The gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.
Colossians 1:6
Habil (1933)
Singled Out
In April 1933 the emir of the region of Eastern Turkestan (now Xinjiang, an autonomous region in China) threatened Christian missionaries who had established a fruitful ministry in his territory. He arrested many of the indigenous converts to Christianity and treated them roughly, accusing them of preaching against Islam and forsaking their religion. Habil, the son of a Muslim in Kashgar, was singled out and shot while the others were imprisoned. Some of the girls were seized for the emir’s harem. Shortly afterwards the emir was killed by his own rebels, and so great was the hatred against him that for half a year his skull was kicked about in the bazaar like a football.
The work of missionaries from the Swedish Mission Covenant in Eastern Turkestan and the Chinese Province of Sinkiang bore much fruit over a period of 40 years. From 1892 they established mission stations at Kashgar, Yarkand and Yengi-Hessar, which included medical work and schools with hostels for the pupils to live. Many converts were won, and by 1933 the church had around 500 members, including the children in the hostels. But in 1940 the Swedish missionaries had to leave, and in the ensuing years the church building was destroyed and the Christians were scattered. Most of them are believed to have been killed.
The wind that blows can never kill
The tree God plants;
It bloweth east, it bloweth west,
The tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.
The tree that God plants
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,
Spreads greater boughs, for God’s good will
Meets all its wants.
There is no storm hath power to blast
The tree God knows;
No thunderbolt, nor beating rain,
Nor lightning flash, nor hurricane;
When they are spent, it doth remain,
The tree God knows,
Through every tempest standeth fast,
And from its first day to its last
Still fairer grows.
Annie Johnson Flint (1866-1932) from Streams in the Desert