A woman worshipping at the feet of a massive (108-meter or 354-feet high) statue of the goddess Guanyin in Hainan.
A palm tree on the beach on the southern tip of Hainan, at a place the Chinese call Tianya Haijiao
(‘the end of the earth’).
Hainan is also from where China launches many of their ‘spy balloons’ that circumnavigate the globe collecting data, including the one that hovered over sensitive military sites in the United States in early 2023, before it was shot down. In the coming years, the world is likely to hear much more troubling news about this strategic part of the world.
As we have researched and written each book in The China Chronicles, it has become apparent that not only is each region of China unique, but the way God has worked throughout history to glorify His Name is also different in each place.
Hainan had very few Christians until the 1990s, when God transformed the island with a powerful revival, sweeping hundreds of thousands of people into His kingdom.
Uniquely, the instrument the Lord used to impact the island was not a Chinese church leader, but a humble American Baptist missionary family, who implemented God-given strategies that resulted in a revival so powerful that house church leaders from other parts of China traveled to the island to learn from it.
You can order a paperback or digital copy of the book
here.
In this newsletter we are pleased to announce the eighth book in our series on the mighty revival that has swept China during the past 50 years. The China Chronicles are proving to be a great encouragement and are enriching the lives of those who read them.
Hainan is a small tropical island province situated off China’s southern coast. Once nicknamed ‘The Gateway to Hell,’ Hainan had few Christians until the 1990s, when God sent a powerful revival which touched every part of society there. Today, Hainan is home to more than 600,000 vibrant Christians.
Learn how the Lord Jesus Christ established His kingdom in Hainan, and the surprising vessels and strategies He chose to impact the island.
The growth of the Church in Hainan did not come without intense struggle, with many believers suffering for their faith.
The fire of the Holy Spirit fell here with great power, and subsequently the book contains numerous firsthand accounts of ‘power encounters’ against the forces of darkness which transformed entire communities.
The remainder of this newsletter has excerpts from ‘HAINAN: Pearl of the South China Sea.”
Photo: Downtown Haikou, the modern capital city of Hainan.
The Qigong Master's Defeat
As revival began to spread in Hainan in the early 1990s, the forces of darkness rose in opposition and tried to snuff out the movement. Christ’s followers, however, learned to stand in the full armor of God and battle against these insidious dark forces, emerging victorious on many occasions.
After being developed millennia ago as part of traditional Chinese medicine, Qigong (pronounced ‘chee-gong’) had gained great popularity among millions of people in China. Although in Western nations today it is merely considered a helpful breathing and exercise regime, in China it has morphed to include a dark spiritual element characterized by power encounters, miracles, healings, and unusual events.
Qigong proved increasingly attractive to multitudes of people in China who were hungry for spiritual reality to fill the void created by Communism. Mass meetings by Qigong masters were often held in sports stadiums and other large arenas, attended by huge crowds of 50,000 people or more.
Because it is not an organized religion, Qigong was not considered a direct threat to Communist ideology. It became popular even at the top levels of Chinese government, and political leaders were seen on television attending Qigong exhibitions.
A Qigong master named Zhang Zhixiang decided the benefits of Qigong should be made available to all Chinese, so he founded a school to place a Qigong practitioner in every household throughout China, so that their spiritual ‘energy’ would care for the other family members. Children were taught to chant and meditate so they might enjoy the ‘benefits’ for themselves.
In 1992, Zhang visited Hainan to hold exhibitions, where he planned to heal the sick and perform signs and wonders. In the days before he arrived, a massive crime-wave erupted across the island. Nobody understood what was happening. Mass murders, gang rapes, and every conceivable act of demonic filth took place.
Thousands of families were affected in peculiar ways. Many became so desperate for assistance that they visited anyone they thought might have spiritual power to help them. They flocked to Buddhist monks, Daoist priests, and Christian pastors, saying they had family members who had suddenly become demon-possessed. They begged the religious leaders to free their loved ones from the evil powers that had seized them.
In Hainan, the wave of interest in Qigong coincided with the start of the Christian revival, and when news of the Qigong master’s visit emerged, a ministry launched an intercessory prayer initiative, mobilizing believers throughout Hainan and around the world to fast and pray against the evil powers behind Qigong. A newsletter was sent out with the following requests:
“Pray for the breaking down of spiritual strongholds, the dethroning of principalities and powers, for the protection of children, and for God’s light to expose the falsehoods and half-truths of the adversary. Pray for the discrediting of the Qigong movement’s leaders and trainers through illness (to which they are supposedly impervious) or some other means. Pray for their conversion.”
Many Christians responded by crying out to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He answered their fervent prayers.
Much of Hainan Island was abuzz with anticipation in the days leading up to the Qigong master’s visit. The government closed a large market area in downtown Haikou and turned it into a meeting place. A stage and floodlights were erected, and a massive crowd turned up.
Zhang Zhixiang was touted as being able to levitate in public view, and he reputedly had the power to heal all kinds of diseases. It was even announced that he would make his body supernaturally glow during the night meeting.
That night, after he mounted the stage before thousands of adoring spectators, Zhang was completely powerless, and he couldn’t do any miracles at all. No one was healed, and he was unable to levitate. Zhang tried to heal a deaf-mute boy in dramatic fashion but failed, which was quite an embarrassment. The meeting was a huge flop.
When Zhang traveled down the east coast of the island, he stopped at Wenchang to hold a meeting in the town hall. The local officials, however, suddenly changed their minds and he was no longer welcome. Instead, a county official obtained the use of the local school building. Zhang said, “I sense a spiritual opposition here, but we will have the meeting anyway.” When the official who acquired the use of the building was climbing a ladder to put up special lights, he suddenly fell to the floor dead. The meeting was cancelled.
Zhang returned to mainland China after his unsuccessful Hainan experience. His meetings had failed because of Christians’ fervent intercession.
The Piano Player
In a related story, the highest-ranked Qigong master in Hainan at the time was a woman who was also the piano instructor at Haikou University.
Every year a prestigious piano competition was held, which was broadcast throughout China on national television. That year a 19-year-old Christian girl from Hainan won the competition.
As soon as the winner was announced, the television interviewers crowded around the piano instructor, asking how she had been able to train such a great talent.
The woman replied that her success was due to her being a Qigong master. She proudly boasted, “I give all my students amulets to wear, and I teach them how to meditate. I also give them Qigong blessings to help them outperform their competitors.”
The teenage girl who won the competition was a member of a church in Haikou. She felt intimidated by her teacher, but when she heard the Name of Jesus Christ being dishonored on national television, she couldn’t remain silent. She stepped in front of her teacher and boldly proclaimed:
“This is not true! I am a Christian! I have never used this woman’s amulets and I have never practiced Qigong. I was able to win this competition because the Lord God, my Creator, has given me the abilities and honored my hard work to serve Him and glorify His Name.”
After the Christian girl returned to Hainan, she was blacklisted from attending university. She paid a dear price for her bold stand for the Lord, but this was just the beginning of trouble in her life.
One evening she was badly injured in a terrible car crash, which left her in a deep coma. The hospital refused to treat her in the emergency room because she had no money.
It later emerged that the crash had not been an accident at all, but a targeted hit-and-run orchestrated by the Qigong woman who felt she had been publicly humiliated by her Christian student on television.
In God’s providence, local believers heard about the desperate girl and arranged to pay her medical bills from their own meagre resources. The doctors examined her and offered no hope, declaring that if she lived, the massive brain damage she had suffered would leave her in a vegetative state for the rest of her life.
Two Christian nurses, whose lives had been transformed in the revival, decided to visit and pray for her every day. They read the Bible over her and took care of her medical needs, cleaning her and providing physical therapy several times a day.
The nurses also contacted the girl’s family, and two of her sisters traveled from another province to help care for her. They were amazed by the prayers, Bible reading, and loving care they witnessed from the Christians, and they surrendered their lives to Jesus.
After a while the money ran out, and the hospital sent the girl home to die. The two sisters waited for the end. Finally, when they were at the point of giving up and had decided to let her starve to death, they tried one more thing.
Because she had been such an accomplished musician before the accident, they carried her limp body and sat her down on a piano bench, placing her fingers on the keys. Suddenly, without warning, she came out of the coma! Everyone who saw it was amazed and humbled, and they realized a great miracle had taken place.
Two days later the girl took her first steps, and within a week it was clear that she was on the road to recovery. The girl and her entire family knew it was the prayers of Christians that had resulted in this great act of mercy from God.
Despite this great miracle, her life continued to be a daily struggle. Due to her neurological injuries, she was never able to play the piano at the same level again, and the Hainan authorities—still angry that she had mentioned Jesus Christ on national television—further punished her by refusing to let her get a job of any description.
Through this and many other demonstrations of God’s power, the revival fire continued to spread throughout Hainan during the 1990s and 2000s, impacting every segment of society and bringing hundreds of thousands of people into the kingdom of God.
Over the years Asia Harvest has successfully printed and delivered more than 160,000 Bibles to house church Christians in Hainan through our Asia Bible Fund, in addition to supporting many evangelists and providing aid to hundreds of persecuted church leaders and their families.
