From 1946-1951, Raymond H. Joyce and his wife Mona Miller Joyce lived in Yunnan among the Hui. In 1996, Mona Miller Joyce was interviewed about her life and work. What follows are two quotations from the transcripts regarding their work among the Hui.
There were a few people doing work among the Muslims. There are two couples actually. I remember Raymond sending out a prayer call for two weeks of prayer for the Muslims of Yunnan. Every year we set aside two weeks and we encouraged people to join us in prayer. I think it shook many people up to realize that the Muslims were being bypassed, which happened very easily. They were not easy people to meet. They are easy in many ways to preach the Gospel to because you have so many bridges to do that. That does not mean conversion is easy.
Towards the end of the Joyce’s time in China, their freedom began to be significantly limited by the authorities until they were expelled in 1951. Mona Joyce shares about how they continued to minister even while under house arrest.
The last stage of our time there when they began to shut us in, Ray said, “Okay.” I said, “What are we going to do with all this literature?” He had stacks of literature. And then he said, “Oh, we’ll mail it out.” … The postmaster was great that way. So he made up about two hundred packages of stuff. And in each one Raymond had sent a letter to the Imam. We sent all these packages to the Imams in different provinces where there were Muslims or to a Muslim village where we knew there was someone. We sent a message of salvation and another letter stating that these materials were a gift. And when we got to Kunming, they said, “Well you know, one man wrote in and said, ‘I’ve seen some of the material you’ve sent out to our Imams.’ And he said, ‘I would like a Bible if you have one left.’” And we had one Bible left. Ray said, “It must be for this man.” Of course, we didn’t know him at all, but it was wonderful how God overruled in all these things. We got all that stuff out there.
Prayer Requests
- Pray for the Hui of Yunnan. May many hear the Gospel and turn to follow Jesus.
- Pray that God will send workers into His harvest among the Hui of Yunnan.