Reflections from the mission field: China

This story is an excerpt from What Happened!, a memoir by Norm Scott, a resident of The Emerald at Elim Village Fleetwood. The book chronicles his life and mission work with Campus Crusade for Christ around the world.

By Norm Scott
Resident Contributor

In 2003 I noticed in the publication of the Bible League (which we support), that a small team was going to China to take in Bibles for the Underground Church. I phoned to see if we could go with them and when they became aware of our project
experience, they accepted us immediately.

They advised there was a possibility we could be arrested and questioned. It turned out that about ten people went, and we took approximately one ton of materials, which was composed of Bibles, special Bibles for pastors (which included a Bible dictionary etc.), training material, and Sunday school material.

We flew to Los Angeles where we had some instruction such as dress to appear as business people, and if you’re caught
don’t lead them to the others, plus you are on your own to try and get through the X-rays and officials.

The two ways they suggested were: keep going and ignore any shouts, or use a porter and hopefully they would not be as careful or interfere with this routine. After much prayer, my wife Kay and I decided to go the porter route. We lifted our own luggage (like hockey equipment bags) off the carousel in Beijing and engaged a porter. When I asked if he spoke English, a military guard came over and asked what I wanted. The porter said no, but when the guard turned away, he motioned a little bit. The reason I asked the question, was because I wanted him to stop in a pre-selected place.

When we went through the checkpoint, all the X-ray machines were not functioning. What an answer to prayer! We then had to take our heavy material down extremely steep escalators – this was quite the challenge. Kay and I were the first through. Only one old lady who didn’t do the right things, by clutching her bag tightly, was caught with about 20lbs of literature, but this probably enabled the young fellow with her to get his heavy bags through. The total material was whisked away very efficiently for distribution.

We visited a government sanctioned “Three-self church” (self-supporting, self-propagating, self-governing) where certain Christian doctrines cannot be taught and teaching children under 18 years of age is not allowed. We also visited an underground church meeting. Approximately 200 people were there in an abandoned factory and children were being taught. We were only allowed to stay for 15 minutes as they said it was too dangerous. Later we met with some Christian leaders who were wanted by the authorities. This leg of our journey being completed, we then did the usual tourist attractions: the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and finally to the oldest church in China which
followed many of the Old Testament practices.

We then flew to Hong Kong and took in another load of Bibles. Kay and I along with a guide carried the heaviest load the
farthest distance. Travelling by taxi, bus, and rail to our destination, we did not get back until 12 hours later.

Read more: Reflections from the mission field: Cameroon