Feeding Hungry Hearts

Ian R. Posted on 18 January 2012.

It is hard to believe that Antioch Missions-Chinese Church Support Ministries is celebrating 25 years of service in China. I personally have been serving the church in China for just over 21 years and I thought I would share with you some of the changes that I have seen in the literature work over those years.

It was 1988 when we printed our first Christian teaching books, printing 20,000 that year. I guess 20,000 seemed a lot of books then. The following year we did not print any books, but then printed 40,000 in 1990.

In those days our printing was done outside of China. Some books were printed in Hong Kong, but the majority of books were printed in Thailand. The problem we had then was getting the books over the border to China. We used several methods for doing this, but the most popular was using people to hand carry the books over the border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. That was my first involvement with China. I used to make the daily crossing from Hong Kong to China carrying cases and bags full of books. I would often dress as a business man with suit and shirt and tie. I would carry a briefcase full of books and a small case or holdall also full of books. I would join the thousands of people lining up at the border waiting to go through customs and enter China. As I neared the customs point, I would pray that the Lord would distract the guards so that they did not see what I had in my cases. Sometimes I would walk right past the scanning machines; other times I would have to put my cases on the machines and pray that the books would not be spotted. Praise the Lord that in all the years I did this I was only stopped on one occasion.

We would take the books to a safe house in Shenzhen where the books would be stored until we had sufficient quantity to move on to other provinces in China. It was 1993 when I took the first AM-CCSM courier team to China doing these border crossings. When we had a large supply of books in the safe house, we would pack holdalls and cases full of books. We would have as many as three bags each, all weighing around 30kg and we would head for the train to take these to our contacts in other provinces. We would spend up to twenty four hours on the train before we reached our destination. It was such a welcoming sight to see our contacts and to watch the expression on their faces when they saw the large amount of bags and even greater number of books. They were so thrilled and often shed tears of happiness.

By the mid-1990s we were starting to do some printing inside China. We had found a printer who wanted to print these books for us. The printer knew the risk being taken but also knew the need and was prepared to take the risk so that the believers could get the much needed Christian teaching books.

We started to print more books. In 1992 we printed 90,000, 1997 we printed 207,000, and in 1999 we printed just over half a million books. The Lord was indeed blessing the work and helping us meet the demand.

It was about this time that we started to get more printers wanting to print books for us and so now we decided it was time to do all our printing inside China. This meant that we could print even more books as it was cheaper to print inside China, and it also meant that the distribution was easier and cheaper.

We used our courier teams to move books around. The teams would collect the books from our store house in the same way that they used to collect the books before and they would move them around to our different contacts. Our printers also distributed books for us.

In 2002 we were delighted to print one million books. That was indeed a milestone as we had never printed so many books in one year before. Yet, although we had printed so many books, we still found it difficult to keep up with the demand. We were getting requests for books each month and always more requests than we could meet. Every time we made a delivery the contact would say, "When can we have more?" It was heartbreaking knowing there were still millions of people in need, but also exciting and rewarding knowing that we were making a difference.

In 2008 we printed one and a half million books, but still that was not enough to meet the demand. We were determined to carry on. In 2009 we again printed over one and a half million books.

It was about this time that we also started to produce DVDs. We were delighted to be asked by Rev David Pawson to take his material into China. We took his series of videos ‘Unlocking the Bible' and, working with another ministry, put them onto DVD, translating his teaching and dubbing this onto the DVDs. Ninety-six talks were put onto a set of thirteen DVDs. This was a long task but well worth it when we started to get feedback from our contacts. These DVDs were proving to be precious and the demand for them to this day is great.

It was also around that time that my colleague John and myself visited a village church. We were invited to go and visit because we had sent a few books to them and they wanted to meet us. This turned out to be one of the most memorable visits I have made. I am sure many of you will have heard the story so I won't go into all the details, but one of the things that stood out to me was that we met a pastor from a city church. He had heard we would be there and wanted to come along to meet us. He was in tears through the service that we held and after the meeting I spoke to him to try to find out why. He said he had been leading the city church for over twenty years and this was the first time he had seen a Christian teaching book. It really hit home to me that there must still be thousands, if not millions, of believers who still had not had the joy of receiving a Christian teaching book. It was a humbling experience. John and I prayed for all the people in the village church before we left. After our return we heard that all the people who were prayed for were healed and that the church had doubled in size. What a mighty God we serve!

We now had a good network of printers printing in three different provinces and our distribution network was working well. We were now delivering books to every province in China. In 2010, we printed over 1.7 million books and produced 1,100 sets of the ‘Unlocking the Bible' DVDs (14,300 DVDs in total).

Because of the excellent delivery network we now had we decided it was time to call a halt to the courier teams. This was a very hard decision to make but after much prayer we felt the Lord was saying that the season for the couriers was now at an end. After twenty years of courier work it seemed a big chunk of me had been taken away, but this is what the Lord was saying for now. The couriers had served well and had helped make a difference to the lives of millions of people. I will never forget those people who gave up their time and money to join the courier teams to serve the believers in China. I know they will never forget their time doing that amazing work and the stories of the people they met will remain with them for their whole lives.

So we come up to date. In 2011 we again printed and distributed one million books. We distributed 13,200 sets of the ‘Unlocking the Bible' DVDs and took on a new series by David Pawson called ‘The Five Covenants of Scripture'. We now have over seventy-five book titles and by the time you read this will have three sets of talks on DVD. We continue to press on to try to meet the demand. With so many people turning to the Lord each day in China, the demand is as great, if not greater than ever. The world is in difficult financial times, but we look to the Lord to supply. As I look to where the finance will come to print the books and copy the DVDs, I am constantly reminding myself that it is His work and He will supply in His way.

If you would like to be involved in providing the much needed Christian teaching books to our brothers and sisters in China, then please get in touch with your local office.

"I have a burden to spread Christian books. When I found out that there are brothers and sisters working on that, I felt so thankful to the Lord! The messages bring us to a new level of understanding of the Scriptures. They nourish our spiritual life and make us clear about our mission. I believe they will also set the Chinese church on fire! Thanks for your support and love for us." - Sister Y, a Chinese believer

"We were amazed and humbled at how God led us, blinding the eyes of airport officials, preventing scanners from reading accurately and on one occasion sending an angel (I believe) to help me out of a tight spot, which could have led to my luggage being searched." - Courier Team Member

"Thank you for providing those books and DVDs. We got great nourishment from them. Every book gave us deep blessing and help. They helped us to know the Father more deeply and also to correct previous misunderstandings about the Lord. Thank you for your hard work." - Brother T, a Chinese believer

"The trolleys were very heavy and the team somewhat nervous as we approached the station and the scanners. My normal practice is to go through first and have the others follow in pairs. I also look at the screens and prayerfully marvel how the guards let through the trolleys clearly full of books, which appear as a large solid block. There is no disguising the fact that they are bags full of books. I always impress this on my team and make them understand that they are entirely dependent on the grace of God to get through. On this occasion I helped a number of team members through before looking at the screens. When I did look, I saw the handles of the trolleys coming through on the screen, but when I expected to see the black block of books, there was nothing whatsoever on the screen until the wheels came through. I have never seen anything like this before and have no logical explanation except yet another blessing from God." - Courier Team Leader

"Through your books and DVDs the churches in the Southwest and Northern areas have been blessed, and the evangelistic work has been extended. The books are very helpful for individual spiritual growth in the small fellowship groups. All of us church leaders also get great help from them. May the Lord bless your work! May more hungry hearts be blessed through your work!" - Brother S, a Chinese believer