1927 there was not a single self supporting church in the Haichow field, and-many of the groups were ving almost nothing to the support of their preachers. "Out of the refining fires of the 1927-1928 persecution came a new type of Christian, Right then many old methods were changed and tremendous emphasis was placed on the development of self-support, and the standards of church membership were raised higher and higher to prevent the neeessity of repeating former purges.
Since 1928, the progress of the church haw beer steadily increasing. Whereas in 1027 there wore self-supporting Churches in this fled, now there are 50. Some of these are in' groups under one preacher oF pastor, and some have a preacher oF pastor' for just one place. All out Mations also are self-supporting.
The West Gate Church had only 48 members when It began to support itself, and the Sinpu Church, which next in line, had only 22 members, This church had more. than 70 members before the purge, and all but one had to be excom= niunieated—the reaction from this had to be overcome, before any real prowrese could be made, When 21 hew members had been added, this church Hida real foundation and has steadily grown since then.
'The Haichow City Church was next in Tine, which joined the ranks: of self-supporting churches: when it had' about 20 members. "Then came the problem of the strictly country churches and groups of "churches. Many said the country people were "Just too poor to de it" but it {urned out to be the same problem, the old, old problem of separating A man from his money, for som thing ele besides his own personal material benoist, By this time, of course, the movement had gained some momentum, and better still, the generous. givers in the self-supporting churches had begun to enjoy their giving and were telling others about thei Joy. More than this, thing, more and more gained favour ity vale was seen, the first strictly country church to became self-supporting was the tone at Yangehlachi, where Mr. John W. Vinson was captured by bandits something over a year before. This church made tremendous strides after My. Vinson was euplured and killed. Though "there are only about 47 Daptized members inthe group of country churches, between five and G00 "people gather in the church at -Yangehiacht on Sundays to worship. the rise of self-support and the raised standard of membership have about eliminated this class, They do not try to get into the Church for what they can get out it in material gain, for there is no such fain to be gotten.
Depression over Haichow Area After hostilities began, this section probably suffered more than most other parts of China, in which actual Dghting between the two contending forees "has not occurred. This see tion is largely dependent on import trid export business and on the many and varied activities of the Salt Gubelle and the salt-making and] selt-merchandising gonnd: ted with The blockade of the ports has largely paralyzed imports and exports und the inactivity of the Salt Administration has thrown many out of employment, For a long time, air-raids with occompanying bombing and machinegunning demoralized other types of business, but the people soon el accustomed to the raids and went about heir work as uses The depression and economic stag-Jnation have. radically. tested the structure of self-support in this whole territory. Instead of failure] or retrogression, there has been real progress. In a fow places, where the situation was so bad, many of the Supporters of the work had to leave, churches which were better off when helped out, #0 the work went ahead without interruption, 'The' story of how the Haich West Gate Church met its problem, caused by the situation and the depression, is a most interesting one, In October, for financial reasons, the work In thie mission hospital had to be greatly curtailed. This entailed the loss of @ large number of the very best church leaders, for they had to yo elsewhere to yet employ ment, Right at: this time, bombing was at its height, and many other members left for what they thought would be safer places.
These consisted of about three fourths of the financial support of the church. This group had not only supported "its own work, but had been helping the work it a city nearby. The first reaction was to cut 'OR the help to the neighbouring place and sce what could be done Jabout "their own. expenses. Instead of doing this, however, the decision was to continue aiding the neighbouring place, and trust the Lord for their own needs. Very shortly an evangelist meeting was started which lasted for seven weeks.
This resulted in adding enough new believers and stimulating the old members to such an extent, thal together they raised far more monthly contributions for, the work of the church than they had before the exodus,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.