As a well-known pastor in Shanxi province, Pastor Niu Tianping serves in the Christian Church in Yangcheng County, Shanxi Province. He once served as the Vice President of Shanxi Christian Association, Chairman and President of Jincheng Christian CC&TSPM, and Chairman and President of Christian CC&TSPM of Yangcheng County.
Here is an interview that Pastor Niu’s gave on October 31:
(1) Third-generation believer
The ancestral home of Pastor Niu is Linzhou City (former Lin County), Henan. He is a third-generation believer. The first believer in his family was his grandma. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic, there was a major drought. Foreign missionaries released food for disaster relief, and each believer could get a liter of rice a day. In order to live, grandma and the family believed in the Lord.
When his father was seventeen years old, he rented some land to plant watermelons and earned a lot of money. His uncle was good at building and quite famous in the local area. Every year he worked elsewhere as a contractor. At that time his uncle built a military camp in Luoyang for Wu Peifu, a warlord. When the project was completed, he thought he would get the money, so he wrote to ask his father to build two houses in his hometown. He was ready to go home and prepare for his and his brother’s weddings during Spring Festival. When his uncle returned home in December, the two brothers held their wedding ceremonies in their new houses. They were very happy and did not mention the money. After the year passed, his uncle finally said that Wu Peifu’s army had been defeated by Zhang Zuolin, an influential Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord during the Warlord Era in China. Zhang had received the military camp. At the very moment when the flood project was destroyed, the money was “lost in the water”.
With a mountain of debt due to the construction of houses, his father had to rent the rich man's land to plant watermelons. However, a long period of cloud and rain caused all the watermelons to rot in the field. All of his property was pledged to the creditor. In the greatest crisis of his life, his father began to believe in Jesus. Niu was ignorant and once burned his father's Bible while the tears streamed down his father’s face. Who would have thought that he would be chosen by God to be His servant?
(2) To be chosen to know the true God
Pastor Niu also had a special experience of being chosen by God. He was an atheist until 1961 when the school he was attending disbanded and he dropped out. He first worked as a business accountant. However, the financial personnel became key targets in the “Four Clean-ups” Movement. After the movement, he was no longer willing to be involved in this work, so he began doing technical work.
During the latter period of the Cultural Revolution, there was an engineer who graduated from the Civil Engineering Department of Tsinghua University. He was determined to design ten projects using different structures for the county. But he died before he achieved this goal. The reason for his death was mysterious. His father-in-law had received approval for 0.3 acres of land to build a house. The day they were going to survey the property and set the boundary stakes, Brother Niu and an elderly technician from the company went to observe. The technician was well-acquainted with the concepts of yin and yang and feng shui. When the technician saw him set the boundary pin, he said that something bad was going to happen, predicting that he would become ill and perhaps be in danger of dying if the illness was serious. Soon afterward the engineer died. This matter aroused the Niu's curiosity. Was this superstition, or just a coincidence? Or was it something else? Is there a God somewhere? Niu liked reading very much. He often went on business trips, so he bought books about Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam to read. However, he couldn’t understand all of what he was reading, and he was still “confused” about whether God exists or not.
In 1983, Niu and two colleagues from his company went on a business trip to Shanghai and other places. There was no ticket for them to go home. They had no choice but to buy tickets to Tianjin instead. He had a cousin named Ji Jinguang, who had graduated seminary before Liberation and had been serving in the Tianjin church after graduation. She was seventy-four years old then and had had diabetes for twenty-five years, but God healed her. This meeting lasted only about four hours, but it took his cousin three and a half hours to talk with him about the gospel. Then it dawned on him that there is a true God who has a deep love for every sinner. He was willing to accept Jesus as the Savior of life. When he left, his cousin very reluctantly gave up her favorites (because of all her Bibles and theological materials were burned up by the Red Guards, leaving her with only a New Testament and Psalms, which had just been printed by the Hong Kong Bible Society at the time of the CC&TSPM, and issued to the clergy) and two collections of the magazine “Tianfeng” to him. He read them with great satisfaction.
(3) Footsteps of his faithful love and loyalty to the Lord
Back in Yangcheng, Niu insisted on reading these books carefully. A neighbor also preached the gospel to him. Every few days they would get together, and the Niu would read them a Bible passage and teach them to sing hymns of praise to God.
The late 1980s saw more and more believers came to the Lord, and meeting places were set up in the countryside. When things were inconvenient for believers and they had problems, he would deal with them one by one. In 1989 the number of believers grew to 140. A section chief of ICBC, called Qin Hanyu (his father was the elder of the Church in Jincheng before Liberation), saw that there were more and more believers, and he negotiated with the United Front Work Department of the County Party Committee to apply for the establishment of the county CC&TSPM. On December 17, 1993, the county government approved the establishment of the Yangcheng County Christian group. In 1996 Niu was appointed to be an elder in the Bible training class held by Licungou Church in Changzhi City. In 1997, the county government also approved the establishment of the county Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement committee and the county Christian Association. In the county Christian congress, he was elected as the chairman and president of the county CC&TSPM. Under the Three-self Patriotic Committee, there are three groups that promote love, service, and evangelism. Within the association, there are three groups. They are responsible for pastoral care, Bible and Christian book distribution, and work in rural communities. The financial working group is directly under the county CC&TSPM. There are seven groups in total.
Niu set up 11 meeting places, including locations in Chengguan, Baisang, and Yinzhuang.
The development of the church has not been without difficulty. For a time, the “Eastern Lightning” cult disturbed the ministry of the church. Overnight, more than 100 people were pulled away from a church. Pastor Niu hurried to the meeting place of the “Eastern Lightning” and argued with them that they were not following Biblical teaching. Finally, after battling with the cult members, he was able to rescue most of the people and they returned to the church. After that, he decided he needed to further his education and took correspondence courses in theology provided by the Jinling Union Theological Seminary.
In 2007 Niu was appointed as a teacher by the provincial CC&TSPM. He was ordained as a pastor in 2010. He was elected chairman and president of the Jincheng CC&TSPM. He also served as the Vice President of the Shanxi CC and chairman and president of Yangcheng County CC&TSPM. He was re-elected to these positions many times. He was also a deputy representative to the People’s Congress of Jincheng City, a member of Yangcheng County CPPCC, and a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC.
(4) To build the church with one accord
According to the Chronicle of Yangcheng County, “Christianity came to Yangcheng county in 1905. The Lawsons, who were missionaries from England, bought a small courtyard house where they set up a chapel in the back lane of Dongguanxing. The church began with only two members but the numbers increased to 91. Gladys Aylward came to Yangcheng in 1931 to organize a church affiliated with the Zezhou General Church. In 1933, there were 172 believers. The following year, there were only 150 believers. In 1938, when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng, Aylward left Yangcheng. There were 127 believers in 1944. After the liberation of Yangcheng County, Christian activities stopped, and there was no one to manage the church property. The church property was distributed to the people of Dongguan Village during land reform.
Until the time of reform and opening up of China, there had been no church in Yangcheng County. In the countryside, each meeting point is built after the negotiation with the local village committee, and the village committee provides an empty building or house where believers can meet. After the establishment of the “county Christian group”, the Chengguan church met in the hotel and at the Chengguan food station. These places were crowded and risked the security of the believers. Pastor Niu repeatedly appealed to various government departments for assistance. After 23 years of continuous persistence, finally the authorities agreed that the church could have ten acres of land located on the side of a hill in the village of Pingtou. The foundation stone of the church was finally laid on June 4, 2017.
In the western suburb, where two roads meet, a four-story church facing the east stands with a novel gothic spiked cross. A three-story building was put up behind the church.
According to Niu, the cross is hollowed out so that the light can be seen even when the lights are off, regardless of the weather.
The total construction area of the church is more than 3,700 square meters. The land was purchased for 1.1 million yuan, and the cost of construction has reached 11 million yuan. Niu said this was only possible because of the love and dedication of brothers and sisters. In 2017 the CC and TSPM set a goal of erecting a church building with a spiritual palace located inside the building. God prepared the way as believers contributed 10 or 20 yuan each or there were those who gave several thousand or eve ten thousand yuan.
(5) With Heart Attached in the “Inn”, Searching for Its Relics
The small mountain county of Yangcheng, located at the southern foot of Taihang Mountain, is famous as the location of the "the Inn of Sixth Happiness.” Gladys Aylward came to Yangcheng in 1931 to serve as a missionary. She ran an inn in the back lane of Dongguanhang with no name. A 1958 American Hollywood film called the establishment “The Inn of Sixth Happiness.” The movie won three Academy Awards. Later, the origin of “The Inn of Sixth Happiness” was the story that the “small woman” Aylward led 83 orphans to cross the Yellow River near Taihang Mountain, hop on a coal train, and travel to Xi’an. Finally, they were safely sent to Fufeng Orphanage, founded by Madame Song Meiling. The income of the inn supplemented the church's meager funds and was used for daily expenses. Besides working with adopted orphans, Aylward assisted the county government in working against foot-binding.
Pastor Niu visited the older believers at that time and put forward suggestions on protection and development of relevant relics at many meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He accompanied many international friends and people related to the church to visit and study together. After years of research, he came to the conclusion that the legend of 100 orphans was not true. There were actually 70 or 80 orphans, and some were not orphans but were sent to the orphanage by parents who wanted their children to go to school free of charge.
In May 2012, he and Ms. Lin Yun from Jincheng revisited the footsteps of the orphans led by Aylward, visited people and took a lot of rare photos. Later, Ms. Lin Yun wrote the book "The Inn of Sixth Happiness that Shook the World", which included some of Niu’s pictures and materials.
Their repeated appeals have also been taken seriously by authorities. Tourism organizations have been set up in the local area and renovation of relevant relics has been put on the agenda.
The Reverend Niu, who is in his seventies, is writing the History of Christianity in Yangcheng County, including photos. He has written nearly 30,000 words. As he visited the church, he frequently spoke with the pastors and engineers and offered suggestions.
(The original article is published by Gospel Times.)
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
牛天平牧师，是山西省阳城县基督教会牧师。曾任山西省基督教协会副会长；晋城市基督教两会主席、会长；阳城县基督教两会主席、会长，在晋东南地区乃至山西都是颇有名望的一位牧者。
以下为牛牧师在10月31日接受采访：
（一）三代信主家庭传承
牛牧师原籍是河南林州市（原林县）人，到他这辈已经是三代信主。最早是奶奶开始信，当时是清末民初，遭遇大旱。恰逢外国传教士赈灾放粮，凡信耶稣者一人一天发放一升大米。为了活命，就这样奶奶带着全家信主。
父亲十七岁那年，租地种了西瓜，挣了不少钱。伯父擅长搞建筑，在当地颇有名气，每年都到外地打工，做包工头。这一年，他在洛阳为直系军阀吴佩孚修筑营盘。工程完工，满以为工钱能到手，就写信让父亲在家乡大兴土木，建两座院落，准备春节回家兄弟二人各自成亲。到了腊月伯父回家后，兄弟俩在各自的新房子内举行婚礼，一家人其乐融融，只字没提钱的事。大年已过，伯父才说原来吴佩孚军队被张作霖打败，接收了营盘，恰逢发洪水工程被毁，工钱也就“打了水漂”。
建房债台高筑，父亲无奈，又租种有钱人的地，栽种西瓜，但是，一场长长的阴雨导致西瓜全部烂在地里。并且全部财产抵顶债主。人生遭遇最大危机，父亲信靠了耶稣。无知的他曾烧过父亲的圣经，看到父亲脸上流淌热泪，谁想到日后他会蒙神拣选成为神所使用的仆人。
（二）蒙主拣选认识真神
他蒙神拣选也有特殊的经历。以前他曾是一个无神论者，1961年因当时形势学校解散，肄业回家。前期担任营业会计，却在“四清”运动中财务人员成为重点对象。运动结束后，再也不愿从事这项工作的他，就转行从事技术工作。
文革后期，有一位清华大学土木工程系毕业的工程技术人员，立志要为县里设计十大结构不同的工程，尚未完就死了。原因是他岳父批了三分地建房，就在放线那天，牛弟兄和单位的一位老技师去看他放线，这个技师喜好阴阳风水，见他钉橛子，就连说不好，预言轻则患病，重则小命不保，后来没多久这个技术人员就去世了。这件事引发了牛弟兄的好奇，是迷信？是巧合？还是其他？冥冥之中是否有神？牛弟兄特别喜欢看书，经常出差在外，他就买回佛教、道教、伊斯兰教的书去读，谁知读不进去，对于神是否存在，还是“一头雾水”。
1983年，他和单位两位同事前往上海等地出差，回家无奈没有车票，只好先购买到天津的车票。他有个表姐叫纪金光，是解放前教会神学院毕业的老神学生，毕业后一直在天津教会服侍。当时已七十四岁，患糖尿病二十五年，但神医治了她。这次见面拉家常仅有四十分钟，但表姐和他谈福音就用了三个半小时，使他豁然开朗，原来真有一位真神，深爱着每个罪人。他愿意接受耶稣为生命的救主。临行时，表姐忍痛割爱（因为她的所有《圣经》和神学资料都被红卫兵给烧掉了，只留下了一本《新约附诗篇》），把当时全国两会刚从香港圣经公会印刷的，第一批发给教牧人员的《新约全书附诗篇》和两本《天风》合订本赠送给他。他仔细阅读，心中得到了极大满足。
（三）忠心爱主美好脚踪
回到阳城，他坚持认真阅读。有个邻居也向他传福音，于是隔几天他们聚集在一起，由牛弟兄为他们读一段圣经，也教她们唱诗赞美神。
八十年代后期，信主的人多了，乡下也建起了聚会点，在信徒家里有诸多不便，面临的许多问题都来找他，就得一一处理解决。1989年，信徒发展到140名，工行有位叫秦汉玉的股长（其父解放前就是晋城教会长老），见信徒越来越多，和他一起协商致函县委统战部要求申请成立县基督教两会。1993年12月17日，县政府批准成立阳城县基督教小组；牛弟兄于1996年省基督教两会在长治市李村沟教会举办的圣经培训班上，被按立为长老；1997年，县政府又批准成立县基督教三自爱国运动委员会和县基督教协会。在全县基督教代表大会上，他当选为县基督教两会主席、会长。三自爱国委员会下设爱心发扬、侍奉工作、内外联络三个小组；协会下设宣教牧养、圣书供应，农村工作三个小组，县两会直管财务工作组。共七个小组。
他先后组建了11个聚会点，包括在城关、白桑和尹庄等。
教会发展也非一帆风顺，一度时期，“东方闪电”邪教搅扰，一夜之间，一个堂点100多人就被拉跑。他迅速赶到聚会点，根据圣经据理力争“舌战群儒”，最终通过争战，邪教以失败告终，挽回大部分误入歧途的迷羊。之后下决心在真道上装备自己，参加了金陵协和神学院首第二期神学函授培训。
2007年他被省两会按立为教师，2010年荣升为牧师。又先后筹备成立晋城市基督教两会，当选为主席、会长；山西省基督教协会副会长；阳城县基督教两会主席、会长，并连任多届。还担任晋城市人大代表、阳城县政协委员、政协常委等。
（四）同心合意建造圣殿
据《阳城县志》载，“阳城县基督教始于1905年，英国人罗森和夫人詹妮.罗森最初来此传教，在东关行后巷购买一个小四合院设立礼拜堂。从二人信主到发展了教徒91人；1930年格拉迪斯·艾维德来到阳城办教，隶属于泽州总教堂，先后称“自立会”、“基督自立会”、“神召会”。1933年，有教徒172人，次年降为150人。1938年日军侵入阳城，艾教士离开阳城。1944年有教徒127人。阳城县解放后，基督教活动停止，行后巷的教产也由于无人管理，而成为“无主产业”，土改时分给了东关村的百姓。
改革开放以来，阳城县教会一直没有教堂，乡下各聚会点都是和所在地村委会协商，由村委会提供闲置房屋中聚会。城关教会在“县基督教小组”成立后，先后在饭店、城关粮站聚会，拥挤不堪，安全隐患较多。牛牧师多次前往相关部门积极向各级反映呼吁，连续23年的坚持，终于在坪头村特批十亩坡边地。教堂终于在2017年6月4日奠基。
西郊两条公路交汇的地方，一幢座西朝东四层教堂耸立，新颖别致的哥德式尖顶十字架高耸楼顶。教堂后边还建起了三层楼房。
牛牧师介绍说，这个十字架采取了镂空工艺，不管天气阴晴，即使关了灯，也能看见十字架的光芒。
教堂总建筑面积3700余平米，购置土地110万元，建设资金已达1100万元。牛牧师说，完全是弟兄姊妹的爱心奉献，为建设教堂，2017年县两会确定工作目标为“建殿奉献年”，主题是“外建教堂，内建灵宫”，神所预备的奉献款和物资源源不断，有十元二十元，也有两千一万的。
（五）心系“客栈”寻访遗迹
使阳城县这个太行山南麓山区小县闻名于世的是创办于三十年代的“六福客栈”。1930年年轻的女传教士格拉斯蒂·艾维德也到了阳城一块服侍传教。在东关行后巷开了一所“骡马大店”，当时并没有名字。（1958年美国好莱坞拍电影时，起名为“六福客栈”，曾三次荣获奥斯卡金像奖）。后来“八福客栈”缘由是缘于《圣经》“小妇人”艾维德率领他们收养的83人翻太行山过黄河，扒上运煤火车，辗转西安，最后安全送至宋美龄夫人创办的扶风孤儿院。客栈是用教会微薄的奉献收入用于弥补日常开支，后收养孤儿，配合县政府开展了“妇女解放天足”。
牛牧师访问了当时的老信徒，并在多次人大、政协会议上提出保护开发相关建议，多次陪同国际友人及教会相关人士一起参观考察。经过多年研究，他得出的结论：传说的100名孤儿并不属实，实际是七八十名，另外有些并非孤儿，而是父母为了让孩子免费上学，才把孩子的送到孤儿院。
2012年5月他和晋城市林云女士沿着当年艾维德率孤儿走过的足迹重走了一遍，走访了当年的相关人士，拍摄了大量珍贵的照片，后来林云女士写成了《震撼世界的六福客栈》一书，书内收录了他的一些图片及资料。
他们多次呼吁反映也得到了相关部门的重视，目前，当地已成立了相关旅游开发机构，重新修缮已提上日程。
七十多岁的牛牧师正在编写的《阳城县基督教志》，图文并茂，已撰写近三万余字。在教堂查看时，他不时与教牧人员和工程相关人员交流，提出一些建议。
委身扎根太行，爱主忠心侍奉——山西省阳城县牛天平牧师专访
As a well-known pastor in Shanxi province, Pastor Niu Tianping serves in the Christian Church in Yangcheng County, Shanxi Province. He once served as the Vice President of Shanxi Christian Association, Chairman and President of Jincheng Christian CC&TSPM, and Chairman and President of Christian CC&TSPM of Yangcheng County.
Here is an interview that Pastor Niu’s gave on October 31:
(1) Third-generation believer
The ancestral home of Pastor Niu is Linzhou City (former Lin County), Henan. He is a third-generation believer. The first believer in his family was his grandma. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic, there was a major drought. Foreign missionaries released food for disaster relief, and each believer could get a liter of rice a day. In order to live, grandma and the family believed in the Lord.
When his father was seventeen years old, he rented some land to plant watermelons and earned a lot of money. His uncle was good at building and quite famous in the local area. Every year he worked elsewhere as a contractor. At that time his uncle built a military camp in Luoyang for Wu Peifu, a warlord. When the project was completed, he thought he would get the money, so he wrote to ask his father to build two houses in his hometown. He was ready to go home and prepare for his and his brother’s weddings during Spring Festival. When his uncle returned home in December, the two brothers held their wedding ceremonies in their new houses. They were very happy and did not mention the money. After the year passed, his uncle finally said that Wu Peifu’s army had been defeated by Zhang Zuolin, an influential Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord during the Warlord Era in China. Zhang had received the military camp. At the very moment when the flood project was destroyed, the money was “lost in the water”.
With a mountain of debt due to the construction of houses, his father had to rent the rich man's land to plant watermelons. However, a long period of cloud and rain caused all the watermelons to rot in the field. All of his property was pledged to the creditor. In the greatest crisis of his life, his father began to believe in Jesus. Niu was ignorant and once burned his father's Bible while the tears streamed down his father’s face. Who would have thought that he would be chosen by God to be His servant?
(2) To be chosen to know the true God
Pastor Niu also had a special experience of being chosen by God. He was an atheist until 1961 when the school he was attending disbanded and he dropped out. He first worked as a business accountant. However, the financial personnel became key targets in the “Four Clean-ups” Movement. After the movement, he was no longer willing to be involved in this work, so he began doing technical work.
During the latter period of the Cultural Revolution, there was an engineer who graduated from the Civil Engineering Department of Tsinghua University. He was determined to design ten projects using different structures for the county. But he died before he achieved this goal. The reason for his death was mysterious. His father-in-law had received approval for 0.3 acres of land to build a house. The day they were going to survey the property and set the boundary stakes, Brother Niu and an elderly technician from the company went to observe. The technician was well-acquainted with the concepts of yin and yang and feng shui. When the technician saw him set the boundary pin, he said that something bad was going to happen, predicting that he would become ill and perhaps be in danger of dying if the illness was serious. Soon afterward the engineer died. This matter aroused the Niu's curiosity. Was this superstition, or just a coincidence? Or was it something else? Is there a God somewhere? Niu liked reading very much. He often went on business trips, so he bought books about Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam to read. However, he couldn’t understand all of what he was reading, and he was still “confused” about whether God exists or not.
In 1983, Niu and two colleagues from his company went on a business trip to Shanghai and other places. There was no ticket for them to go home. They had no choice but to buy tickets to Tianjin instead. He had a cousin named Ji Jinguang, who had graduated seminary before Liberation and had been serving in the Tianjin church after graduation. She was seventy-four years old then and had had diabetes for twenty-five years, but God healed her. This meeting lasted only about four hours, but it took his cousin three and a half hours to talk with him about the gospel. Then it dawned on him that there is a true God who has a deep love for every sinner. He was willing to accept Jesus as the Savior of life. When he left, his cousin very reluctantly gave up her favorites (because of all her Bibles and theological materials were burned up by the Red Guards, leaving her with only a New Testament and Psalms, which had just been printed by the Hong Kong Bible Society at the time of the CC&TSPM, and issued to the clergy) and two collections of the magazine “Tianfeng” to him. He read them with great satisfaction.
(3) Footsteps of his faithful love and loyalty to the Lord
Back in Yangcheng, Niu insisted on reading these books carefully. A neighbor also preached the gospel to him. Every few days they would get together, and the Niu would read them a Bible passage and teach them to sing hymns of praise to God.
The late 1980s saw more and more believers came to the Lord, and meeting places were set up in the countryside. When things were inconvenient for believers and they had problems, he would deal with them one by one. In 1989 the number of believers grew to 140. A section chief of ICBC, called Qin Hanyu (his father was the elder of the Church in Jincheng before Liberation), saw that there were more and more believers, and he negotiated with the United Front Work Department of the County Party Committee to apply for the establishment of the county CC&TSPM. On December 17, 1993, the county government approved the establishment of the Yangcheng County Christian group. In 1996 Niu was appointed to be an elder in the Bible training class held by Licungou Church in Changzhi City. In 1997, the county government also approved the establishment of the county Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement committee and the county Christian Association. In the county Christian congress, he was elected as the chairman and president of the county CC&TSPM. Under the Three-self Patriotic Committee, there are three groups that promote love, service, and evangelism. Within the association, there are three groups. They are responsible for pastoral care, Bible and Christian book distribution, and work in rural communities. The financial working group is directly under the county CC&TSPM. There are seven groups in total.
Niu set up 11 meeting places, including locations in Chengguan, Baisang, and Yinzhuang.
The development of the church has not been without difficulty. For a time, the “Eastern Lightning” cult disturbed the ministry of the church. Overnight, more than 100 people were pulled away from a church. Pastor Niu hurried to the meeting place of the “Eastern Lightning” and argued with them that they were not following Biblical teaching. Finally, after battling with the cult members, he was able to rescue most of the people and they returned to the church. After that, he decided he needed to further his education and took correspondence courses in theology provided by the Jinling Union Theological Seminary.
In 2007 Niu was appointed as a teacher by the provincial CC&TSPM. He was ordained as a pastor in 2010. He was elected chairman and president of the Jincheng CC&TSPM. He also served as the Vice President of the Shanxi CC and chairman and president of Yangcheng County CC&TSPM. He was re-elected to these positions many times. He was also a deputy representative to the People’s Congress of Jincheng City, a member of Yangcheng County CPPCC, and a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC.
(4) To build the church with one accord
According to the Chronicle of Yangcheng County, “Christianity came to Yangcheng county in 1905. The Lawsons, who were missionaries from England, bought a small courtyard house where they set up a chapel in the back lane of Dongguanxing. The church began with only two members but the numbers increased to 91. Gladys Aylward came to Yangcheng in 1931 to organize a church affiliated with the Zezhou General Church. In 1933, there were 172 believers. The following year, there were only 150 believers. In 1938, when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng, Aylward left Yangcheng. There were 127 believers in 1944. After the liberation of Yangcheng County, Christian activities stopped, and there was no one to manage the church property. The church property was distributed to the people of Dongguan Village during land reform.
Until the time of reform and opening up of China, there had been no church in Yangcheng County. In the countryside, each meeting point is built after the negotiation with the local village committee, and the village committee provides an empty building or house where believers can meet. After the establishment of the “county Christian group”, the Chengguan church met in the hotel and at the Chengguan food station. These places were crowded and risked the security of the believers. Pastor Niu repeatedly appealed to various government departments for assistance. After 23 years of continuous persistence, finally the authorities agreed that the church could have ten acres of land located on the side of a hill in the village of Pingtou. The foundation stone of the church was finally laid on June 4, 2017.
In the western suburb, where two roads meet, a four-story church facing the east stands with a novel gothic spiked cross. A three-story building was put up behind the church.
According to Niu, the cross is hollowed out so that the light can be seen even when the lights are off, regardless of the weather.
The total construction area of the church is more than 3,700 square meters. The land was purchased for 1.1 million yuan, and the cost of construction has reached 11 million yuan. Niu said this was only possible because of the love and dedication of brothers and sisters. In 2017 the CC and TSPM set a goal of erecting a church building with a spiritual palace located inside the building. God prepared the way as believers contributed 10 or 20 yuan each or there were those who gave several thousand or eve ten thousand yuan.
(5) With Heart Attached in the “Inn”, Searching for Its Relics
The small mountain county of Yangcheng, located at the southern foot of Taihang Mountain, is famous as the location of the "the Inn of Sixth Happiness.” Gladys Aylward came to Yangcheng in 1931 to serve as a missionary. She ran an inn in the back lane of Dongguanhang with no name. A 1958 American Hollywood film called the establishment “The Inn of Sixth Happiness.” The movie won three Academy Awards. Later, the origin of “The Inn of Sixth Happiness” was the story that the “small woman” Aylward led 83 orphans to cross the Yellow River near Taihang Mountain, hop on a coal train, and travel to Xi’an. Finally, they were safely sent to Fufeng Orphanage, founded by Madame Song Meiling. The income of the inn supplemented the church's meager funds and was used for daily expenses. Besides working with adopted orphans, Aylward assisted the county government in working against foot-binding.
Pastor Niu visited the older believers at that time and put forward suggestions on protection and development of relevant relics at many meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He accompanied many international friends and people related to the church to visit and study together. After years of research, he came to the conclusion that the legend of 100 orphans was not true. There were actually 70 or 80 orphans, and some were not orphans but were sent to the orphanage by parents who wanted their children to go to school free of charge.
In May 2012, he and Ms. Lin Yun from Jincheng revisited the footsteps of the orphans led by Aylward, visited people and took a lot of rare photos. Later, Ms. Lin Yun wrote the book "The Inn of Sixth Happiness that Shook the World", which included some of Niu’s pictures and materials.
Their repeated appeals have also been taken seriously by authorities. Tourism organizations have been set up in the local area and renovation of relevant relics has been put on the agenda.
The Reverend Niu, who is in his seventies, is writing the History of Christianity in Yangcheng County, including photos. He has written nearly 30,000 words. As he visited the church, he frequently spoke with the pastors and engineers and offered suggestions.
(The original article is published by Gospel Times.)
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
Serving the Lord Faithfully: Interview with Pastor Niu
