Paul Hattaway - Tibet: The roof of the world

Paul Hattaway, a native New Zealander, has served the Church in Asia for most of his life. He is an expert on the Chinese Church, and the author of Operation China , Shandong , Guizhou , Zhejiang , and many other books. He and his wife Joy are the founders of Asia Harvest (), which supports hundreds of indigenous missionaries and has provided millions of Bibles to spiritually hungry Christians throughout Asia.

Also by Paul Hattaway:

The Heavenly Man

An Asian Harvest

Operation China

Chinas Christian Martyrs

Shandong

Guizhou

Zhejiang

TIBET

The Roof of the World

Paul Hattaway

Note to the reader

This book is believed to be the first attempt to present an overview of all Christian activity in Tibet throughout history.

Tibet means many things to different people. The present-day Tibet Autonomous Region contains only about two-thirds of the area inhabited by Tibetans in China. In the 1950s and earlier, vast swathes of Tibetan territory were carved off and incorporated into todays Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces.

Some ethnic groups historically located within Greater Tibet have not been included in this book. For example, in Sichuan Province a few dozen tribal groups, including the Qiang, Baima, and a host of others, have lived in the Tibetan border areas for centuries, but they have retained their distinctive cultures and languages, and for the most part have not converted to Tibetan Buddhism. These groups have been excluded from this book and will be covered in their respective provinces in the China Chronicles.

The Tibet covered in the articles within this book, therefore, refers to all Tibetan areas in Mainland China. The author is not attempting to make a political statement but simply desires to document the history of Christian efforts to reach the Tibetan people. Past missionaries rarely spoke about reaching Tibetans in a certain province. They simply considered themselves ambassadors of Christ to Tibet.

Tibet

Vast West

Map of China showing the Tibet Autonomous Region

Over many years and generations, the followers of Jesus in China have set their hearts to be the witnesses of Christ to the nation. Many have paid a great price for their ministry, and the brutal persecutions they have endured for the faith have often been unimaginable.

The Bible commands all believers to Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16.15). Many foreign missionaries responded to this command in the past, traveling to China to proclaim the Word of God. They blessed the land with their message of new life in Christ, and also suffered greatly when the darkness clashed with Gods light. Their faithful service in spite of great hardship was a beautiful example for Chinese believers to emulate as they served God.

China today still urgently needs more servants and laborers to take the gospel throughout the land. God is looking for people who will stand up and declare, Lord, here am I. Please send me!

The day of our Lord is near. May your hearts be encouraged by the testimonies of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done in China, to the praise of His glorious Name!

May the Lord raise up more testimonies that would glorify His Name in our generation, the next generation, and for evermore!

Lord, You are the victorious King. Blessed are those who follow You to the end!

A humble servant of Christ,

Moses Xie (1918 2011)

Notes

The late Moses Xie wrote this Preface for the China Chronicles prior to his death in 2011. He was a highly respected Chinese house church leader who spent 23 years of his life in prison for the Name of Jesus Christ.

Many people are aware of the extraordinary explosion of Christianity throughout China in recent decades, with the Church now numbering in excess of 100 million members. Few, however, know how this miracle has occurred. The China Chronicles series is an ambitious project to document the advance of Christianity in each province of China from the time the gospel was first introduced to the present day.

The genesis for this project came at a meeting I attended in the year 2000, where leaders of the Chinese house church movements expressed the need for their members to understand how God established His kingdom throughout China.

As a result, it is planned that these books will be translated into Chinese and distributed widely among the Church, both in China and overseas. Millions of Chinese Christians know little of their spiritual legacy, and my prayer is that multitudes will be strengthened, edified, and challenged to carry the torch of the Holy Spirit to their generation.

My intention is not to present readers with a dry list of names and dates but to bring alive the marvelous stories of how God has caused His kingdom to take root and flourish in the worlds most populated country.

I consider it a great honor to write these books, especially as I have been entrusted, through hundreds of hours of interviews conducted throughout China, with many testimonies that have never previously been shared in public.

Another reason for compiling the China Chronicles is simply to have a record of Gods mighty acts in China.

As a new believer in the 1980s, I recall reading many reports from the Soviet Union of how Christian men and women were being brutally persecuted, yet the kingdom of God grew, with many people meeting Jesus Christ. By the time the Soviet empire collapsed in the early 1990s, no one had systemat-ically recorded the glorious deeds of the Holy Spirit during the Communist era. Tragically, the body of Christ has largely forgotten the miracles God performed in those decades behind the Iron Curtain, and we are much the poorer for it.