Fangcheng County in southern central Henan, China is an agricultural district with 926,000 inhabitants. 60 years ago, Henry Guinness, David Adeney and other missionaries of the China Inland Mission travelled by bicycle with Chinese colleagues throughout the villages, and small churches were planted.
Today, there are so many Christians that hostile cadres have labelled the area a 'Jesus Nest'.
As early as 1982, following some months of great revival, local Christians estimated there may be as many as 300,000 believers in Fangcheng - one third of the population. In just three communes, there were then already 160,000, but they had only 43 Bibles and 27 New Testaments between them. They had to mimeograph Christian material, which was strictly illegal. In more recent years, Bibles have been printed within China and sent in from overseas, but in many rural areas, the supply is still far from sufficient.
