‘No peace if I don’t share the Good News’
The Amity Printing Company (APC) was set up in 1987 in Nanjing, east central China, as a joint venture between United Bible Societies and the Amity Foundation. Ruth Li, Assistant to Kua Wee Seng, UBS Asia Opportunity Program Coordinator, gathered testimonies from current and former staff of APC.

NANJING, China — Ms Xie Yanqing had been working at the Amity Printing Company for a dozen years when she became a Christian in 1999.

It was a year when she and her family encountered many difficulties and misfortunes. In the midst of her struggles, a Christian friend talked to her about Jesus and the Christian faith.
Photo: Xie Yangqing worked for Amity Printing Co. from the late 1980s and became a Christian in 1999 at a time when her family encountered great misfortunes. Her friends were astonished by the far-reaching changes in her character that her conversion brought about. She is now committed to sharing the Gospel with other people. Photo: Asia Opportunity (PRC04DJ-9.JPG)
Xie Yangqing worked for Amity Printing Co. from the late 1980s and became a Christian in 1999 at a time when her family encountered great misfortunes. Her friends were astonished by the far-reaching changes in her character that her conversion brought about. She is now committed to sharing the Gospel with other people. Photo: Asia Opportunity (PRC04DJ-9.JPG)

“When I heard the Gospel,” she says, “I felt a special tug at my heart that made me want to become a child of God. I wanted to go to church immediately.” In fact, she went the next day.

Freedom

“When I stepped into the church, the congregation was singing. I was deeply touched by the hymns and I felt ‘gripped’ by the love of God. Later, at home, I just knelt and wept before Jesus. I acknowledged that I was a sinner and asked him to forgive me. Immediately I felt a great sense of relief and freedom. I have never experienced such peace and joy in my life.”

At first, nobody who knew Xie could believe that she had given her life to Christ. They knew her as an obstinate, even rebellious, woman who was not averse to swearing when she thought the occasion called for it. Moreover, she had always refused to have anything to do with religion. But after her conversion, her life was transformed and people began to notice the change in her behaviour.

Wanting to know more about Jesus, she began to read the Gospels. The Word of God moved her deeply, especially the accounts of the crucifixion and the resurrection. She would spend her evenings reading the Bible, and embarked on reading it from cover to cover in a year.

Among the many Scriptures which spoke to her was Matthew 9:37-38: “The harvest is large, but there are few workers to gather it in. Pray to the owner of the harvest that he will send out workers to gather in his harvest” (TEV).

Xie felt strongly that, having discovered this treasure, she should share the Good News with others. And so she spent her time after work and during her holidays sharing the Gospel with people she knew and visiting the sick. Thanks to her witness many of them came to faith.

“I’m compelled by the love of God to tell others about Jesus,” she says. “I will have no peace if I don’t do it. I long to share this precious truth with people in distress, who don’t know the true and living God. I want them to know that only Jesus can give them life and save them from eternal damnation.

“I will lay down everything to follow and serve the Lord,” she adds, “to lead others to him.” (WR 389/26 - 12.04/01.05)