China

Many Chinese Christians have not registered with the government-authorised church, the "Three Self Patriotic Movement". Instead, believers worship in a network of underground house churches.

The Chinese government is cracking down on these churches. In March 2003, the National People's Congress launched a "Strike Hard" campaign against all "unauthorised" churches. Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers will at any time disrupt a house church, close it down and arrest its leaders.

A Bible League-trained worker personally attests to this threat…

"One Sunday morning in May, while we were meeting, PSB officers suddenly broke through the door and arrested three women. The officers interrogated the women for a whole day before letting them go. According to a local co-worker, the reason for the arrests was because the country was planning to begin an official Three Self Church. They carried out the raid to force house churches to either register or close."

To stop the outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), all travel and transportation was frozen. This suspended travel for church planting and Bible study activities. The transport of Scriptures to and within China was also halted for several months.

Despite these threats, believers gather to worship at increasing rates.

Even though the government supplies a limited number of Bibles through "authorised" churches, more than 50 million Christians - primarily those in house church networks - still need Bibles. In some Chinese churches there are only one or two Bibles for every thousand believers.

Caleb expresses this need…

"I got up every morning at 3:00 am to read someone else's Bible. I had to hand copy the words of the Bible. I copied five very thick notebooks, each with more than 200 pages and I filled them up with my handwritten Scriptures. I always cried tears as I copied, the words were so precious."

"Once I was able to borrow a Bible for a whole week and I copied for seven days and seven nights, non-stop. When tired, I just laid my head on the desk, and when I recovered a little bit, I continued copying. After one year of serving the Lord, I got a Bible."

Bible League has been answering that need, with over 800,000 Scriptures provided to Christians in China during 2004.

Each £2.70 you give will not only print a Bible and ship it but also place it into the hands of someone like Caleb who's longing for it.

Why not respond to this opportunity to provide Bibles to people like Caleb? Click here