Pastor Minho Song