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37. FROM KAIFENG TO JERUSALEM

Last month the members of the Asian Care Foundation highway touring group met Chinese Jin Wen-Jing and her parents from Kaifeng, China, after a period of eight years. This time they did not meet in Kaifeng but in Jerusalem. Wen-Jing has recently been formally converted to Judaism which involved passing certain exams. This has given her the possibility to take up her residence in Israel. Wen-Jing has now assumed the name Shalva. Shalva is the Hebrew translation of her Chinese name Wen-Jing. It means serenity, transparency. Her parents, who also live in Jerusalem, are engaged in passing the exams, too. However, it is far more difficult for them to learn Hebrew and acquire knowledge of the Jewish laws and traditions. Young people just have a knack to learn. Shalva now speaks Hebrew fluently.
The Jin family is the first family from the Chinese city of Kaifeng to make Aliyah. Kaifeng lies in the province of Henan, in the heart of China, along the Yellow River. For centuries Kaifeng has known a thriving Jewish community, which included a synagogue. Some accounts have it that the Jews settled there during the Sung dynasty (960-1279). At that time, Kaifeng was the capital of China. A flood in the second half of the 19th century probably destroyed the synagogue. And when the last rabbi died, the community fell apart. Descendents of the Jewish families can still be found; as many as several hundred. Some of them had an evidence of identity, which included the word Youtai or Jew. Wen-Jing’s father still has a copy of this type of ID. The Jews of Kaifeng are formally not acknowledged as being Jewish, either by China or by Israel. (1) However the Jin family was so certain of its Jewish identity that they desired to live once more in the land of their fathers. In earlier publications I have written that the Chinese Jews form a genuine potential for Biblical ‘fishing and hunting’. It was therefore quite exceptional to visit the Jin family in Jerusalem and to be able to have a good long talk about the possibilities for the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng. Father, Mother and daughter Jin arrived in Israel four years ago by a long roundabout route. It was no simple matter. Their dream has come true after their migration to the state of Israel. What seemed impossible has become possible. They feel at home in Israel. For them, the Jewish greeting “next year in Jerusalem” has a special meaning.
The fact is that this greeting with the Jin family shows the literal meaning of the greeting. By the headline ‘How Wen-Jing became Shalva’ and the attached article in the Jerusalem Post of 22 June 2004, the family Jin catches the attention of the media. In the article Wen-Jing indicates that God performs many miracles for Israel and that she and her family desire to be part of that. The Jewish community in Kaifeng desperately needs such attention from the media and also your intercessory prayers. Some members have become Messianic, which makes their position even more difficult because, apart from not being recognized as Jews by both the Chinese and the Israeli authorities, Messianic believers are also not allowed to make Aliyah. Nevertheless, complicated or not, the Lord God brings His promises to pass. He actually gathers His chosen people from the nations!

Postscript:
In Israel the Chinese Jews are receiving an increasing amount of attention. For example, in January 2005 the article: “Letter from Israel, Aliyah of the East Wind” by Wendy Elliman was printed in the Hadassah Magazine (vol. 86, No. 5). The student Shi Lei from the Jewish community of Kaifeng tells his story. He relates about his Jewish roots and how he reaches the stage that he commences a study in Jerusalem for a year. After his return to Kaifeng he hopes to acquire a post at a Chinese university lecturing Hebrew and Judaism. See www.shavei.org/article.php?id=410 On the same website you can also find the above news about Chinese Jin Wen-Jing and her family. She emphasizes that tourism from the West greatly serves the case of the Jewish community in Kaifeng. Supplementary to the news concerning Chinese Shalva Jin, I also report that Shalva’s father and mother have also passed their ‘conversion exams’ and have therefore formally changed over to the Jewish faith. In so doing they have also acquired Israeli citizenship. The Jerusalem Post of 1 June 2005 elaborately communicates on this in Michael Freund’s report, titled ‘From Kaifeng to Jerusalem’. Shlomo and Dina Jin, as they are called from now on, wept with joy. In 1992, when they checked in with the Israeli embassy in Beijing with the request to make Aliyah, they were initially sent back empty handed to Kaifeng, their place of residence. Now that the family Jin has made Aliyah, the way is open for the other Jewish families of the Jewish community in Kaifeng. If one sheep leaps over the ditch, all the rest will follow!

66. PANEM ET CIRCENSES IN BEIJING
On conferring the Olympic Games to Beijing the International Olympic Committee members proposed to the then Minister of Sport and Mayor of Beijing that as far as they were concerned they expected to see advances in human rights. (1) Time has learnt that the Beijing tiger has simply ignored these expectations. Indeed, state control is on the increase. House churches are being ‘requested’ to leave town because of the pending Games. Precisely in these months Foreign (Christian) workers are being interrogated and deported and just recently reports came in that in the far west of China church leaders have been arrested and threatened with death. Religious freedom is a sham.
O yes, in some respects ‘China’ would seem to be a little more humane or should we say more alert. The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was soon on the scene when the earthquake took place in China’s Sichuan province. Domestic and foreign aid workers alike were quickly allowed access to rescue work. This so-called intra-plate earthquake, which registered 7,9 on the Richter scale, occurred near the Longmenshan fault on the southeast side of the Tibetan plateau and was felt deep into Southeast Asia; powerful aftershocks are still felt up to this day. This is the Greater Tibet region where many Tibetans and other minority groups live. China grieves for its many tens of thousands of dead.
It is said that Chinese Christians believe that the earthquake was orchestrated in heavenly places. ‘Beijing’ makes the Christians quake and so God Himself answers by causing the earth to quake in China. Just as at the time of the great earthquake of 1976. That became a year of change. That year Mao died and three years later the open-doors politics began. The uncompromising Chinese attitude towards Tibetan protests both inside and outside of China have recently drawn global attention. There is a greater perception of what is amiss in China with Tibet, the Uyghurs in far off Xinjiang, with minority groups in general, with trade in human organs, with (the results of) the one-child policy, child theft and child trade, women trade, trade in humans, widespread social inequality, the position of migrant workers, air pollution, water policy, food shortages, etc.
The interests of Western countries are also under pressure. After all, an enormous firewall has been set up against religious Internet sites with the help of major Western companies, while world leaders have kept silent. The West helps support Chinese injustice! Another facet of this harsh regime is that fleeing North Koreans who cross the border over the Tumen River are arrested and returned by the Chinese authorities where death and imprisonment await them. Little is heard about this.
There is yet another, more specifically unmentioned injustice. While the atheistic Chinese government really only wants its people to be occupied with small or large scale market forces and the pending Beijing Games, a significant variant of the Roman version of bread and circuses, they do indeed suffer from a very specific (global) problem. This problem is caused by the invasion of the ever increasing army of God’s Kingdom. Praise God! How is the church of China fairing?
It is estimated that one third of the world population belongs to the Christian religion; of the two billion Christians, 25% belong to charismatic and evangelical groups. Besides this there has been a shift in the Christian population. In 1900, 69% of Christians lived in Europe. In 2010 that will be only 26%. In the China of 1949 there were 1.3 million Christians. (2) Although Chinese statistics are lower, it is now reckoned that of the 1.3 billion Chinese, 130 million are Christian. China belongs to those countries which have the highest Christian population. On average more young people are becoming Christian and that makes for a more dynamic church life. The faithful are very active and are ready to tell everybody of the peaceful tidings of God’s Kingdom.
About 15% of believers live in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The rest live in smaller towns and cities, urban areas and villages, often in deprived, remote and underdeveloped areas. There is widespread illiteracy and the average educational level is low in these regions. The inhabitants are farmers or factory workers and they do not travel much outside their own place of residence. There is little or no contact with the outside world.
Sixty percent of the believers in these communities need Bibles and Christian books. Even though the Amity Foundation in Nanjing has printed more than 40 million Bibles – and in 2009 it is planned to print at as many as a million Bibles a month – and even though many Bibles arrive from overseas churches and organisations, there is still an enormous shortage of Bibles. Furthermore Amity Printing hardly prints any Christian literature and the Chinese government prevents the import of religious literature. It is possible for believers to buy a Bible and Christian literature approved by the Authorities. However other more specifically sought after literature is unobtainable. Moreover many Christians are very poor. Also believers are carefully registered by the (local) authorities when buying religious literature. The power structures and monitoring practices of communism are ever present. This monitoring varies from rural area to rural area, from town to town and from province to province. It is easiest to go into hiding in the big cities.
About 45% of churches have financial problems. There is a lot of social inequality in China. In spite of prosperity and riches experienced by many Chinese, there is a big divide between the towns and rural areas. The financial situation of some house churches has improved, but most of them are very poor. Due to lack of funds, the churches cannot expand their ministry and have to hold meetings in closely packed rooms while church workers can only provide for the most basic needs. Many believers would love to serve full time in the ministry of the Gospel, but there is no support whatever.
Some 85% of church workers have insufficient theological education. Officially China has 18 Christian Seminaries. This is just a drop in the ocean. Less than 1% of the full time workers have completed a three-year training course. Some have had a one-year training, others a three-month training. It is not that they do not want more education. They simply do not have the funds or the opportunity. Ninety-four percent of churches are never visited from overseas or from abroad. The Lord God has power to touch the hearts of overseas and foreign believers, causing them to heed their brothers and sisters in China. Some have come from very far to bring Bibles and pay visits of encouragement. It is however far too little. In God’s mercy, the church has grown fast due to oppression and the dedication of church leaders and believers. Today the Chinese faithful still look to foreign Christian visitors for help and encouragement. Such visits make them aware of the fact that they are not alone in their service of Jesus Christ. (3) Would you care to visit them? “Inasmuch as ye have done it (clothed the naked and visited the poor) unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” and “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me” says the Lord Jesus in Matthew 25:40,45. It is indeed still possible to serve fellow believers of the Chinese churches, to pray for them, to help in providing them with Bibles and other Christian literature, to visit and support them. Are you going to do something? Will you pray for an opening for mission work in spite of heavy monitoring by the authorities during the pending Olympic Games?