Editor’s note: Join us this September as we pray for Yantai, a coastal city in Shandong Province. Yantai’s name means “smoke watchtowers,” and comes from the nearby watchtowers on Mount Qi, built in 1398 to light signal fires and alert the area to the Japanese pirates who were plaguing the area at the time. Today, Yantai is a city of about 7 million, and is the largest fishing seaport in Shandong.
China Partnership: Briefly introduce yourself, your family, and your church.
Meet the Leaders
Zhang Anwei: I’m from a nearby town. I came to faith at 7, was baptized at 14, and in my 20s was called to minister. I went overseas to study theology – that’s where I met my wife, who is overseas Chinese. It has always been just the two of us.
After marrying, we returned to Yantai and began working with college students. That church plant has now become a fairly stable church.
Our church is theologically Reformed, and leans Presbyterian. So far, all we have is formal membership. We haven’t yet joined a presbytery, but are seeking God about that.
Yu Kangxi: As I child, I followed my mother into faith. In college, I served in a student fellowship on campus. After graduating, I worked for five years before going full-time. Our church grew out of the university fellowship I served in as a student.
Right now, I’m studying theology while serving the church. My wife works and serves at the same time, which is hard on her. We don’t have children – it isn’t that we didn’t want them, we simply haven’t had any. Either way, we thank God.
Our small church still has a lot of turnover, and is about half students and half adults.
Sister Xuezhen: Several years ago, the leader of our church passed away, and there was no one left to preach. At the time, my husband was a young brother in the church. Since there were no other young people, they asked him to stand up and preach. Now he and his aunt take turns preaching.
Our church is a traditional house church. But, through some courses, my husband’s convictions have shifted toward the Reformed faith. Now he is leading brothers and sisters through that change, and explaining it to them. This gradual change in theological conviction comes out in his preaching.
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As for me, I have believed in the Lord since I was a child, following my mother. I’ve been a part of several churches over the years, and am now serving God in this one. I am at home full-time right now, homeschooling our child.
Sister Wen: For me, I was both born again and called at the same time, when I was 13, at a summer camp. Later, I came here to Yantai to study, then went overseas for seminary. After seminary I came back and began serving at a church started by a Taiwanese couple.
After I came back to China, the leaders left, and I took the church on more by default than by choice, as I wasn’t ready then to take on being the main minister. But now, I’ve served for nearly a decade. I have one other co-worker, but he serves only part-time.
About five or six years ago, some families and I were given the vision of going out to church plant, and started another congregation. That church plant is made up mostly of young families with children. Our mother church is older by comparison, which fits the character of this seriously aging city.
In the past, our mother church was one large congregation, but now, because of the environment, we have divided into several small groups meeting at different points. We have only just done this, and are also training several brothers to step forward, hoping they might become leaders or church planters.
Yantai’s Unique Flavor
CP: What makes Yantai unique among Chinese cities?
Zhang Anwei: Yantai opened [to the West] early as a treaty port, so it was among the earliest cities in Shandong and in north China to receive Western influence. Yantai is a prosperous port city, and is economically about the third city in Shandong Province. Yantai’s trade, imports and exports, and overall GDP are all high. The city draws young people – although in recent years the city may be slowly losing some of them.
Overall, though, Yantai is about fishing and farming, and fruit above all. Yantai apples are famous. Laiyang pears are also from Yantai, and the big cherries are also famous. With all this, you can see how rich and unusual Yantai is.
Culturally, you could even argue that Daoism, to some degree, began around Yantai. The city is conservative, especially compared to [nearby] Qingdao – and we do measure ourselves against Qingdao. Yantai is conservative, and the pace of life is slow. It is a retirement city, that draws many from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou who come here to stay for a season in the cool summers.
Yu Kangxi: Historically, our area is a port city, and people here go after commerce and doing business. That is the culture. I live in a smaller city on the county-level, and that city is built on the “bricks-and-mortar economy,” with a lot of manufacturing firms turning out industrial goods. There are a lot of jobs for young people, but the jobs are hard and grueling, so many of the young people are unwilling to work in those manufacturing companies.
Sister Xuezhen: Yantai is a coastal city, and its single most famous emblem is the lighthouse on Yantai Hill. Other famous places are Kongtong Island, and the “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” scenic area. [This refers to a famous story from Chinese mythology.] Long ago, Qin Shi Huang [emperor and creator of the first unified Chinese empire]came to this area searching for the elixir of immortality. Yantai has some well-known companies, and is known for its fruits and even wine.
Sister Wen: I think Yantai has a kind of traditional, classical romanticism about it. It is a fairyland, a city of immortals – the legend of the “eight immortals crossing the sea” began here.
The ordinary people who live in this city have a life filled with very beautiful ideals. Because they have these lovely legends, they think of themselves as living among immortals and gods. They consider that their possesses a sort of natural advantage.
The city is called Yantai, or “smoke tower,” because back then, they built beacon towers and lit fires on the towers to signal that the enemy was coming. But the people are not entirely idealists with their heads among the gods and immortals, this is also a city that can work hard for its own living. That is in the culture, too.
We usually say that Yantai is at the ends of the earth, because it is out of the way. Yet after Yantai opened as a treaty port in 1861, the city became more open and receptive to everything foreign and new. So, I think Yantai is a very rich city, a city with dimension. Yantai has that ancient romance, that idealized fairyland feel, but it is also practical. And, it is relatively open. Yantai still has a real capacity to both absorb and create. That is what I see in this city.
Zhang Anwei, Yu Kangxi, Sister Xuezhen, and Sister Wen are pseudonyms for house church leaders in Yantai.
Pray for Yantai to become a city that
