Late 20th Century 1989

Henan and Anhul, China

Dennis Balcombe

Dennis Balcombe, pastor of the Revival Christian Church in Hong Kong, regularly visits China. He has reported on revival there.

In 1989 Henan preachers visited North Anhul province and found several thousand believers in the care of an older pastor from Shanghai. At their first night meeting with 1,000 present, 30 were baptized in the icy winter. The first baptized was a lady who had convulsions if she went into water. She was healed of that and other ills, and found the water warm. A 12-year-old boy who was deaf and dumb was baptized and spoke, “Mother, Father, the water is not cold—the water is not cold.” An aged lady nearly 90, disabled after an accident while in her 20’s, was completely healed in the water. By the third and fourth nights over 1,000 were baptized.

A young evangelist, Enchuan, 20 years old in 1990, had been leading evangelistic teams since he was 17. He said, “When the church first sent us out to preach the Gospel, after two to three months of ministering we usually saw 20–30 converts. But now it is not 20. It is 200, 300, and often 600 or more will be converted.”

Sister Wei, 22 years old in 1991, spent 48 days in prison for leading open-air worship. She saw many healings in prison and many conversions.

On March 12, 1991, The South China Morning Post acknowledged there were a million Christians in central Henan province, many having made previously unheard of decisions to voluntarily withdraw from the Communist party. “While political activities are cold-shouldered, religious ones are drawing large crowds” (Balcombe 1991, 1–2).

Dennis Balcombe reported in a newsletter on August 27, 1994:

This year has seen the greatest revival in Chinese history. Some provinces have seen over 100,000 conversions during the first half of this year. Because of this, the need for Bibles is greater than ever. This year we have distributed to the house churches over 650,000 New Testaments, about 60,000 whole Bibles, one million Gospel booklets and thousands of other books (Balcombe 1994, 1–2).

Revival continues in China with mighty signs and wonders amid severe persecution, just as in the early Church.

© Geoff Waugh. Used by permission.