The Back to Jerusalem vision is not a new vision. If you want to know more about the history of the BTJ vision, we recommend you to read the book, Back To Jerusalem, from which the following summary is put together.

The Roots of the Back to Jerusalem Movement 

     “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Acts 1:8.
     In China, when we read the above verse, we didn’t know what “to the ends of the earth” meant. The way this Scripture is written almost makes it sound like the earth is flat and it is possible for believers to reach the very end of the world before it drops off into space!  We prayed and meditated on this verse, asking God to show us what He means by it.

     Gradually the Lord opened our minds to understand that what he was referring to was a geographic progression of the advance of the Gospel throughout the world. When Jesus first gave this promise he was standing on the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem. (see Acts 1:12). The mount is located on the east side of the old city, and the central hill was approximately 60 meters (200 feet) higher than the temple area in Jerusalem. Therefore, when Jesus spoke the words of Acts 1:8 to his disciples, he was looking down on the city and his words showed a natural progression: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem” (the city down below where they were standing), “Judea” (the province west and northwest of Jerusalem), “Samaria” (the province north of Judea), “and to the ends of the earth.” 

     Could it be that Jesus was showing his disciples that the fire of the Gospel would first start to burn in Jerusalem, before spreading out into the countryside west and north of the city, then further into the lands bordering the Gentile world, and onward into those nations where God’s name was not known?

      God helped the Church to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles. Even the location of Jerusalem was perfectly placed at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.’”  Ezekiel 5:5

      In the Book of Acts this is exactly how the Gospel did spread. After the Holy Spirit fell upon the believers with great power, Peter raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem…” Acts 2:14. The Holy Spirit anointed Peter with such authority that “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” Acts 2:41

     The rest of the Book of Acts records how the fire of the Gospel spread throughout the Roman world, to Rome itself and to many areas along the Mediterranean Coast. The Lord lovingly yet firmly helped the Church obey his command, and in a short time the Jews said of Paul and Silas, “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here…” Acts 17:6

     As we meditated on how the Gospel had spread around the world, we saw that generally speaking, the fire has spread in a westward direction. From southern Europe it spread into central, northern and Western Europe. The fire also blazed into the southern Mediterranean countries in North Africa, giving birth to some of the great leaders of the early Church such as Augustine (from present-day Algeria) and Tertullian (c.155 - 220 AD), who made the following statement to the political leaders of his time which resonates among the Chinese house church Christians today:

Go zealously on, good presidents, you will stand higher with the people if you sacrifice the Christians at their wish, kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent…. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.

In China we understand what Tertullian meant. The government in China has come to view the house churches like the Egyptians viewed the Israelites in captivity, “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.”  Exodus 1:12

     Many centuries later, as adventurers and missionaries started exploring the world by ship, the fire of the Gospel spread to central and southern Africa, to the Americas, to hundreds of islands in the South Pacific, to Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia on the Pacific Rim. Around the beginning of the 20th century revival broke out in places like Korea, the Philippines, parts of eastern China and Southeast Asia.

     Of course there were many exceptions to this pattern. Indeed the Apostle Thomas is credited with taking the Gospel to India just years after he had touched the wounded hands of the resurrected Savior. But generally speaking, we can see that the flame of the Gospel has moved in a westward direction.

     Beginning around thirty years ago, genuine and sustained revival came to the Chinese house churches. We found ourselves on the frontline of this worldwide fire of God’s blessing, and many tens of millions of people have come to faith in Christ.

     After God renewed our vision for Back to Jerusalem, we came to the realization that practically all of the remaining unevangelized and unreached areas in the world that have never been penetrated by the Gospel are situated west and south of China. We believe God has given us a solemn responsibility to take the fire from his altar and complete the Great Commission by establishing God’s Kingdom in all of the remaining countries and people groups in Asia, the Middle East, and Islamic North Africa. When this happens, we believe the Scripture says the Lord Jesus Christ will return for His bride. “…We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18

     We believe the furthermost point in the world the Gospel can travel from Jerusalem, therefore, is to circle the entire globe and come all the way back to where it all started – Jerusalem!  When the fire of the Gospel completes its circuit of the whole globe the Lord Jesus will return!  “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”  Habakkuk 2:14

     This is how the name "Back to Jerusalem" was created to explain the missionary vision of the Church in China. We have just shared some of the Biblical basis for the Back to Jerusalem movement, and some of our understanding about how the Gospel has spread around the world throughout history. Now let us recall some of the early efforts of pioneer Back to Jerusalem missionaries….

The Jesus Family

In the 1920s God first told a group called the "Jesus Family" to take the Gospel on foot all the way from China to Jerusalem. Founded in 1921 in Shandong Province by a man named Jing Dianying, the Jesus Family believed members should sell all their possessions and distribute their wealth among the other family members. The group’s five-word slogan encapsulated their commitment to Christ and their pattern of frugal living: “Sacrifice, abandonment, poverty, suffering, death.”

     The Jesus Family targeted towns and villages, preaching the Gospel as they walked from one place to another. Their example of communal living and their deep Christian love amazed many onlookers. It attracted those searching for answers to life as well as those who were homeless, destitute and despised. Many blind people and beggars joined the Jesus Family and found eternal life in Christ.

     As they continued to grow, the Jesus Family suffered terrible hardships. Often when this mobile community entered a new town the entire population came out to beat, scorn and humiliate them. The opposition didn’t deter them, however, and when they preached the Gospel there always seemed to be a few people willing to forsake all that they had to follow Jesus.

     The Jesus Family was the first to have the Back to Jerusalem vision. Their workers carried baskets of food and essentials as they walked on foot across China. By the late 1940s there were some 20,000 Chinese believers enlisted in more than 100 different Jesus Family groups throughout China, enabling them to cover many different regions with the Gospel. Some believers went to Manchuria, some to Inner Mongolia, others to southern China. All of these groups considered themselves part of the Back to Jerusalem vision. They all prayerfully and practically supported the main evangelistic band that was heading west into the Muslim nations on foot, to establish the Kingdom of God in all the territories along the way.

     It seems that after a period of time the Jesus Family had lost their direction in the Back to Jerusalem vision. This was probably due to the fact that all the authority was invested in the one leader, Jing Dianying. The vision had become extremely centralized and was not the vision of most of the common believers.

Northwest Spiritual Movement

By the end of the 1930s God had raised up a new generation of believers who were willing to forsake everything in obedience to seeing this call of God completed. They said, “Let’s rise to our feet and carry the Cross to the nations where God is not known. Let’s go forth in Jesus Name, giving up everything we have, even our very lives if necessary, so that the Name of Jesus will be glorified among all the Gentiles.”

     This is how the Northwest Spiritual Movement was birthed. Most of the original leaders of this evangelistic group hailed from Shandong Province, including the founder, Zhang Guquan. The strategy of the Northwest Spiritual Movement was simply to preach the Gospel, believing that Jesus would soon return. They did not spend any effort on establishing local congregations, just on evangelism and soul winning, yet God in His mercy still established many new believers and there was much fruit that remains to this day.

     You need to understand that this was not a large spiritual army marching across the nation! The top leaders of this vision numbered just four or five individuals, plus a few dozen other workers. Despite their small numbers the Northwest Spiritual Movement was effective because their vision was focused. They were like a sharp arrow head, while the new converts they left behind were the shaft of the arrow.

The Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band

     “The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.”  Isaiah 52:10

     An early thrust in the vision of Back to Jerusalem came when God gave a clear call to a small group of Christians studying at the Northwest Bible Institute in Shaanxi Province in the early 1940s. For several years students from the school had been involved with evangelistic outreach to Muslims, Buddhists and scattered Chinese living in Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia provinces before the Lord specifically called some of them to consecrate themselves for the vision of carrying the Gospel outside China’s borders into the Islamic world, all the way back to Jerusalem.

     The founder and leader of this group was Pastor Mark Ma, from the ancient city of Kaifeng in Henan Province. While ministering as the Vice President of the Northwest Bible Institute in Shaanxi, Mark Ma had a discussion with the Lord that changed his life forever and gave him the momentum needed for pioneer work into the vast unreached Muslim world.

     The events leading to the founding of the Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band took place in a quiet, relaxed Bible school in Fengxiang, Shaanxi Province, central China in the early 1940s.  The Northwest Bible Institute was a beautiful facility surrounded by a thick bamboo grove, with leafy trees ringing the single-storied buildings of the classrooms, student dormitories and missionaries’ homes. A flight of steps led down to a vegetable garden, from where a view could be seen of the Fengxiang City wall.

     The Japanese invasion of China was directly responsible for the formation of the Northwest Bible Institute. James Hudson Taylor II (the grandson of the world-famous pioneer) and his wife Alice were forced to leave their mission field in Henan Province due to the continual bombing of enemy aircraft. They traveled westward into Shaanxi Province, where they had the vision to establish a Bible school. They had no land to commence the work, but much prayer was undertaken for God’s provision. The prayer was answered. The China Inland Mission offered their premises near the city of Fengxiang. The first year just eight students came for a three month course. James H. Taylor II was appointed the Principal of the school, and Pastor Mark Ma later became the Vice-Principal.

     Although the school had only been open for two years, the Easter morning prayer-meeting in 1943 was to prove the genesis for a chain of events that drastically changed the lives of many. The impact of that prayer time could be said to have impacted the Chinese Church to this day….

On the hard surface of the courtyard, under the tall trees whose thick boughs spread a leafy shelter overhead, a map of China had been outlined in whitewash. The students stood around, looking at it. They had been hearing again of the needs of the great provinces to the North and to the West…. The sky was lightening in the east, and thin rays of light obliterated the fading grayness of the night. It was very silent in the courtyard, and the white-washed outline of the map on the ground stood out sharply. The solemn moment had arrived, the moment which brought with it an almost breathtaking hush. ‘Let those who have received the Lord’s commission leave their places and go and stand on the province to which God has called them’…. There was a stir among the group of students. Cloth-soled feet moved noiselessly as one, then another, walked across the courtyard to the map. And as the sun rose over the distant horizon, eight young people were seen standing quietly on the patch that was marked with the word XINJIANG.

The vast Northwest region of China is Xinjiang, a Chinese name meaning “New Dominion.” The traditional name for the area was Eastern Turkestan. Xinjiang was, and still is, inhabited by millions of Muslims, the majority of whom speak languages from the Turkic linguistic family, such as Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz and Uzbek. Other Muslim groups include Tajiks, Tatars, and Chinese-speaking Hui people. A large number of nomadic Tibetan Buddhists also inhabit Xinjiang.

Mark Ma and the Founding of the Back to Jerusalem Band

Mark Ma was a native of Henan Province. The only son of Christian parents, he had been educated in the ancient city of Kaifeng, but refused to open his heart to the Lord. Later he became a teacher in a Government school. It was not until 1937 that he was converted to Christ, when the tragic death of his little son broke his heart and brought him in sorrow and repentance to the foot of the Cross. He left his secular job and went into training at the Free Methodist Bible School. When Mr. and Mrs. James Taylor fled to Shaanxi, Mark Ma, his wife, and their several children accompanied them. He became a founding staff member of the Northwest Bible Institute. Mark Ma recorded how he was called to enter Xinjiang with the Gospel:

I said, “That section of territory is under the power of Islam and the Muslims are the hardest of all peoples to reach with the Gospel.”

 

The Lord replied, “The most rebellious people are the Israelites, the hardest field of labor is my own people the Jews.” …. The Lord continued speaking, “Even you Chinese, yourself included, are hard enough but you have been conquered by the Gospel.”

 

I asked, “O Lord, if it is not that their hearts are especially hard, why is it that missionaries from Europe and America have established so many churches in China but are still unable to open the door to Western Asia?”

 

The Lord answered me, “It is not that their hearts are especially hard, but I have kept for the Chinese Church a portion of inheritance, otherwise, when I return will you not be so poor?

 

When I heard the Lord say He had kept for us a portion of inheritance, my heart overflowed with Thanksgiving and my mouth uttered many Hallelujahs! I stopped arguing with the Lord.

On May 23, 1943, Mark Ma reported the above revelation to the prayer group. They decided they needed a name for their group and the name “Bian Chuan Fuyin Tuan” was adopted. The Chinese name literally means, “The Preach Everywhere Gospel Band.” This is the name this small group of faith-filled men and women are known by in China to this day, but the missionaries agreed the English name of the movement should be “The Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band.”

     It was the policy of the leaders of the Band not to solicit finances in any way, but to pray and trust God to provide for all their needs. Donations started coming in from all over China from Chinese believers whose hearts were touched by the vision and were moved to participate. Alice Hayes Taylor, the wife of James Hudson Taylor II, commented, “In a remarkable way money came into the treasury almost entirely from Chinese sources and they felt that they must use up what was sent in and trust God to send more. Chinese Christians from many places, hearing of this work sent generous offerings. It was manifest that the movement was God-inspired.”

     Mark Ma was always considered the leader of the Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band. In addition to his responsibilities as Vice President of the Northwest Bible Institute and his busy schedule of evangelistic work, he assumed the added responsibility of traveling throughout China, “calling the Church to prayer and spiritual warfare on behalf of the Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band, and enlisting volunteers for service in this great work.”

     The following words of Mark Ma ring true for the present generation of Chinese believers who are now pressing forward with consecrated hearts to fulfill this great call: “My hope is that our Chinese Church will with determination and courage hold fast this great responsibility and, depending upon our all victorious Saviour, complete this mighty task, and taking possession of our glorious inheritance, take the Gospel back to Jerusalem. There we shall stand on the top of Mount Zion and welcome our Lord Jesus Christ descending with clouds in great glory!”

The vision God had given Mark Ma, Mecca Chao and the others was finally being fulfilled, and Chinese missionaries were making their way into the Islamic world with the fire of the Gospel burning in their hearts.

     For the next month they traveled through remote desert wastes, with few signs of human existence except a small village here and there. Hundreds of travelers had perished in this region, their throats cut and their goods plundered by ruthless bandits. The missionaries continued onward, aware of God’s protection at all times. One of the most difficult trials for the Band was the lack of drinking water. Wherever they could they filled their containers, but many days would pass between opportunities to refill.

Then disaster struck.

A Vision Delayed

One month’s travel into the Xinjiang deserts, the Back to Jerusalem Band’s camel train was met by government officials who informed them that the permission to travel further had been withdrawn due to new political developments in the region. They were told to return to China proper. Despite their prayers and pleadings, the officials rejected their every request, saying it was unsafe and foolish for such a collection of youngsters, mostly women, to travel through the Taklimakan Desert. ‘Taklimakan’ is a word from the Uygur language. Loosely translated, it means, “Many go in but few come out.” After much prayer they decided to wait out the winter in Qinghai, busy about their Master’s business after which they would attempt to enter Xinjiang again by another route. They continued their evangelistic work, seeing many people won to the Lord.

     It was during this time of waiting for the door to Xinjiang to open that the Communists swept to power in China and soon after a curtain of silence descended across China. All foreign missionaries were expelled from the country and communication came to a halt. For decades believers in the West knew nothing about what had happened to the missionaries of The Back to Jerusalem Band.

     The new regime in China launched a systematic plan to obliterate the Church, and the believers such as Mark Ma, Mecca Chao and Ho En Cheng went “underground.” As the months of persecution and hardship rolled into years, and years into decades, the vision of the Back to Jerusalem Band began to fade. All seemed lost. Like the children of Israel who were so close to the Promised Land that they could see it with their eyes, the Back to Jerusalem vision in the late 1940s and early 1950s was taken back into the wilderness, to await a time when the workers would be better equipped to handle the great task laid out before them.

     To the human eye, the Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band failed. But God knew the dedication of his young children, and did not reject the purity of their commitment to Him. Although the vision was buried for a time, it did not perish.

     Could it be that God allowed the original Back to Jerusalem efforts to be thwarted because the Chinese Church wasn’t yet ready to succeed in this great call?

     What looked like defeat in the 1940s has turned out to be God’s great plan for the Church in China. The Back to Jerusalem vision was buried in the ground and died, only to spring back to life at God’s appointed time many years later. “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25

Simon Zhao

Although he was a relatively young man in his early 30s, Simon Zhao was appointed the leader of preaching and evangelism in the Northwest Spiritual Movement. Born on 1 June, 1918, Simon Zhao (whose original name was Zhao Haizhen) was originally from Shenyang in Liaoning Province in northeast China. It was during a prayer meeting in Shenyang that the Lord first gave him a vision. It was winter time and very cold outside. The believers prayed inside but the snow drifts grew so high that the doors were blocked and the believers were unable to leave the house.

     As three believers were praying over a map of China the Lord focused their thoughts on the northwest province of Xinjiang. They placed their hands over that part of China on the map and prayed with great authority. Before that day they had never seriously considered ministry in the remote northwest.

     Later Simon went to Nanjing, and it was from there that he met other Christians who had received exactly the same vision from God to take the Gospel to Xinjiang and the regions beyond. They decided to join together in the harvest. The first group had already left and was working together in Xinjiang. Simon Zhao’s second group left Nanjing and traveled to Xinjiang via Shaanxi Province. They made their way on foot, horseback and camelback, and occasionally by vehicle. Later a third group made their way into Xinjiang, after 1949, but they only walked on foot.  

Eventually they reached Hami but two weeks after they arrived the Public Security Bureau ordered them to leave. So they were forced to move even further west to Kashgar, where in September 1949 the Band had set up a preaching station at Shule.... They arrived in January 1950 to a chaotic situation. The gospel compound had been taken over by armed soldiers who claimed there had been a counter-revolutionary incident. Uncle Simon did not know what to make of it. But within a few days he was arrested and placed in prison.

     Every member of the Back to Jerusalem Band was sentenced to prison, for various lengths of time. The five top leaders were given extremely harsh sentences. Simon was the only one of the top leaders to see out his sentence alive. His wife was pregnant at the time of their arrest. Soon afterwards she suffered a miscarriage. In 1959 she died in the women’s prison but, cruelly, Simon wasn’t told about it until 1973.

     During the first few weeks and months in the Kashgar prison labor camp the guards tried to make Simon denounce his faith, but they soon learned this would not work. They ordered him to stop praying and beat him every time they found him doing so. He never stopped praying, but learned to do so in secret when nobody was watching.

     All the prisoners were forced to work 14 hours per day, seven days per week. The food was meager and rancid, and the summer months were spent laboring in sweltering oppressive heat followed by harsh winters with the temperatures well below freezing. Simon Zhao became a living miracle of God’s sustaining power. Hundreds of fellow prisoners came to the coal mine, most of them physically stronger than Simon, only to die within a few months of their arrival.

     For years Simon discreetly witnessed his faith to many of his fellow prisoners, and some believed. There were a few other Christian pastors in the labor camp with him, but the authorities placed them in separate cells and work units, allowing Simon only fleeting moments of contact with them. For all the years he remained in confinement Simon was not allowed to receive any visitors, but he knew in his heart that nobody remembered him anyway in this remote Muslim border town, thousands of miles away from his home.

     Except for the faithful presence of his Lord, who had promised to “never leave or forsake him,” Simon felt completely alone and abandoned by men. Back in his home province of Liaoning on the opposite side of the country his relatives didn’t know if he was dead or alive, and as the years of silence stretched into decades, few people thought about or prayed for him. The Back to Jerusalem vision truly went underground. The seed had died.

     Inwardly, Simon Zhao lost the fire and passion for the Back to Jerusalem vision, but he never denied the Lord Jesus who had given him that vision. In the early years of his imprisonment, when the guards and his fellow prisoners weren’t watching, Simon often prayed, “Lord, I will never be able to go back to Jerusalem, but I pray you will rise up a new generation of Chinese believers who will complete the vision.”

     God continued to protect his child, however. Once he was beaten and kicked so severely that his skull fractured and he fell to the ground unconscious. While he was in his unconscious state he had a vision where the Lord lovingly spoke to him, “My child, I am with you. I shall never leave you or forsake you.” At that moment he regained consciousness but had no idea how long he had been out. He was dizzy and unsure of where he was. He touched his head on the spot where his skull had been smashed and discovered the wound had miraculously healed up even though there was dried blood on that spot.

     Simon Zhao was beaten for most of the thirty-one years he spent in prison. It was only during the last few years - when he was an elderly man in his sixties – that he wasn’t subjected to physical torture.During those long years behind bars he wrote this poem:

I want to experience the same pain and suffering

Of Jesus on the Cross

The spear in his side, the pain in his heart

I’d rather feel the pain of shackles on my feet

Than ride through Egypt in Pharoah’s chariot

One day in 1981 the prison superintendent ordered Simon to come to the main office. “The government of the People’s Republic of China has decided to have mercy on you and show you lenience for the crimes you have committed against our nation. I have been authorized to release you. You are free to go.

	Simon Zhao soon after his release from 31 years in prison

When he was first arrested in 1950, he was in the prime of his life, an energetic man in his early thirties. His beautiful young wife was expecting their first child. God had called them to take the gospel back to Jerusalem and despite the dangers and many challenges, his life was rewarding and exciting. Now, thirty-one years later, he was in his sixties with white hair and a white beard.

     China had completely changed during this time. Simon had missed the entire reign of Mao Zedong, including Mao’s death in 1976. He had missed the insane Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, when millions of people were killed by the fanatical Red Guards. He was now an old man with little strength. His body was damaged from decades of beatings, torture and hard work, and his face was marked with deep lines revealing the struggle of more than three decades in the lion’s den.

     Nobody in the whole of China was waiting for him. Everyone he knew thirty-one years earlier had either died or long forgotten about him. He managed to make his way to Kashgar City where he found a small room to live in. He didn’t have a clue what he should do. For months he remained silent, except for his daily prayers of thanksgiving to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who had kept his promise and never forsaken him during all those painful years.

     Without Jesus Christ, Simon knew he would have died a thousand deaths. The Living Christ had kept him alive and sane, and had helped him to never renounce his faith in God. Simon knew that no matter how lonely a person is in this world, Jesus will always be there as “a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”  Proverbs 18:24

     After some time local Christians in Kashgar learned about Simon Zhao and heard his testimony. Out of respect they brought the old saint food and a Bible and helped him however they could. News spread from church to church in Xinjiang about Simon, and soon the news was carried back to other parts of China that a miracle man had been sustained by the power of God during thirty-one years in prison for the sake of the Gospel.

     Starting in the late 1960s, God had poured His Spirit out on Henan Province and many millions of people had experienced God’s salvation there. Henan became known as the center of revival in China, and was given the nickname “The Galilee of China” – the place where Jesus’ disciples come from.

     Many of the house church leaders in Henan had heard about the original Back to Jerusalem workers in the 1940s. Our knowledge of the details of those early workers was somewhat cloudy, but when we heard that one of the top leaders was now out of prison we were eager to meet him and learn from him.

     Some of our coworkers were ministering in Kashgar. They met Simon Zhao and sent us letters informing us of his story. Our church members in Kashgar loved him like their own father. They enjoyed very close fellowship with Uncle Simon. He had been deprived of fellowship with other believers for decades, but now the Lord gave him spiritual sons and daughters who deeply respected him. Women from the church cooked for him, washed his clothes, and helped him however they could. They treated him like they would an angel of God.

     Finally a group of house church leaders caught trains and buses all the way across China because we felt we had to meet Simon Zhao for ourselves. We found he was a broken, humble servant of God.

      At that time we published a magazine which we used to encourage believers. Uncle Simon refused to write any articles or share his testimony. We tried to show him that the current generation of Chinese believers needed to learn how the Lord had taken him through so many years of suffering. He always declined our offers, however, simply saying, “I don’t want to have any attention focused on me.”

     For all those decades throughout the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and into the 1980s there had been no active talk about taking the Gospel Back to Jerusalem. Times were so dark for believers in China that it took all of our energy and prayers just to survive those years with our faith intact.

     In the early 1990s, the Lord again showed us that it was important for Simon Zhao to come to Henan Province to share his testimony with our house church Christians, to inspire them to carry on the vision God had given him almost fifty years before.

     We sent Deborah Xu (Peter Xu’s sister) by train and bus all the way to Kashgar, to prayerfully persuade him to reconsider. Every day she was away we prayed the Lord would grant her success. To start with Simon Zhao was hesitant. He said, “The Lord called me to go west back to Jerusalem and here in Xinjiang I am at least on the way. Why should I travel back east again and go further away from Jerusalem? Why don’t you leave me alone to die here in Kashgar?”

     Deborah is a very persistent sister in the Lord! She wouldn’t take no for an answer and followed Uncle Simon wherever he went, repeatedly asking in a loving manner if he would come back to Henan. She assured him they had no intention of taking him away from the front line of the battle, but only to bring him back to where there were thousands of new troops who needed training and equipping if the Back to Jerusalem mission was to be rekindled in the life of the Chinese Church. Deborah explained that his vision could be multiplied many times over and thousands of new recruits would be sent back to fight on the frontlines if he would just come and share his story.

     Finally Simon Zhao realized this sister would not give him any peace until he agreed to return to Henan Province with her. He started to realize it must be the Lord who had given this woman such stubborn persistence! When Uncle Simon prayed about returning to eastern China the Lord confirmed that he should go by giving him a Scripture that was deeply personal and brought healing after all the years of suffering and loneliness he had endured:

     “Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than or her who has a husband,” says the Lord. “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.”  Isaiah 54:1-5

     We didn’t have any money to buy him a sleeping berth or even a seat on the four-day train journey across China. He just found a spot on the floor and curled up on a newspaper.

Brother Yun meets Simon Zhao

     In a house church gathering in 1995, Brother Yun, one of the leaders of the Chinese house church movement, was speaking about the vision to evangelize the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist world. After he had sung a song he had learned from an old book about the BTJ movement, an old man walked to the front and asked to speak. His name was Simon Zhao and he told the church that he wrote the words to that song many years ago.
     After he told his story, all of the people gathered were stunned and when Brother Yun asked him if he still had this vision in his heart, Simon answered: “Every night for forty years in the labor camp, I faced west in the direction of Jerusalem and prayed to the Lord to raise up a new generation of Christians who are willing to lay down their lives to take the gospel all the way back to Jerusalem”. Brother Yun took his hand and assured him that the vision God gave to Simon Zhao had not died. A new generation of Chinese Christians will carry on the vision.
     Although Brother Yun already carried the BTJ vision in his heart, it became the primary focus for the entire movement after the meeting with Simon Zhao. This vision is not one of many projects for the Chinese house church networks, but its main thrust and the focus of all their activities.

     When Simon ministered to our churches in Henan it was very powerful and a fire was lit in the heart of everyone who heard him. Many tears flowed and thousands of believers were touched and envisioned for missionary work. Even Simon Zhao’s physical appearance was unique and added to his ministry. He looked like an ancient sage, with a long white beard and white hair. For many house church leaders the Back to Jerusalem vision became very clear and God placed on us a heavy burden to see this vision fulfilled.

     Simon Zhao finally went to be with the Lord on December 7, 2001. He was 83 years old. He died in Pingdingshan, Henan Province, among Christians who loved him. His life was a remarkable one. Like Joseph, Simon started with a dream from the Lord but before its fulfillment he was imprisoned and his vision was put in the ground where it died while he silently suffered an unjust punishment for thirty-one years, remembered by no one but God.

     Yet that was not the end of the story! Unbeknown to him, the Lord was sowing this same vision in the hearts of many Christians in China. After he was finally released from prison God graciously gave him another twenty years of ministry. The house church Christians treated Uncle Simon with the utmost respect in the Lord, and honored him as a prince in the house of God. Before he died he came to realize that “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”  Romans 11:29.

Simon Zhao learned that the Lord always finishes what He starts, and is always faithful to fulfill his promises