A church in Guangdong province, on China’s southeastern coast, still needs 2.78 million yuan to rebuild a chapel in honor of Leung Faat, the first Chinese evangelist.
On July 8, Hecheng Church in Gaoming District, Foshan City, released a prayer letter to all churches, introducing the history of the chapel, its current situation, and the financial needs for its reconstruction, and calling for other churches and believers to offer prayer support.
According to the prayer letter, Hecheng in Foshan is the hometown of Leung Faat, first ordained Chinese Protestant pastor. Leung’s book, Good Words to Exhort the World, had a significant impact on the ideological transformation of Hong Xiuquan, which further led to the Taiping Rebellion and the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. To commemorate this Christian pioneer, the Church of Christ in China built a memorial church in his hometown of Sanzhou in 1928. However, after a century of vicissitudes, the chapel falls into disrepair and is in a precarious state.
Gaoming Church has undertaken the task of relocating and rebuilding the memorial chapel and plans to make it a new window for promoting historical and cultural propaganda, patriotic education, and the construction of socialist spiritual civilization.
From June 2022 to July 2023, Gaoming Church has been raising funds and carrying out construction simultaneously. They have successfully raised a total of 3.56 million yuan for the construction project, with 3.1 million yuan for the preliminary preparations and the first two phases of the project and 460,000 RMB remaining. At present, the church should pay 3.24 million yuan for the third phrase in August, leaving a funding gap of 2.78 million yuan.
With a height of 23.95 meters, the new chapel will consist of six floors above ground and one floor underground. The total floor area will be 4,800 square meters (1.186 acres), of which the base area is 846.85 square meters (0.209 acres).
- Translated by Cassie Li
