Despite years of persecution, a tiny village clung to the faith and now they worship openly in the church they rebuilt.

MUNAN, China-Despite years of repression, Christianity has hung on in remote China.

On a recent Sunday in the nearly inaccessible village of Munan, Yunnan province, the hymn ``What a Friend We Have in Jesus'' wafted out of the Anibu church that stands at the foot of a 2,000-meter mountain.

Three hundred villagers sang, in the traditional Lisu language used by the minority ethnic group, with Pastor Chu Yongping, 43, conducting the choir.

Three generations of his family have kept the Christian faith alive here.

Some 70 years have passed since foreign Christian missionaries penetrated deep into China and delivered their divine messages to Munan.

Munan is a village tucked inside the mountains at the northwestern tip of Yunnan province, bordering on Myanmar (Burma). The region is home to one of China's ethnic minorities, the Lisu.

The village lies inside the Nujiang Lisuzu Autonomous prefecture, about 700 kilometers northwest of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. To get there involves leaving the main road, which is wide enough for cars, and ascending the mountain on foot for three hours.

The blossoming of the faith was nearly stamped out when the Communists came to power in 1949 and demanded that people revere Chairman Mao Tse-tung instead of foreign divinities.

The government sanctioned only five religions, and in watered-down forms at that: Buddhism, Taoism, Protestantism, Islam and Catholicism (that had no ties to the Vatican).

Trying times continued as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1977) stormed by.

By the 1980s, though, certain religions, while officially banned by the government, were allowed to exist in certain regulated forms.

It is thus that the church in Munan reopened.

Nowadays, almost the whole Munan population of about 2,200 are ethnic Lisu. Most are farmers who grow corn and other crops on cramped fields. The villagers have some of the lowest income in the nation. The average annual salary per person is about 200 yuan, or 2,600 yen.

Of the 900 residents who live in the Anibu district, 700 are Protestants.

The devout believers refrain from drinking and smoking, as decreed by their church.

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Christianity came to the village around 1930.

When an American missionary arrived in Munan village, Chu's grandfather became the first villager to get baptized.

The grandfather's name was Cisanfupa-a traditional Lisu name. At that time, no one carried a Chinese name.

Life was hard for the Lisu; there was plenty of potential for Christianity to take root.

Chu's grandfather became a missionary, spreading the Gospel among his fellow villagers. He managed to build a church, with the help of two villagers-a simple structure topped with grass to serve as a roof.

His son, Bide, now 69, did not attend the local school because the family could not afford the tuition.

Bide was sent to a seminary at the foot of the mountains, which was run by an American missionary.

Bide was baptized in 1948 and received a copy of the Bible.

When China was reborn as the People's Republic of China under Communist Party rule in 1949, Christian clergy were driven out. The missionary school was shut down.

Local administrators discouraged religious practices, which were considered anti-socialist and against Marxist principles.

Chu's grandfather was arrested in 1958 for being a senior official of a church.

Bide was forced to do manual labor on a road-construction crew.

The foreman needled him: ``You are nothing but a dog that wags its tail for America. Quit being a Christian.''

They tried to force Bide to smoke a cigarette.

The Anibu church became a public bathroom; later, it was burned down.

Seven months later, Bide made it back to his village.

The first thing he did was to climb up to the attic to retrieve his Bible where he had hidden it before he was taken away.

This time, he dug out a little alcove inside the door threshold sill and slipped in his Bible for safekeeping.

Late at night, he would dig out the Bible and read it to himself.

It was two more years before his father returned from prison.

The Cultural Revolution began in 1966. It proved to be an especially difficult time for religious practitioners.

Whenever believers were exposed, they were apprehended by authorities.

There was a woman in the village who was reported to the government when she unwittingly broke into a hymn while she was working in the fields.

Bide was extra careful. He tried to pray in his heart, silently, without closing his eyes; so that no one would take notice.

According to Cisanfupa, God once appeared in his dreams and said: ``Do not hate the Communist Party. Even if they should burn your Bible, do not fret. In the future, the day will come when the party will reprint the Bible and return it to you.''

The family trusted those words and clung to their beliefs.

Then there came a thaw in the 1980s.

Bide's Bible, which he had so painstakingly kept out of sight for all those years, was the only copy existing inside the Lisu Autonomous County.

All Christian believers from the village came out of ``hiding'' and gathered at the old church site.

It took only two weeks to complete a new structure with a grass thatched roof and walls papered with bamboo husks.

On an auspicious Sunday in fall 1982, about 500 Christians entered their new church.

Pastor Bide was once again standing at the podium after 24 years.

He addressed the congregation and started to speak: ``I thank God for bringing us together on this day.''

His vision blurred as tears welled up in his eyes.

When the group began singing hymns, loud sobs filled the church.

The family patriarch who made it all happen died soon after; content to see the church rebuilt in the village.

His son says, ``I sensed God's will.''

Bide is now away on a mission. He is preaching at a church in Liuku, the prefectural seat about 20 kilometers from the village.

He teaches at a missionary training seminary connected to the church, instructing youths who arrive from all over the county.

His son, Chu, before he became a pastor, was an elementary school teacher for 20 years who had graduated from a teacher's college.

He was fired from his job for fathering five children-an offense against the state planned parenthood ordinance.

Chu became a farmer.

But soon he entered a seminary in Kunming to follow in his father's footsteps and become a missionary.

Chu returned to the village this June.

Chu goes around visiting the homes of church members, taking time off from farming whenever he can.

He listens to whatever the villagers have to say.

There are complaints, such as: ``We can't send our child to elementary school. We can't afford the tuition.'' or ``I can't pay for the medical fees for my sick father.''

Most hardships are money-related.

Chu teaches Lisu and Chinese at the village church to a group of children who can't afford to go to school.

Chu says he is well-aware that, ``Religion by itself won't solve real problems at hand. But we understand each other, we help each other and we give way to each other. The villagers are indeed poor, but our hearts are at peace. We are rich in that way.''

Church members donated 80,000 yuan (1.04 million yen) in 1997 to construct a new church. The present Anibu Church is an impressive brick building that can seat 1,000.

Authorities have stopped bothering the church; Chu's five children are all Christians who plan to lead future church activities.

Chu is content. Every time he looks at the faces of the church congregation-beaming villagers singing their hearts out-Chu says to himself: ``We may not have any worldly possessions and we may be poor as church mice; but one thing for sure is that we must keep guard over our church.''(IHT/Asahi: November 24,2004)