A leading evangelist, a superstar actress, and a peasant girl whose Holy Spirit-inspired hymns are sung all over China, are among a team of Chinese Christians who will be ministering and sharing their testimonies in Port Elizabeth on Monday, May 26 and Tuesday, May 27.
The Monday night session, which is aimed at reaching out to Chinese nationals in and around the city, will be presented in Chinese only. The Tuesday night session is open to anyone and will be interpreted into English. Both meetings are scheduled for 19h30 at the Evangelisasie Sentrum, Cleeve Street, Cotswold.
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The Chinese visitors are a diverse group but what they all have in common is lives that have been radically transformed by Jesus Christ.
Evangelist Yuan Zhiming who is in constant demand to preach all over the world, is a former Communist Party intellectual who was a youth during the infamous Cultural Revolution and spent 10 years in the People’s Liberation Army as a Marxist Leninist doctrine officer. He became a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy of the People’s University in Beijing but was forced into exile as a result of his active participation in the Tiananmen Square demonstration in Beijing on June 4, 1989.
In 1990 Yuan became a visiting scholar at Princeton University and he came to know Christ the following year and was baptized. After graduating from seminary he served as an editor in Overseas Campus Magazines (OCM) — the most popular Christian gospel bimonthly dedicated to reaching out to overseas mainland Chinese students, scholars and professionals for Christ. He has written several books that are well accepted by Chinese intellectuals; including Earthly Loss, Heavenly Gain, The Dialogue of Faith, Lao Zi vs. Bible and Lai Zi and its New Translation.
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His book China’s Confession: God and the 400+ Years of China which was published in 1998. With the blessing of OCM, he, two board member of OCM and two Christian entrepreneurs joined up to start a company, China Soul, Inc, to make the video serial China’s Confession. After the debut of the video, China Soul, Inc was transformed into a non-profit organisation, China Soul for Christ Foundation (CSFC), in 2000. CSFC is set up with the mission to use video to bring Chinese people to Christ.
Through his sermons, the Holy Spirit moves thousands to accept Christ each year.
Lu Liping is one of China’s most famous actresses. She and her husband, Sun HaiYing, who is also an actor and producer, are very open and public about their faith. Their blogs and microblogs have tens of thousands of followers.
Liping lived the life of a superstar in China but paid the price with her marriages until she came to faith in Jesus. Her stand for the truth and biblical principles has made her the target of much criticism, which she gladly endures for the sake of the cross.
HaiYing was born to a wealthy and highly educated family in Shenyang, Liaoning in 1956, the son of an actress and his father, the President of Liaoning People’s Art Theatre. At the age of 7, he joined the People’s Liberation Army in Tibet until later transferred to the Fujian Military Region in 1979. Sun returned to join Shenyang Theatre in 1989 and became an actor. After a stormy marriage and the death of his son, he got divorced and later married Liping and came to faith in Jesus.
Xiao Min and The Canaan Hymns
Xiao Min was a simple peasant girl who dropped out of Junior High and couldn’t read music. Nevertheless, driven by the Holy Spirit, she has written over 1 500 songs and poems which have spread all over the country and are being sung by most Christians in China. She had no media and technology at her disposal — only the pure expression of praise for a Holy God.
Even in the Chinese Government endorsed Three-Self-Church her songs are sung, which is a miracle as Xiao Min’s songs all contain the pure Gospel and express faith, testimony and experiences of the faithful. Even outside China, her Canaan Hymns are being sung in many Chinese churches.
Liu YongNing was a very wealthy businessman but had a weakness, as many Chinese do, for the casino. He spent many years gambling away his fortunes but found neither peace nor joy in it, all the time searching for something to make him happy. Eventually, having gambled it all away and with no reason to live, he and his wife, who had stood with him through all the troubled years, came to faith in Jesus. The family now live in Canada where they are fully involved in God’s work, taking the Gospel of salvation to their countrymen.
