THE BLOOD PERIOD I

Feverish Work Behind the Lines
1937

When Dr Sung was in Singapore he not only told us he had fifteen years given by the Lord, but also that his life was undergoing a change every three years. William E. Schubert confirms this who heard the doctor give to each period a name - Water, Door, Dove, Blood, Tomb. As to the Blood Period, Schubert says it extended from November 1936 to 1939 which was the period wherein Japan attacked China, and China was bleeding profusedly before she learnt guerilla warfare. During this time Dr Sung also bled, having fistula and bleeding bowels, until he had to cease from travel and go into the hospital in Peking. The last few times he visited Indonesia he had to preach sitting down, and the very last time he had to lie on a camp cot while he spoke.

Knowing that his days were numbered, Dr Sung pressed on resolutely in the work God committed him to do. Between February and July 1937, when the Sino-Japanese War "formally" broke out, we see the intrepid Gospel messenger advance in a South China campaign that captured inland cities beyond Swatow, such as Chaoan and Kiet Yang and inland cities beyond Amoy such as Yung Chun and Chuanchow, after a groundwork had been laid by Lim Puay Hian his disciple. He made a final loop that took in Foochow, Hockchia and Hinghwa his hometown. Wherever he went God gave him hundreds and thousands as before. Four thousand turned out in Hinghwa his hometown to hear him of whom one thousand and forty-nine surrendered to the Lord.

No sooner had he returned to his dear wife in Shanghai than he embarked on a North China campaign. Again the Lord worked mightily through him as he visited Nanking the capital when he called on Dr Chia Yu Ming, China's doyen theologian. From there he proceeded to Hangchow and a string of cities along the way until he reached his final destination Taiyuan, capital of Shansi Province.

In Taiyuan a tent was pitched to hold a thousand people as there was no building big enough. In this revisit of North China John Sung's message was not so much on sin as on love, for many who heard him now were born again by his previous visits. He was humble enough to admit, "When I was with you in 1933 1 exerted more in the flesh. Now you can see that my emphasis is more on the spirit."

During his visit to Taiyuan an invitation was received to hold a Bible Institute in Peking, but being warned of God that war was imminent, he preferred rather to hold it in Foochow away from the frontline. The meetings in Taiyuan ended on the 5th of July, two days before the "Double Seventh," when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in Peking ignited a prolonged conflagration that led to the Pacific War. When John Sung arrived back in Shanghai on July 7th what was bothering him at the hack of his mind came true, as the evening papers splashed the news of war being declared between China and Japan.

John Sung was glad to enjoy the warmth of home with his wife and children for a fortnight this time, when he is seen rushing off again, a light Chinese suitcase in hand - to keep his Foochow appointment.

The Third Bible Institute opened, after all, in Foochow July 24th and lasted till August 9th, 1936. Apart from several hundred local auditors, again there were registered one thousand six hundred delegates like the Second Insti­tute, but this time from only nine provinces and none from abroad, for war between China and Japan was now on. One thousand and two participants who had "done well" re­ceived certificates, in the tradition of the previous one in Amoy.

John Sung left Foochow on August 10th, arriving back in Shanghai August 12th. The same night, in the wee hours of the morning of August 13th, the ravages of war spread to Shanghai when shells from the Japanese navy outside Woosung wharf came crashing down. The Period of Blood was announced in John Sung's face. "I must hurry on." He said to himself.

And hurry he did, to go to the interior unaffected by the fighting. So he set out to the Northwest, but en route he preached again in many a city he had ministered before. He arrived in Sian the capital of Shensi Province in October. Sian on the ancient Silk Route was first evangelized by the Nestorian missionary Alopen in 635 AD during the Tang Dynasty, but what was left of it was a monument, the famous Nestorian Tablet (781 AD). What God wants is a man, not a monument, nor a machine, and here was the man whom God sent to preach Christ all over again, deep inside China.

Rev H. W. Burdett of the English Baptist Mission was thrilled with Dr Sung's visit because it spurred up a lethargic missionary outreach. He admitted in his report on John Sung's visit to Sian that he was God's gracious gift to the Chinese to prepare them for the fiery trial that would try them, referring to the Japanese invasion and communist uprising, but a far greater trial on their heels was Mao's Cultural Revolution.

One outstanding conversion in Sian was a heavy smoker of a woman who was gloriously delivered, who became a "Bible woman" (more appropriately a missionary) to Lan­chow, capital of Kansu Province. The war was a blessing in disguise in that it pushed the Gospel farther inland, not belittling the pioneering efforts of western missionaries.

After going through a dozen more towns and villages in the Northwest, where John Sung met with many hardships in travel, jostling with refugees and troops along the way, he made a long detour by way of Hankow from where he took a train south to Hong Kong. Sailing away from Hong Kong he arrived back in Shanghai January 31st, 1938 which happened to be Chinese New Year, to find his wife and three children driven out of their old home by the vicissitudes of war, to one located at "Fool's Garden" Road. "Fool's Garden" or "Wiseman's Paradise", there is no place like home! One of John Sung's famous Revival Choruses is married to the refrain of "Home Sweet Home."