Foreign Missionaries Defy Ban During Olympics
August 22, 2008
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August 21, 2008
Christian groups who flouted a Chinese ban on foreign missionaries are calling their underground evangelizing during the Olympic Games a success.
Drawn to a nation of 1.3 billion people under atheist rule, the groups prepared for years for what the Southern Baptists once called "a spiritual harvest unlike any other."
"We did see some conversions," said Christian missionary Mark Taylor of Pensacola, Fla.
For Taylor, planning began four years ago with a lunch at the Athens Games among his Florida-based Awaken Generation ministry and ones from other countries. In the ensuing years, they came to China as tourists, making contacts among local Chinese.
Taylor - who leaves China on Friday - said 115 people from 12 countries gathered in Thailand for orientation before scattering throughout China, from Tibet through the far northeast. Two groups worked in Beijing, he said, though he would not give details.
Other larger efforts were carried out by the U.S.-based Southern Baptist Convention and the international ministry Youth With A Mission, Christian groups told The Associated Press. Neither ministry could say how many people were sent in.
China tried to keep out foreign missionaries before the Olympics. It kicked out more than 100 suspected missionaries last summer, according to a U.S. monitoring group, the China Aid Association. China's intelligence services made lists of potentially troublesome evangelical Christians, and authorities tightened visa measures ahead of the games.
Even the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the evangelist Billy Graham, said during a visit to China this year that he did not support illegal missionary work during the Olympics.
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