Fundraising To Help Christian Church Building In China

Gurao Township is located in the north-west of Chaoyang District, Shantou City, some 400 kilometres east of Guangzhou, or approx 300 kilometres north-east of Hong Kong. Gurao Township has a population of around 130,000 (or around 180,000, including temporary residents working in the town from other provinces of China) and a territorial area of approx 70 square kilometres.

The Chinese meaning of Gurao is "abundant harvest of crops from the fertile land". Indeed, Gurao is a piece of very fertile land. Recorded agricultural production dated back to Song Dynasty (960AD). Major crops in this area include rice, wheat, sweet potato and sugar canes. The area also produces beautiful fruits, such as longan, lychee, mango, banana and many other types of native fruits.

In the last decade or two, the economic reform policy of the Chinese government has helped the rapid transformation of Gurao Township into a well-developed commercial area, with a greatly increased industrial output and a much reduced reliance on agricultural production. Today, the Township has an annual industrial output of 8.3 billion RMB (approx AU$1.4b) and an annual agricultural output of 130 million RMB (approx AU$22m) (note: 2008 figures).

Buddhism and Taoism are the major religions in this area. Although Christianity has been preached in this area since the 1860s, for the general population very little is understood about the Gospel and eternity. The so-called "Cultural Revolution" in the 1960-70s is proven to be particularly unhelpful, as Christianity was labelled "anti-revolutionary" and was banned during that period of time. It is of great sadness to see so few in this piece of fertile land knows God's love for them (John 3:16).

Under the political and economical reform policy initiated by Mr. Deng Xiaoping since 1986, Christianity is allowed to preach again. It is exciting to know that Maoguang Christian Church has re-established itself from a limited number of "underground" Christians during the "Cultural Revolution" and the congregation of the Church has grown steadily to almost 1000 in recent years. However, noticeably, this number is still very small compared to the 180,000 population of Gurao Township (Luke 10:2).

Pray that God pours His grace over the people of Gurao and each and every neighborhood of the 1.3 billion population of China (Psalms 67:1-7, 2 Peter 3:9).