THE DOVE PERIOD II

From Strength to Strength
1934-1935

Hitherto John Sung's own province had been ravaged by a civil war between General Chai Ting-kai and the Central Government. As the rebellion died a natural death, invita­tions from Fukien began to pour in to the evangelist.

Again to Foochow he went, in September 1934. The glories of the first campaign were repeated with ninety-six new Preaching Bands organized.

Deaconess Loader on behalf of the Church of England Zenna Missionary Society entertained Dr Sung at Loyuan. At the Anglican Church at Loyuan four meetings were held everyday beginning at 6:30 am in true John Sung style!

From Foochow Dr Sung traveled south to Amoy after paying the Gospel debt at Chuanchow, Changchow en route. In Amoy the Five Year Movement Committee of the Synod of the South Fukien Church had scheduled meetings with much prayer. As the Lord poured out His Spirit on the people the attendance increased and kept on increasing, so that a gigantic mat shed had to be rigged to accommodate two thousand five hundred people in Amoy. When this figure was doubled the people broke loose to a mass meeting on the football field of the Anglo Chinese College, Kulangsu where seven thousand could be seated. Kulangsu is an islet, a stone's throw across Amoy harbor. The afternoon meet­ings remained under the gigantic mat shed in Amoy. Break­ing all previous records, between four and five thousand souls were saved in this Amoy campaign alone!

Now while the winds of revival had swept through Amoy and bigger cities like Chuanchow and Changchow, there were scores of village churches, in the hinterland impossible to visit. Communication between these remoter congrega­tions was restricted to the footpath or cart-track. A fifty-mile trip by river sampan from Chuanchow to Yung Chun, scaling many an upstream rapid as experienced by the writer in his travels in China 1946, took almost a week. Into such undeveloped terrain to do a more thorough spade work was Lim Puay Hian, John Sung's disciple, sent.

As these inland churches were stirred with a new zeal for spiritual blessings, a half-dozen of them would join hands for a united campaign. In the Changpu sector, half way between Swatow and Amoy, Lim Puay Hian raised up twenty-nine preaching bands to add to the original thirteen organized by John Sung. Two hundred and forty-two were born again and one hundred and sixty-two letters requesting prayer were received. In John Sung fashion, Lim Puay Hian laid hands on the sick at the close of the campaign. Nor were the Puay Hian campaigns limited to the inland churches. As his exploits for the Lord became more well known, invitations were received from the bigger ones along the coast. The church at An-hai, an important sea-and-land junction be­tween Amoy and Chuanchow, where this writer had spent a night, held a ten-day meeting, with Puay Hian preaching, also John Sung style, three times a day. To the thirteen preaching bands formed under John Sung were added another fifteen. Three hundred and fifty-five souls were saved and one hundred and ninety-two letters for prayer received.

From An-hai the Spirit swept northwards through Chuan­chow and Yung Chun and a half-dozen other towns. In five campaigns held one after the other, a total of one thousand eight hundred and six souls were born again and two hundred and seven preaching bands organized. A new high in Lim Puay Hian's ministry was being reached.

In many ways the work of John Sung and Lim Puay Hian in the Hokkien churches (Hokkien is the Amoy dialect, quite different from the dialect of Foochow or Hinghwa) was complementary to each other. And inasmuch as Lim Puay Hian treated the doctor with deference, who was his spir­itual father, the latter had a kind word for his disciple wherever he went. When John Sung came to Yung Chun in the spring of 1937, rather "in the steps of Puay Hian" who preceded him the year before, he humbly remarked, "The groundwork has been laid by Brother Puay Hian. I am merely resting on his laurels."

Coming back to the great Amoy campaign, it is to be noted that as the Holy Spirit mightily worked, so did Satan try to hinder His servant. Once again the press attacked John Sung for using bewitching speeches and magic art. To thwart his healing session which was held before the close of campaign, his opponents brought some of the worst cases for treatment. Holding to His promises with the prevailing prayer of many brothers and sisters, John Sung laid his hand on the sick - a marathon that dispensed blessing to over a thousand people. A woman paralytic of forty years was healed instantaneously, who sent a photograph thereafter to Dr Sung for remembrance.

But it is in the spiritual realm that lasting results were produced. One sin that John Sung did not fail to attack was gambling, a Chinese vice and pastime. As a result of converted gamblers quitting, one gambling house in Amoy had to close down. All the churches in Amoy were filled to overflowing. On Sunday the Amoy-Kulangsa Ferry would be swamped with Bible-carrying Christians riding to and fro to Church singing praises to God, a phenomenon never seen before. The whole city of Amoy seemed to be taken over by the Church of Yesu (Jesus). How happy would William Chalmers Burns be were he living to see the Amoy Pente­cost, who planted the Gospel seed here 1851.

Like Joshua making the breakthrough against the five Amorite kings when the sun stood still for a whole day, the Amoy Victory opened to John Sung so many fields of service that he could not cope with them. Now you see him in Swatow, Canton and Hong Kong. In a month's time he is over in Nanking the national capital. Again he is back in Fukien his native province which takes in the stride stations in Hakkaland of Kwangtung Province, when in a little while he "flies off" to Peking. You might want to call him the Flying Evangelist though he never got on an airplane but once, as you will see later.

In the midst of faster and faster movements, he had a dream. This took place while he was riding a coastal steamer en route to Nanking. This dream occurred at the time his old father was on his sick bed. Suddenly he saw him standing before him: "Siong Chiet (his old name in Hinghwa), I am now in Heaven. But you have seven more years to go. So, work your hardest for the Lord." Surely this was a reminder to the pattern the Lord had shown him before, that his ministry was divided in five times three-year periods, viz: Water, Door, Dove, Blood, Tomb. He was now half way through the Dove Period.

As for Pastor Sung Hsueh Lien, the Lord took Him the same month.