Dear Praying Friend,

It is our privilege and joy to report to you once again on the work of Derek Prince Ministries in China in this 6-monthly prayer letter. DPM China’s team has been involved in translating and distributing Derek’s teaching for almost 35 years, reaching Chinese communities both inside and outside of China, in Asia and beyond.

Recently I was given a very clear example of the respect with which Derek is held in those Chinese communities. A leading Christian publisher, whom I have known for a number of years (having published  a number of Derek’s books for us in Chinese outside of China) asked me a question. He mentioned a particular Christian leader (in our generation) and asked whether I thought his company should be publishing that brother’s work. He then observed with Derek’s teaching he felt safe to publish without question because  it was Bible-based and so helpful to Chinese believers. There was no question in his mind that his company should continue publishing Derek’s material for the benefit of the church inside and outside of China.

The situation in China

We reported previously on the new religious laws that came into force in China on February 1, 2018. Our analysis at the moment is that, like most things in China, the situation is not uniform. Some places seem to continue to experience significant freedom. Other places have faced over the last few months raids on church services on the grounds that children should not be attending –  the new religious laws state that anyone under 18 should not be allowed to attend a religious service.

Recently a report came in that spoke of ‘thugs’ outside the largest house church in a major city, who blocked believers as they attempted to attend the Sunday service, yelling at them that they were members of a ‘cult’.

There is no doubt that the current Chinese leadership wants to clamp down on any ‘ideology’ other than communism.

One of the most serious dangers in this attack on the church is the threat to sinicize the Bible. Sinicize means to rewrite the text of the Bible according to Communist doctrine.

  • There is a 5-Year Plan to crack down on Christianity and this is part of a broader push by Xi JinPing to ‘sinicize’ all the nation’s religions by infusing them with ‘Chinese characteristics’ such as loyalty to the Communist Party. To help you pray, consider this government statement to the church: “Only Sinicized churches can obtain God’s love.”
  • A New Project - in case the situation in China becomes more serious, we are putting large amounts of Derek’s Chinese materials on SD cards (something we have never done before). The cards will contain audio-visual teaching, pdf books, proclamation cards - a store house that pastors can keep and feed their sheep if they cannot get materials in any other way. Right now, at the time of writing, we are ready to roll these SD cards out in China.

PRAY:

• Pray that these “Five year” plans would be scrapped. The deliberate alteration of the Word of God is a very, very serious issue.
• Pray for the church in China, that God’s shadow of protection would cover it and that it would continue to grow and to flourish. And, please continue to pray for believers who face bullying tactics from ‘thugs’ in some parts of China as they seek to worship.
• Please pray for success for the new SD Card project and the funds to multiply the SD cards.


Our ministry in China

The way that the Derek Prince Ministries team serves in China demands that we function in different ways. In other words, we supply large numbers of books and audio-visual materials across China to believers. At the same time, we realise that each believer is precious in God’s eyes and sometimes believers have need of help. For some, getting hold of one of Derek’s books or audio teachings is enough; but, for others, they need more personal care. Where appropriate, our DPM Chinese co-workers seek to give that care. As we invest in believers, we seek God’s multiplication through the lives of those our team touches.

Here is a good example of that from a report from one of our team:

“Apple is a brother in China who recently contacted us for help…he is from a small house church in a rural area of China and has lacked Bible teaching for a long time. He has a hunger for God’s Word and the Holy Spirit, but there is no teaching in the church gathering which he attends. Most of the people are older persons with a low educational background (but he has a university degree and graduated recently). He wants to devote himself and hopes to be equipped to be a pastor in the future. We sent him the ebook version of “The Foundation Series” and then arranged to send him more books in the coming days. He replied to us recently saying he likes “The Foundation Series” and gives thanks to the Lord for His supply.”

PRAY: Pray that as the team touches lives like Brother Apple that they would be strengthened and become the source of blessing to many others.

The Power of the Written Word

We have mentioned before that we printed 110,000 copies of Derek’s book, “Shaping History Through Prayer And Fasting”. Those books have been distributed amongst the believers. We are now focusing on printing 100,000 copies in total of two different books. You will know that the biblical teaching on Israel was very dear to Derek’s heart and, in the global Derek Prince Ministries organisation, it was decided that on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, Derek’s book, “Why Israel” should be published in as many languages as possible.

What better way to celebrate the fulfilment of God’s word concerning the restoration of the State of Israel than to distribute as widely as possible Derek’s anointed teaching defining God’s purposes for Israel.

At the same time we will be publishing “God’s Remedy For Rejection”. We do feel this is a critical book for China’s believers. One report received from our team summarises that situation:

“We discovered that sister Chen has a very bad relationship with her mother and it makes her very sad most of the time. Her mother is very picky and always uses bad and rude words against her even though sister Chen is already married. There are a lot of hurts in her heart because of her mother. She has a feeling of rejection. We explained some truths from Derek Prince’s book, “From Rejection To Acceptance”, and also told her the forgiveness principle in the Bible - if we don’t forgive others, our Heavenly Father also will not forgive us. After continuous communication for several weeks, she told us that she had already started such forgiving prayer and wanted to pray more for her whole family. May the Lord help her and strengthen her in daily prayer for her family, especially her mother.”

Rather than say more here, let me share some quotes and testimonies sent in by our Chinese brothers and sisters (but first, some facts and figures):

  • The 'inside-China' Chinese website (www.yeguangming. com.cn) has been viewed around 10,000 times up to the time of writing.
  • The number of believers visiting the WeChat platform of Derek’s material has tripled since last September.
  • Some individual articles on the platform received more than 400 clicks in two or three days.

The Power of the Internet

This communication below from China sums up the power of the internet, where a change in location of a needy believer does not change the team’s capacity to help him walk with the Lord:

“I don’t know whether you noticed or not, I have already regarded you as my family. During these months many things happened in my life, my family changed, my job changed, I moved from this city to another city. A lot of things are changing, but the unchanged element is reading your articles and the Bible. Thank you brothers and sisters! It is you who gave me comfort and help during my hard time. It is you who encouraged me by Biblical words at this time.”

And so we are using more and more ways of reaching China’s Christian population, many of whom are highly internet savvy:

1. The Derek Prince WeChat app. This app has seen an increase of almost 500 persons from February 2018 to around 1200 persons following with about 6000 clicks a month. Many of them are from mainland China, but also there are quite a few overseas Chinese.

2. The DP China website (www.yeguangming.com.cn) The visitors on the DP China website have reached 14,414 since January 2018. Of numbers of believers downloading the free Derek Prince ebooks on the site, it is encouraging to see that there are people from China and 45 other countries involved.

3. DPMChina30.org - a specific site set up to provide online training courses using Derek’s 30 core teachings. We already have 30 persons registered for free courses online. Total viewers on this website are 1,918 with 443 visitors from 23 countries in total.

4. YGM cell phone app. This contains a huge number of Derek’s audio messages in Chinese which can be listened to or downloaded, and some of Derek’s books in PDF format.
    A total of 1830 users have downloaded this app in 2018 alone.
    MP3 audio files have been played 8523 times in total.

We believe that we will see more and more believers coming to feed at these ‘digital watering holes’ as they become better known and as we continue to distribute Derek’s material through them.

In our ‘new world’, apart from China’s 1.4 billion people inside China, there are countless millions of Chinese citizens elsewhere spread across the world and open to the Gospel. We give thanks for these initial encouragements.

PRAY: Pray that Chinese in China and outside would be reached through these digital media methods and built up in the Lord through Derek’s teaching.

A few final testimonies from China that sum up our labours:

“Among all the messages on WeChat, only for your messages, do I write notes and check Bible verses every time while reading your articles. Thank the Lord! It gives me a feeling that there is a Bible teacher at my side while reading your articles.”

“I am so joyful to meet your team in this world. Without God’s Spirit and His love, we still could pass by without knowing Him. Thank the Lord for leading me closer to Him by your help! I really like the communication with you online!”

“Thank the Lord! Our church is sharing “Blessing Or Curse: You Can Choose” on your WeChat platform for more than ten weeks and has led brothers and sisters to make the release prayer together. Thank God for His grace which leads us from curse to blessing!”

“May God greatly bless DPM’s ministry. You are very special among all WeChat platforms. I can see your faithful hearts.”

Please pray for our precious brothers and sisters in China today. And, our thanks to you for your continued support for the work of the DPM China team. It is deeply appreciated.

Yours in His grace, on behalf of the China team

Ross Paterson
Director, Derek Prince Ministries - China