“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. ” (John 12: 24, NIV) This Bible verse engraved on the tombstone of Rev. James Outram Fraser witnessed his lifelong service in the Nujiang Grand Canyon at an altitude of 2000-3000 meters in Yunnan Province.
Fraser, a British missionary, graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). Proficient in mathematics, he was an excellent engineer and pianist. On May 24th, 1909, 22-year-old Fraser came to Tengyue Town, Tengchong City of western Yunnan Province, to work with the missionary Embery and his wife, preaching the gospel to the Lisu people.
Going deep into the Nujiang Grand Canyon several times to contact the Lisu people, the "apostle to the Lisu People" found some bad habits there such as idolatry, alcoholism, and opium smoking. He prayed with faith to lead over 100 Lisu families to believe in God. He found that only when a whole family who came to Christ could help a person firmly follow the path of Jesus, with less tendency to return to those bad habits of the past.
While preaching the gospel, the western missionaries also helped the Lisu people to create their own Lisu script. Translating the Bible into the Lisu language, they also facilitated them to change their bad habits such as alcoholism and opium smoking.
The three features of Lisu believers in the Nujiang Grand Canyon are that they don’t drink, smoke, or work on Sundays, in order to worship God.
In order to help the Lisu people give up drinking, Fraser asked them several times to pour wine to pigs in order to see the consequences. This caused pigs to jump around and scream after drinking the wine. Those who supported Fraser’s prohibition movement mixed pig food into wine jars so that the drinkers could not drink it even if they wanted to.
No smoking is also the rule of the local church. Opium cultivation used to be the main source of income for the Lisu people, and many local people smoked opium. Firmly opposing these, Fraser clearly stipulated that people who grew, smoked, or sold opium could not be baptized. In order to change this situation, Fraser studied the local soil to introduce economic crops such as sugar beets.
The Lisu people have a talent for singing. The biography of Fraser, written by Eileen Crossman, his second daughter, wrote in the book Mountain Rain that when missionaries taught them the four voices, their singing surprised and mesmerized the missionaries.
But several pastors shared their worries about the situation of the church.
In his fifties with more than 30 years of serving in the local area, Pastor La said that the local people already knew that there is a God, but many refused to believe and follow Him. In addition, the congregations who regularly meet were still lacking a thirst for the truth.
A female Christian surnamed Li, who worried about the inheritance of the faith, said that some young people were stealing, drinking, and unwilling to accept the Christian faith. She called on others to pray for their faith.
"What we lack most is a leader. We need someone who really knows God to lead." Li said that some elderly believers could not read the scriptures by themselves, and they just listened to whatever the pastors said. Pastors with experience and capability were particularly important, she continued.
A male believer with the surname of Zhang, who collects and sorts out the history of the church in Nujiang Prefecture, said that the decline of local belief situation was related to the social environment. Now that the roads have been built and many things from outside have entered the region, they have more temptations compared with the past closed environment with Christianity as the mainstream. But he believed that people who grew up in the Christian atmosphere would return to the Christian faith sooner or later.
Although the local churches face many problems, there are church staff who visit the mentally ill people, serve to train orphans, and give medical treatment and medicine to needy people. They have been doing so for over ten or even twenty years, needing new co-workers to join them.
- Translated by Oliver Zuo
“一粒麦子不落在地里死了，仍旧是一粒；若是死了，就结出许多子粒来。”（约翰福音12章24节）这句刻在富能仁牧师（James Outruam Fraser）墓碑上的圣经经文，见证了他在海拔两三千米的怒江大峡谷中一生的服侍
富能仁牧师来自英国，毕业于伦敦皇家学院，他精通数学，在工程专业上很出色，还是一位优秀的钢琴家。1909年5月24日，22岁的富能仁来到云南西部腾冲市腾越镇，跟传教士安选三（Embery）夫妇同工，开始为了给傈僳人传福音祷告。
当富能仁几次深入怒江大峡谷与傈僳人接触后，他发现有拜偶像、酗酒、吸鸦片等陋习。他向神发出了信心的祷告——求神带领100多个傈僳族家庭信主。他发现，必须是一个家庭归主，才能坚定地走信耶稣的道路，不容易回到旧习当中。
传教士们在传福音的同时，还帮助傈僳人创造了傈僳文，翻译了傈僳文的《圣经》，并且帮助他们改变了酗酒、吸鸦片等陋习。
怒江傈僳族信徒的三个明显特征：不喝酒；不抽烟；主日不工作，全天敬拜神。
为了帮助傈僳人戒酒，富能仁多次让他们把酒倒给猪喝试试看后果，结果猪喝了酒后到处乱蹦乱跳、乱吼乱叫。信主的傈僳人支持富能仁的禁酒运动，他们将猪食掺进酒罐子里，这样想喝也没法喝了。
不吸烟也是当地教会的教规。种植鸦片曾是傈僳人的主要经济来源，当地许多人也吸食鸦片。富能仁对此坚决反对，他明确规定：不能给种植、吸食或贩卖鸦片的人施洗。为了改变这个状况，富能仁研究了当地的土壤，引进了甜菜等经济作物。
傈僳人有歌唱的天赋，富能仁二女儿艾琳·克蕾斯曼（Eileen Crossman）所写的富能仁的传记《山雨》中写道，当传教士把四声部教给他们时，他们的唱诗令传教士惊讶不已、陶醉其中。
但有几位牧者分享了他们对教会当下光景的担忧。
50多岁的腊传道，在当地服侍了30多年后，说当地人已经都知道有一位上帝，但是很多人不愿意相信和跟从；另外，信徒们坚持聚会，但是缺少对真理的渴慕。
李姊妹也为信仰的传承担忧，她说现在的一些年轻人出现偷窃、喝酒的行为，而且不愿意接受基督信仰，她呼吁大家为了年轻人的信仰祷告。
“我们最缺的是带领的人，需要真正认识神的人来带领。”李姊妹说，一些老年信徒不会自己读经，牧者讲什么他们就听什么，因此有牧养经验和真理装备的牧者特别重要。
在怒江州搜集、整理教会历史的张弟兄认为，当地信仰状况的回落跟社会大环境有关，如今道路修好了，外界很多的东西进入其中，跟以前以基督教为主流的封闭环境相比，他们的诱惑变多了。但他相信，在基督教氛围中成长起来的人，将来某天还会回归基督信仰。
虽然当地教会面临着不少问题，但也有同工有的从事精神病患者探访事工，有的做培养孤儿的服侍，有的给困难群众施医送药，类似的事工他们一做就是一二十年。他们需要有新的同工加入。
【特稿】怒江大峡谷中一粒麦子的百年历程
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. ” (John 12: 24, NIV) This Bible verse engraved on the tombstone of Rev. James Outram Fraser witnessed his lifelong service in the Nujiang Grand Canyon at an altitude of 2000-3000 meters in Yunnan Province.
Fraser, a British missionary, graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). Proficient in mathematics, he was an excellent engineer and pianist. On May 24th, 1909, 22-year-old Fraser came to Tengyue Town, Tengchong City of western Yunnan Province, to work with the missionary Embery and his wife, preaching the gospel to the Lisu people.
Going deep into the Nujiang Grand Canyon several times to contact the Lisu people, the "apostle to the Lisu People" found some bad habits there such as idolatry, alcoholism, and opium smoking. He prayed with faith to lead over 100 Lisu families to believe in God. He found that only when a whole family who came to Christ could help a person firmly follow the path of Jesus, with less tendency to return to those bad habits of the past.
While preaching the gospel, the western missionaries also helped the Lisu people to create their own Lisu script. Translating the Bible into the Lisu language, they also facilitated them to change their bad habits such as alcoholism and opium smoking.
The three features of Lisu believers in the Nujiang Grand Canyon are that they don’t drink, smoke, or work on Sundays, in order to worship God.
In order to help the Lisu people give up drinking, Fraser asked them several times to pour wine to pigs in order to see the consequences. This caused pigs to jump around and scream after drinking the wine. Those who supported Fraser’s prohibition movement mixed pig food into wine jars so that the drinkers could not drink it even if they wanted to.
No smoking is also the rule of the local church. Opium cultivation used to be the main source of income for the Lisu people, and many local people smoked opium. Firmly opposing these, Fraser clearly stipulated that people who grew, smoked, or sold opium could not be baptized. In order to change this situation, Fraser studied the local soil to introduce economic crops such as sugar beets.
The Lisu people have a talent for singing. The biography of Fraser, written by Eileen Crossman, his second daughter, wrote in the book Mountain Rain that when missionaries taught them the four voices, their singing surprised and mesmerized the missionaries.
But several pastors shared their worries about the situation of the church.
In his fifties with more than 30 years of serving in the local area, Pastor La said that the local people already knew that there is a God, but many refused to believe and follow Him. In addition, the congregations who regularly meet were still lacking a thirst for the truth.
A female Christian surnamed Li, who worried about the inheritance of the faith, said that some young people were stealing, drinking, and unwilling to accept the Christian faith. She called on others to pray for their faith.
"What we lack most is a leader. We need someone who really knows God to lead." Li said that some elderly believers could not read the scriptures by themselves, and they just listened to whatever the pastors said. Pastors with experience and capability were particularly important, she continued.
A male believer with the surname of Zhang, who collects and sorts out the history of the church in Nujiang Prefecture, said that the decline of local belief situation was related to the social environment. Now that the roads have been built and many things from outside have entered the region, they have more temptations compared with the past closed environment with Christianity as the mainstream. But he believed that people who grew up in the Christian atmosphere would return to the Christian faith sooner or later.
Although the local churches face many problems, there are church staff who visit the mentally ill people, serve to train orphans, and give medical treatment and medicine to needy people. They have been doing so for over ten or even twenty years, needing new co-workers to join them.
- Translated by Oliver Zuo
[Feature] Centennial Course of 'A Corn of Wheat' That Has Fallen into Nujiang Grand Canyon
