Phyllis Thompson wrote a book after being kicked out of China in 1949 that changed the way foreigners saw the Chinese church forever and you can read the book for free!
In 1949, when the Communist Party took over China, the foreign missionaries were kicked out. Some of them were even executed. As the missionaries fled China, they thought the church would crumble and everything they had worked for would be destroyed.
China Inland Mission had more missionaries in China in 1949 than any other mission organization and they had to reluctantly issue an order for all missionaries to leave China saying, “After 85 years in China, the China Inland Mission is to withdraw. It is an embarrassment. In view of the gravity of the situation the General director will be holding a conference in Australia. No need to panic. The withdraw will be in a phased and orderly manner. …Our presence is making things worse for the very people we want to help. The sooner we get out the better. It is with a sorrow of heart that we have reached the conclusion that we must proceed with a planned withdrawal of all missionaries. It will seem to many that this is the beginning of the end.”
There was one lady however who saw it differently. She did not believe that it was the beginning of the end. She saw something no one else did.
In her book, ‘China: The Reluctant Exodus’ she writes for the first time of her exposure to the Chinese Back to Jerusalem missionaries and evangelists saying,
“An inward glow was animating the Church in China. The Little Flock and the Jesus Family were no products of western Christianity imported by missionaries. They were indigenous and the vitalizing if disturbing influences of their example and teaching was being felt far and wide! …Several members of a little Chinese missionary society in Lanchow, the gateway to Central Asia, were scattering north and west. “The Back to Jerusalem Band” we called them, for their hope was to carry the Gospel right across central Asia, back to Jerusalem from where it was first sounded forth. It was fresh and it was inspiring. There was something apostolic about it, this spontaneous upsurge of ardour and dedication that owed nothing to the man-planned organizations, that revealing itself simutaneously in Christian groups quite unrelated to each other.”
After being kicked out of China, without knowing it, Phyllis Thompson prophesied about the Chinese underground church. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, she wrote a book before anyone else about the true hope of the future of China.
While most missionaries mourned the church in China, believing that it was dead, she wrote a book of hope and inspiration, seeing what no human being could have known – that God was raising up an indigenous movement that would not only survive, but would join the world Body of believers to complete the Great Commission in a vision called Back to Jerusalem.
Most of the missionaries were too busy feeling sorry for the church in China to notice what Phyllis had known and her book that was written about her experience more than 70 years ago still stands as a living testimony to what she saw in the Back to Jerusalem missionaries in China.
Her book has just now been rediscovered and you can read it for free by clicking on the link here below.
https://archive.org/details/chinareluctantex0000thom/page/64/mode/2up
