1900 - Evangelist Sun & Sons

July 1900

Pingdu, Shandong

Evangelist Sun.

In the 1870s the Southern Baptists became the first to work in the Pingdu area of Shandong Province. The most famous of the missionaries to work there was the tiny American Lottie Moon, who served in Pingdu from 1873 to the time of her death by starvation in 1912.

When the Boxer Rebellion broke out in the summer of 1900 the Church at Pingdu was already well established. One of the most effective evangelists was a man named Sun. He and his two sons managed to flee from the Boxers, taking refuge at an inn owned by a church member. The Boxers soon arrived and seized Sun and his two sons. They were bound with cords and roughly dragged to the magistrate’s office for interrogation. When asked if he was a Christian, Sun replied with a question of his own, “I study the doctrine, worship God, and obey the laws of the empire, why should I be killed?”[1]

The magistrate did not want to kill the bold preacher, so in a bid to appease the bloodthirsty Boxers he ordered Sun and his sons be beaten with three hundred heavy strokes and thrown into a dungeon. This severe punishment left the three Christians struggling to breathe and badly disfigured, but it was not enough to satisfy the Boxers. The next day they went to the dungeon and dragged the three faithful men outside the city. As the sword was lifted above his head, Evangelist Sun knelt down and cried out, “Heavenly Father, receive my spirit!”