stations:
Chengdu (Chengtu),
Yazhou (Yachow),
Jiading (Kiatingfu),
Ningyuan (Ningyuanfu), and
Xuzhou (Suifu). Baptist Christianity was introduced into Sichuan by the
American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU, belonging to the
American Baptist Churches USA). The first missionaries to reach the province were Rev.
William M. Upcraft and Rev.
George Warner, who sailed in 1889. The journey required many weeks before their arrival in
Xuzhou the following year, where they established the mission's first station. Medical work was started by Rev. C. H. Finch in 1891, in the same year Rev.
Robert Wellwood and his wife joined the mission. At the end of 1892, the ABMU was represented by nine missionaries, with medical work, two preaching places, women's classes, a boys' school, a Sunday school and eleven converts. In 1893, twelve new workers joined the mission, and subsequently the opening of a new station in
Jiading in 1894. At that time, the number of missionaries connected with the West China Mission was twenty-two. A small church had been gathered at Xuzhou. The remote character of the province and its need of Christian missionary labors lent a romantic and unusual interest to the work of the West China Mission, especially since that was the nearest approach of American Baptists to reaching
the people of an unevangelized country,
Tibet. That same year (1894), Upcraft and H. J. Openshaw traveled to
Yazhou and tried to rent some permanent quarters. According to
Missionary Cameralogs: West China, "this stirred up opposition and vile placards were posted abusing the foreigners. However, the tide was turned in favor of the missionaries after successfully treating the servant of an official bitten by a snake, they were allowed to stay." In 1895, a serious outbreak of
anti-foreign agitation began in the capital
Chengdu, and thence spread throughout the province. The missionaries had no choice but to temporarily leave their posts. Work was resumed after their return in the spring of 1896. By the middle of the year 1900, the Church had 68 converts with some 200 names on the enquirers' roll. The year 1900 was marked by the anti-Christian uprising known as
Boxer Rebellion. Although this unrest did not affect Sichuan so much as some other parts of China, missionaries were obliged by consular orders to retire to the coast. During their absence, the local converts defended their faith and carried on all the regular services. Two new stations were opened at
Ningyuan and Chengdu in 1905 and 1909 respectively; while Rev.
Joseph Taylor and his wife were transferred from Yazhou to Chengdu. ,
Chengdu, 1920. In 1910, the ABMU changed its name to American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS), and became one of the four founding societies of the
West China Union University, together with
American Methodist Episcopal Mission (
Methodist Episcopal Church),
Canadian Methodist Mission (
Methodist Church of Canada), and
Friends' Foreign Mission Association (
British Quakers). Dr.
William Reginald Morse helped found a medical school at the university. He later became dean of the medical school and also held positions at the university's Baptist College. During the
1911 Revolution which overthrew the
Qing dynasty, Openshaw took care of the wounded, with his wife as auxiliary. The local Christians later told of Mrs. Openshaw's bravery during the siege of Yazhou, how she would play the organ and sing while bullets whizzed about the house. during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the
West China Border Research Society in Chengdu, 1935. In 1919, the ABFMS celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of its West China Mission. In 1920, Rev. A. G. Adams assumed responsibility for the work of the evangelistic field, which had been for several years under the direction of Rev.
David Crockett Graham, a
polymath Baptist
minister who was
ordained at the
First Baptist Church of Fairport,
New York, in 1911, and spent nearly forty years in Sichuan Province, arriving shortly after his ordination. He was also one of the key figures in the discovery of the archaeological site now known as
Sanxingdui, when a collection of jade pieces contributed to the Museum of Art, Archaeology and Ethnology at the West China Union University by an English
Anglican missionary,
Vyvyan Donnithorne, in 1931, drew his attention, subsequently leading to an archaeological excavation in 1934. By 1913, the American Baptists had 793 church members; and by the end of 1921, 1,263 members. In 1924, a
Swedish American missionary
Esther Nelson was sent to Sichuan by the
First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis. Between 1924 and 1945, she worked primarily as a nurse and medical educator in various Baptist hospitals. She applied to become a full-time evangelist after the formation of the
Baptist General Conference's Foreign Mission Board in 1945. This led her to the city of
Huili in
southwestern Sichuan at the end of 1947, where she worked until 1950, when foreign missionaries were driven out of China by the newly established communist government. In 1938,
Alfred James Broomhall, an English Baptist missionary, entered China through the
China Inland Mission. In 1946, he entered the
territory of the Independent Nosu (Nosuland) in southwestern Sichuan, with a team to establish a sustained Christian witness among them. He traveled to
Zhaojue (Chaokioh) at first, and then to
Xichang (Sichang), which were at the time part of
"West" Kham Province. He was only able to live among the
Nosu people from 1947 to 1951, and spent his last few months under house arrest before being expelled from China by communist regime; but his team was able to plant seeds that were going to bear fruit in coming decades. == Since 1949 ==