Ministry trip yields bridge-building among China’s minority groups.

China (MNN)–China Partner is investing in the potential of reaching repressed minority groups with the Gospel.

Erik Burklin says they just returned from the Heilongjiang (hey long zyang) Provincial Bible School, about 200 miles north of the North Korean border. HPBS has a three year course for its students. 40 students are in the first year program, 40 in the second-year program and 40 in the third-year program. Last year the school had 41 graduates.

The team’s purpose? To equip for outreach in difficult areas. “We left them with 150 sets of theological study books, mini-libraries that we were passing out to each of the participants of our training. These books included practical study guides on homiletics, New Testament commentary there was also a book on hermeneutics, the principle of Biblical interpretation.”

Burklin says it’s partnering toward future ministry. “They will be able to use these books when they go back home, and when they go back home and after they’ve graduated, to be able to use them as their own sets of training materials for their ministry. Most of these students will go back to their local municipalities and own hometowns, villages, where they came from to start a local church.”

Since 1991, China Partner has conducted 45 Pastoral Training Seminars in 16 different cities of China, distributed over 34,000 study books and has trained over 3,600 future pastors and Christian leaders.