Reaching Unreached Peoples: A report on a 100-man sending in China. 130 were sent, and 150 came to Christ in 4 days.
Our time in China with Frontier Harvest Ministries was great! I (Dan) had been asked to be a part of a ‘100 man sending’ of Chinese national workers to reach the Ersu, a people I had been part of locating and reaching out to with Chuck Lenhart and a team from the U.S. this past summer. Now in February, we had come back to be a part of this grand sending out of these national brothers and sisters who would go out to win souls and plant churches among them.
Training those to be sent
Flying up from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Kunming, China was very memorable for me. The last time I had done this flight was when Josiah was nine years old. He is now twenty one, and a sophomore in college. It’s amazing how your mind takes you right back to those moments when you least expect it.
Our travels would take us to remote areas where Frontier Harvest Ministries and their national team are planting churches among China’s minorities – this time in particular among the Ersu and the Yi both are considered to be sub-groups of the Tibetan people and there are millions of them in Southwest China.
Praying over them before sending
As we traveled by train for a good part of twelve hours, you could not help but to notice the untold thousands if not millions scattered throughout China’s vast country sides of mountains, rivers, streams and roads. Each town and city that we passed through was a constant reminder of the unfinished task of proclaiming the Good News in all the earth. China is a huge country waiting to be reached.
When we arrived in the location where the training and sending would take place, there were gathered there 130 national minority preachers that had been selected from a good number of minority house churches from at least five locations. We spent a day to encourage them from the Word before laying hands on them and to send them out.
As part of the strategy, these 130 were then broken down into 10 teams. As each group stood before us for prayer, we reached out to God for His Holy Spirit to anoint them a fresh with power from on high. It was a glorious yet sober moment of anointing them with oil, by the laying on of hands. This was a bold, brave yet humble group ready to go out and do their job. To witness for Christ everywhere they go.
Our team prays over a remote area
The next day, as this group went their way, the foreigners among us went out also only seperate from them. Our task was to travel to yet a more remote area, by van to pray and to intercede for multitudes of those living there. After hiring a van and driver we, too, went off.
We got into the city of our destination without much difficult – only to be met by two police just after breakfast, the next day. They wanted to know who we were, where had come from, which way did we enter the city – did we come by bus or private car and where we were going next – very routine questions for them to ask when meeting foreigners in these remote places. Being somewhat of a ‘new bee’ in our group, I watched as Chuck and others dealt with the situation. We hadn’t done anything wrong however, when we had checked
Holy Spirit come
into our hotel, the clerk who checked us in did not put our Chinese visa number on the registration form. So, after supplying the information, we left to prayerwalk the area and to have a look around. But, the issue with the police was not over.
Throughout that day, they continued to call one of the members of our group on his cell phone, to ask if we had purchased our bus ticket for the next day, and if we had not, they would do that for us – just to be sure that we got a ticket out of town. For some reason, they didn’t want us there and were for sure that we needed to move on as quickly as possible. Much to their surprise, we left later that day in the same van and in the same direction that we had come in on. They certainly were not expecting that – an intentional decision on our part.
Before we left that city, we made sure that we went to some of the higher places around the city and we proclaimed liberty to the captives in the realm of the Spirit as we declared Christ’s victory over the unseen forces of darkness (Heb.2:14, Col. 1:13, Col.2:15) and to pray for the lost. It was a moment of heartfelt prayer to the Father to save these people from their sins. A pray that we have prayed many times before, and in many places around the world.
When we got back to Kunming, a few days later, we heard the reports from the 130 who were sent out earlier that week that 150 had came to Christ in four days. That is exciting news! We were told that some of them were whole families from among the Yi people. This was all done through word of mouth the mouth evangelism of sharing the Word and praying for people had needs. Now, the strategy moves into a discipleship making phase of church planting.
Pray for Frontier Harvest Ministries and their national team of workers as the pioneer in new areas for the Gospel. Pray for the 150 who came to Christ during this sending.
It was such a joy to travel and to minister with Pastor Ray Patterson, (who is now 81),and Chuck Lenhart and Todd Rosenwald (former graduates of the Dayspring Bible Training Center) and our dear friend, Dave Gartner was there and that he, too, brought much joy to the journey also.
Thank you Chuck and Wendy Lenhart for giving me this awesome opportunity to partner with you, in this great work. I look forward to returning later this year to train and to send more.
