Editor's note: Elder Gong, The director of the CC&TSPM in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, came to believe in Jesus at the age of 18. He became the first young Christian in the church when China was adopting the opening-up policy. Over the following three decades, he grew from an ordinary believer to serving the church and finally to leading the churches of Duchang County. He has experienced various difficulties and God's faithful guidance all along the way.
Now 53, Gong shared his testimony and the development of Duchang County's churches over the past three decades.
After China adopted the opening-up policy, the churches of Duchang County had good conditions for growth. Though there were very few believers in the countryside at that time, the end of the 80s to the beginning of the 90s was a good time for the reviving rural church. During that decade of cultural reformation, old Christians were all driven to the countryside because of the government's persecution against Christianity but they remained faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. The following is Gong's story.
My father died when I was 13. As the eldest son, I needed to take care of my 5 young sisters and brothers, so I was compelled to drop out of school and help my mom raise my 5 siblings. Due to poverty, only one of my brothers went to school.
When I was 17 years old, the farming field of the village was divided among the families according to the number of family members. Because my family had many people, we had more land. However, with such a small labor force I had to go out and work at dawn, and if I failed to finish my work for the day I would continue working in the evening until I finished it. This experience as I grew up formed my stubborn and unusual personality. I said to myself, "I will finish the work I was determined to do even if I had to go hungry."
In addition to tiring physical labor, I had to bear pressure from the people around me. The snobbish people in the countryside would often bully my family because we did not have a father and were poor. However, I did not tolerate them. I started fights with people. I took a knife with me. After I had 2 dangerous fights my mom realized that I was not teachable and wanted to end her life, which made me panic. I thought to myself, "What should I do? I am too stubborn. If my mom dies because of me, I do not want to live any longer."
At that time, there was a Christian couple in our village whom I often helped with their farming work. They told me that I had a good heart but I had to change my stubbornness. Otherwise, I would surely cause my mom to die. I told them that I could not change myself. Then they said to me, "Follow us in believing in Jesus. God can change you!" So I started to follow the couple, believing in Jesus at 18.
When I started going to church there was a pastor, Renshan Wang, age 65. He was the first pastor in Duchang in Jiangxi Province and had graduated from Sichuan Seminary. When the seniors knew that I, the only young man in the church, wanted to believe in Jesus, they prayed for me while kneeling down. That is how I came to believe in Jesus.
I accepted Jesus in 1983 with only 8 churches in the county; Without a nearby church building, believers gathered for worship in their homes. I was only 19 at the time and all the other believers of the church were seniors. Seeing that I had become the only young Christian of the church not because of my illness or being healed as others had, some of the seniors were very happy.
When I had still been attending church for less than 5 weeks, I wanted to give up because there was so much farming work to do at home and the journey to the church was long and difficult for me to walk on foot. I also did not want to lose face before people. On the way to the church, I had to pass by many villages and people who knew me, including my friends. When they saw me following a group of seniors they knew that I believed in Jesus, which made me feel embarrassed.
When I decided not to attend Church the next week, I became ill. A tumor appeared in my feet and caused me great pain to me. For 40 days, although a doctor cut it off, it kept appearing. Suffering pain, I lost my appetite and could not sleep. As a result, I lost significant weight. After hearing the doctor's diagnosis that the tumor was in the bones, my mom cried before my father's tomb saying, "our son is hopeless." Then the old couple came to my home to see my mom. They told her that her son wanted to give up on believing in Jesus despite the fact that his name had been included in the book of life in heaven. He needed to repent of the sin of saying he wanted to stop believing in Jesus, which had offended God deeply although many people had prayed for him.
I thought, "There is no other way for me to be healed. If God could perform a miracle on me by healing my feet in a week, I would believe in Jesus again." Then some seniors came to my home to pray for me for three days. A week later I was completely healed of the tumor on my feet and I could set my feet on the ground to walk. But thinking that I had to go to church each week I began to hesitate again. When I was struggling, Pastor Wang came to my home. I told him that I could believe in Jesus but I could not guarantee that I could attend the Sunday service each week. After hearing me, he said, "It is OK."
When I was 21 years old, I married and had children. I was happy but according to the fortunetelling in the village, either my son or I would die. Because of this, I said to myself that I had to believe in Jesus for the sake of my son. My son is now 32.
I would also like to talk about my mother-in-law's three experiences with the Lord when she was living with us, helping to care for our children. The first time she experienced the Lord was when my son was 6 months old. She brought a superstitious symbol of protection to our home and I tore it down. As she slept next to my wife in the bed she saw a glorious light filling the bed. The second experience with the Lord was when she saw an angel in white clothes in our home. We had flooring in the ceiling and on the ground at that time. When she saw the angel's head in the ceiling and its feet on the ground, she said to us that it must be a demon.
Knowing Jesus, my wife told her that it had to be Jesus. Then she cried, "Lord, I thank you!" Suddenly, the shadow of the person disappeared. Several months later my son was about to be 1 year old. Living in the old house, we had never opened the window which was firm and strong. One night at 4 am the window was suddenly opened and I immediately cried, "Lord, save me!" From then on, my faith in Jesus became stronger.
In 1985 I was baptized and built a church in our hometown. In less than 2 years, that church grew from having only 7 believers to more than 30, and I built 5 family churches around our village before 1987. In 1989, The Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church was formed in Duchang and I was appointed as secretary with Pastor Wang as the director. Learning from Pastor Wang, I began to learn how to manage a church and my stubbornness was gradually changed also.
My wife was baptized into Christ in 1992 although she had believed in Jesus earlier. Because I was busy with church affairs she had to take care of our family and lacked time to attend the worship service. In 1992, with our son growing up and my younger sisters and brothers all having built their homes, she officially believed in Jesus and started attending services on Sundays. Now our family have all become Christians. My mother-in-law who used to worship idols believed in Jesus in 1989 and my cousin, her six daughters, and my aunt all came to believe in Jesus after they saw my change in the Lord.
In 1993, our village was rated a civilized village. There were 43 families in the village and 20 of them believed in Jesus. The government in town wanted me to be the village director, but requested that I stop believing in Jesus. I rejected the offer because my life was given by the Lord and my family's destiny had been changed by God.
We lived in the old house until 1995 when I built two new houses. I built a church in 1996 and covered 10% of the cost for building the church. There were 42 churches at the time with 8 church buildings, but the number of believers had reached up to 5,000.
In 1998, a flood happened in Duchang County and many people's houses were flooded. However, my houses and the church's building were spared from the flood because of their height, so more than 200 fellow countrymen came to the church's building and our home to seek shelter. They said to me, "You are truly a man of God." That is how I received their approval for my faith. It was in the same year that I was recommended as the director of the CCC&TSPM in Duchang.
In Duchang's churches, teachers need to receive theological training and pass a test to receive a certificate before they are allowed to preach, and a writing ministry was developed as well, led by a retired principal. He had served for a while as the director of the Christian Association of the county before he came to believe in Jesus in 2011.
Regarding Jiujiang city, Duchang county has more churches and more believers than any other place. There are 15,000 believers now and the pastors' responsibility is great. In 2008, I was transferred and served in the CCC&TSPM of Jiujiang until 2015. I returned to Duchang when the church there experienced problems with constructing its buildings.
- Translated by Alvin Zhou
编者按：江西九江市基督教两会负责人龚长老是在改革开放前后信主的，18岁的他是当时教会唯一的一名年轻人；信主30多年来，他从普通的信徒到参加教会侍奉，再到都昌县全县教会的负责人，期间经历种种坎坷，也经历神一步步的带领。
53岁的他和笔者分享了个人信主经历以及三十多年来都昌县教会的发展。
改革开放后，都昌县教会发展的条件基本上也是比较开放的，那个时候农村信徒好少，却是极好的时光，80年代末到90年代末，整个乡下的教会非常复兴。当时老基督徒都在乡下，文革十年动乱，大家虽然都被打成“牛鬼蛇神”，对基督的衷心却没有改变。
我是在1983年信主的，当时全县只有8个教会，没有教堂，信徒都在家里聚会。当时我只有19岁，那时候信耶稣的都是老人家，只有我一个年轻人，当时几位长辈都很高兴，而且我还不是因病信主的（当时农村很多人信耶稣都是因为病得医治）。
父亲在我13岁时去世，身为家中长子，我要照顾5个年幼的弟弟妹妹，不得已辍学回家种田，和妈妈相依为命把弟弟妹妹带大。由于家里穷，我们基本上都没有读书，只有一个弟弟上学。
我17岁时，村子里开始实行分产到户，由于家里人口多，田地多，劳力又少，天刚蒙蒙亮就去干活，白天做不完就晚上补着做。从小的经历塑造了我的性格，那时又倔强又古怪，“我认定的事情一定要做完，这块地今天我要犁完，就算不吃饭不睡觉也要做完”。
除了沉重的体力劳动，还有来自周围环境的压力，乡下人相当势利眼，因为家里没有父亲，又穷，常常有人欺负。我是不让的，18岁的时候跟别人打架，带着刀，是要跟他们拼命的。这样打了两次架，妈妈管不了我，要去寻短见。我就慌了，“我该怎么办，我的性格太硬了，如果妈妈因为我死了，那我也活不下去了……”
那时村里有一对信耶稣的老人，我也经常帮助他们干点活，他们跟我说，你的心是好的，但是你的性格一定要改，不改的话你妈妈一定会死的。可是没办法，我的性格已经养成了。他们说，“你跟着我，信耶稣，上帝可以改变你”。于是在18岁的时候，我就跟着他们信耶稣了。
当时万仞山牧师在都昌，他是江西省第一个牧师，四川神学院毕业，当时已经65岁了。我是当时都昌教会第一个年轻人，走进教会，都是老人，他们知道我想要信主，40多个人跪在那里为我祷告，我是这样才信了耶稣。
每个主日过去做礼拜，做了不到5个礼拜，我就不想去了。因为家里有很多田地，很忙，去教会路也很远，要步行过去。另一个原因是面子问题，去教会要经过很多村庄，路上会碰到很多熟人、朋友，都认识我，他们看我跟着几个老人，就知道我信耶稣了，很尴尬。
刚打算下个礼拜不去了，我马上就发病了，平时是不生病的，当时不知怎么脚上就生了一个肿瘤，疼得要死，医生开刀割了又长出来，整整40天，吃不下睡不着，整个人骨瘦如柴，当时妈妈坐在爸爸坟前哭，说儿子完蛋了，医生说这是骨头里面长了肿瘤。后来是那一对老人来到我家，找到我的妈妈说，你的儿子打算不信耶稣，但是他的名字已经放在生命册上了，这么多人已经为他祷告，说不信耶稣，这句话得罪了上帝，他要悔改。
我想着，也没有其他办法了，就说如果真的上帝能够显灵在我身上，让我的脚一个礼拜能够好，我就回过头来信。接下来，远近的老人家就连续三天来我家为我祷告，一个礼拜，完全好了，可以下地走路了。可是我又犹豫了，这该怎么办呢？正在纠结的时候，万牧师就来了，我只能告诉他说我信是要信，但是不能保证每个礼拜都去教会，他说可以。
我在21岁的时候，结婚生子，本来很幸福。村里当时流行算命，一算命，说儿子要死，“不是儿子死，就是我死，家里没有好的”，我就在想，好吧，为了儿子一定要信耶稣了。本来算命的人说孩子活不过一岁，结果现在大儿子都32岁了。
再说岳母三次经历主的事，当时她在我们家里住，帮着照看孩子。第一次是儿子刚好半岁，岳母拿到家里来的符都被我撕掉了，那一天岳母和妻子在床上睡觉，突然看到床上全部都是荣光，这是第一次；第二次是看到一个白衣天使，当时我家上面有楼板，下面是地板，那个天使头在上面，脚在下面，岳母说这是家里出了鬼，当时妻子是知道耶稣的，她告诉母亲，这肯定是耶稣，并呼喊“主啊，我感谢你”，然后人影就像烟雾一样消失了；又过了好几个月，孩子要满周岁了，那个时候住的是老房子，窗子从来没有打开过，用纸糊的严严实实的，那个夜晚也很安静，在凌晨四点的时候，窗户却突然打开了，我立马喊道，“主啊，求你救救我”。打那以后，我就更加死心塌地的信耶稣。
1985年我正式受洗成为基督徒，并在家里建立了教会，当时只有7个信徒，不到两年，发展到30多个，到了1987年，就在村子附近建立了5个教会，都是家庭教会（在某个信徒家里聚会）。1989年都昌县成立三自爱国会，我开始担任秘书长，万牧师任主任，我跟着万牧师开始更多学习如何治理教会，原本刚硬的性格也开始慢慢改变。
妻子在92年正式受洗归主，其实她早就信了，只是我忙于教会的事情，一大家子人需要她来管，没有时间去聚会。92年，儿子长大了，弟弟妹妹都盖了房子，她才信了耶稣，礼拜天可以去聚会。现在我们一整个家族都信主了，原本拜偶像的岳母在89年就信耶稣了，表姐、姑妈，我的姑妈有6个女儿，也都因为看见我的改变信主了。
1993年，我们村子因为风气好被评为文明村，当时村子有43户人家，其中有20户都信了耶稣，将近一半是基督徒。镇上想让我当村主任，可是有一个要求，就是不能信耶稣。我拒绝了。我的生命是主给的，整个家的命运都是上帝扭转的。
以前住的一直是老房子，1995年的时候，我在村里盖了两栋房子。房子盖好后，96年又在附近建了教堂。建堂的每项费用我个人都献上百分之十，那时，全县一共有42个教会，教堂只有8个，信徒已经发展到5000名。
1998年，都昌县发了洪灾，人们家里都淹了，而我家后来盖的两栋房子和教堂由于地势偏高，免遭灾害，当时乡亲们200多号人都在教堂和我家里面避难，他们说，“你真是上帝的使者”，就这样得到了乡亲们的见证。也是在那一年被推举担任都昌县基督教两会主任。
在都昌县基督教会，传道人需要经过神学培训考核，拿到证件才能讲道。当时也开展了文字事工，是一个退休的老校长负责的；这个老校长也担任过一段时间县基督教协会会长，后来于2011年蒙召归主。
就整个九江来说，都昌县是教会最多、信徒最多的地方，目前约有15000名信徒，牧养任务艰巨，2008年，我被调到九江市基督教两会担任工作，直到2015年都昌教会建堂出现问题，才又回到都昌。
九江龚长老分享改革开放时信主经历
Editor's note: Elder Gong, The director of the CC&TSPM in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, came to believe in Jesus at the age of 18. He became the first young Christian in the church when China was adopting the opening-up policy. Over the following three decades, he grew from an ordinary believer to serving the church and finally to leading the churches of Duchang County. He has experienced various difficulties and God's faithful guidance all along the way.
Now 53, Gong shared his testimony and the development of Duchang County's churches over the past three decades.
After China adopted the opening-up policy, the churches of Duchang County had good conditions for growth. Though there were very few believers in the countryside at that time, the end of the 80s to the beginning of the 90s was a good time for the reviving rural church. During that decade of cultural reformation, old Christians were all driven to the countryside because of the government's persecution against Christianity but they remained faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. The following is Gong's story.
My father died when I was 13. As the eldest son, I needed to take care of my 5 young sisters and brothers, so I was compelled to drop out of school and help my mom raise my 5 siblings. Due to poverty, only one of my brothers went to school.
When I was 17 years old, the farming field of the village was divided among the families according to the number of family members. Because my family had many people, we had more land. However, with such a small labor force I had to go out and work at dawn, and if I failed to finish my work for the day I would continue working in the evening until I finished it. This experience as I grew up formed my stubborn and unusual personality. I said to myself, "I will finish the work I was determined to do even if I had to go hungry."
In addition to tiring physical labor, I had to bear pressure from the people around me. The snobbish people in the countryside would often bully my family because we did not have a father and were poor. However, I did not tolerate them. I started fights with people. I took a knife with me. After I had 2 dangerous fights my mom realized that I was not teachable and wanted to end her life, which made me panic. I thought to myself, "What should I do? I am too stubborn. If my mom dies because of me, I do not want to live any longer."
At that time, there was a Christian couple in our village whom I often helped with their farming work. They told me that I had a good heart but I had to change my stubbornness. Otherwise, I would surely cause my mom to die. I told them that I could not change myself. Then they said to me, "Follow us in believing in Jesus. God can change you!" So I started to follow the couple, believing in Jesus at 18.
When I started going to church there was a pastor, Renshan Wang, age 65. He was the first pastor in Duchang in Jiangxi Province and had graduated from Sichuan Seminary. When the seniors knew that I, the only young man in the church, wanted to believe in Jesus, they prayed for me while kneeling down. That is how I came to believe in Jesus.
I accepted Jesus in 1983 with only 8 churches in the county; Without a nearby church building, believers gathered for worship in their homes. I was only 19 at the time and all the other believers of the church were seniors. Seeing that I had become the only young Christian of the church not because of my illness or being healed as others had, some of the seniors were very happy.
When I had still been attending church for less than 5 weeks, I wanted to give up because there was so much farming work to do at home and the journey to the church was long and difficult for me to walk on foot. I also did not want to lose face before people. On the way to the church, I had to pass by many villages and people who knew me, including my friends. When they saw me following a group of seniors they knew that I believed in Jesus, which made me feel embarrassed.
When I decided not to attend Church the next week, I became ill. A tumor appeared in my feet and caused me great pain to me. For 40 days, although a doctor cut it off, it kept appearing. Suffering pain, I lost my appetite and could not sleep. As a result, I lost significant weight. After hearing the doctor's diagnosis that the tumor was in the bones, my mom cried before my father's tomb saying, "our son is hopeless." Then the old couple came to my home to see my mom. They told her that her son wanted to give up on believing in Jesus despite the fact that his name had been included in the book of life in heaven. He needed to repent of the sin of saying he wanted to stop believing in Jesus, which had offended God deeply although many people had prayed for him.
I thought, "There is no other way for me to be healed. If God could perform a miracle on me by healing my feet in a week, I would believe in Jesus again." Then some seniors came to my home to pray for me for three days. A week later I was completely healed of the tumor on my feet and I could set my feet on the ground to walk. But thinking that I had to go to church each week I began to hesitate again. When I was struggling, Pastor Wang came to my home. I told him that I could believe in Jesus but I could not guarantee that I could attend the Sunday service each week. After hearing me, he said, "It is OK."
When I was 21 years old, I married and had children. I was happy but according to the fortunetelling in the village, either my son or I would die. Because of this, I said to myself that I had to believe in Jesus for the sake of my son. My son is now 32.
I would also like to talk about my mother-in-law's three experiences with the Lord when she was living with us, helping to care for our children. The first time she experienced the Lord was when my son was 6 months old. She brought a superstitious symbol of protection to our home and I tore it down. As she slept next to my wife in the bed she saw a glorious light filling the bed. The second experience with the Lord was when she saw an angel in white clothes in our home. We had flooring in the ceiling and on the ground at that time. When she saw the angel's head in the ceiling and its feet on the ground, she said to us that it must be a demon.
Knowing Jesus, my wife told her that it had to be Jesus. Then she cried, "Lord, I thank you!" Suddenly, the shadow of the person disappeared. Several months later my son was about to be 1 year old. Living in the old house, we had never opened the window which was firm and strong. One night at 4 am the window was suddenly opened and I immediately cried, "Lord, save me!" From then on, my faith in Jesus became stronger.
In 1985 I was baptized and built a church in our hometown. In less than 2 years, that church grew from having only 7 believers to more than 30, and I built 5 family churches around our village before 1987. In 1989, The Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church was formed in Duchang and I was appointed as secretary with Pastor Wang as the director. Learning from Pastor Wang, I began to learn how to manage a church and my stubbornness was gradually changed also.
My wife was baptized into Christ in 1992 although she had believed in Jesus earlier. Because I was busy with church affairs she had to take care of our family and lacked time to attend the worship service. In 1992, with our son growing up and my younger sisters and brothers all having built their homes, she officially believed in Jesus and started attending services on Sundays. Now our family have all become Christians. My mother-in-law who used to worship idols believed in Jesus in 1989 and my cousin, her six daughters, and my aunt all came to believe in Jesus after they saw my change in the Lord.
In 1993, our village was rated a civilized village. There were 43 families in the village and 20 of them believed in Jesus. The government in town wanted me to be the village director, but requested that I stop believing in Jesus. I rejected the offer because my life was given by the Lord and my family's destiny had been changed by God.
We lived in the old house until 1995 when I built two new houses. I built a church in 1996 and covered 10% of the cost for building the church. There were 42 churches at the time with 8 church buildings, but the number of believers had reached up to 5,000.
In 1998, a flood happened in Duchang County and many people's houses were flooded. However, my houses and the church's building were spared from the flood because of their height, so more than 200 fellow countrymen came to the church's building and our home to seek shelter. They said to me, "You are truly a man of God." That is how I received their approval for my faith. It was in the same year that I was recommended as the director of the CCC&TSPM in Duchang.
In Duchang's churches, teachers need to receive theological training and pass a test to receive a certificate before they are allowed to preach, and a writing ministry was developed as well, led by a retired principal. He had served for a while as the director of the Christian Association of the county before he came to believe in Jesus in 2011.
Regarding Jiujiang city, Duchang county has more churches and more believers than any other place. There are 15,000 believers now and the pastors' responsibility is great. In 2008, I was transferred and served in the CCC&TSPM of Jiujiang until 2015. I returned to Duchang when the church there experienced problems with constructing its buildings.
- Translated by Alvin Zhou
Rural Christian’s Story of Trust and Faithfulness
