Secret Church

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The Ties of Ancient History Posted: 16 Mar 2013 03:00 AM PDT Throughout the month of March, we will be posting daily about Chinese Muslims, the prayer focus for our upcoming Secret Church gathering. We invite you to learn about Chinese Muslims and pray with us for God's glory to be made known among them. If you would like to read other posts in this blog series, you can find them here. Short, petite, elderly pilgrims dressed in black from head to toe exited the ruins of an old mosque. The smell of incense hung in the air as our tour group approached the entrance. To the side, we saw a young man wearing a white Muslim kufi hat. "How old is this mosque?" I asked in broken Mandarin. He replied, "800 years. You can go inside." Walking into the compound, we found a small group of pilgrims sitting around the courtyard. Though most preferred to keep their distance from us, one older man offered to show us around. I asked again, "How old?" He responded, "700 years," and then proceeded to share the history of the mosque and mausoleum. The mosque was built 700 years ago, he said, by a Sufi leader named Hani who came into China and established four mosques. Muslims would travel from all over northwest China to worship at one of these four mosques. When Hani died, he was buried in the mausoleum next to this mosque. Since that time, pilgrims who come to worship also burn incense in remembrance of this Sufi leader who introduced Islam to their ancestors in the mid-1300s. "When I was five years old, I first traveled from my hometown to this mosque to worship and to remember the late Sufi Hani," our guide shared. Now, more than 60 years later, this devoted follower of Islam is the protector of the ancient mosque and mausoleum, eager to restore it to its former glory. The history of Islam in northwest China is long and ingrained in the culture of the Hui, Salar and Dongxiang peoples. From as far back as people remember, their ancestors have been Muslim, and many think that leaving Islam to follow Jesus means turning their back on their families, their ancestors and their history. PLEASE PRAY Pray for pilgrims who travel to the ruins of this mosque and mausoleum. Pray that the lies that have been taught and espoused at this site for generations will be exposed and that the truth of the gospel will be exalted. Pray that the gospel will boldly be proclaimed to the families who have worshiped at this mosque for hundreds of years. Pray that Muslims across China will realize that the only way to have true life is to follow Jesus and reject Islam, but that following Jesus does not mean rejecting their families. Pray for them to understand that they can be both Chinese and Christian and in Christ they can offer their families hope and the light of life. This post was re-posted from Pray4Hui.com. For more information about and prayer requests for Chinese Muslims, please visit Pray for the Hui and follow @pray4hui on Twitter.

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