Corona, CA: Mama Kwong Goes to Her Reward

Chinese house church network leader known as Mama Kwong, 78, died of cancer at the home of her younger son in Corona, California, on Thursday, January 27, 2011.

Her significant life story was first reported in 1980 by Brother David, Dan Wooding and Sarah Bruce in their best-selling book, “God’s Smuggler to China” (foreword by Brother Andrew.)

Other notable China authors, like Carl Lawrence of “The Church in China,” also documented parts of her life – especially three separate prison experiences. The day after each release she went right back to her ministry.

Mama Kwong began preaching in China at age eighteen right after the Communist revolution, although her official role in the eyes of the government was teaching school children. Soon she had developed a large and growing network of more than two hundred house churches in the Shantou area of southeastern China.

God performed many miracles among them. This was the network that requested one million Bibles from Open Doors-Asia in 1979. The delivery, known as Project Pearl, was completed in 1981 by which time she and her family had successfully immigrated to Hong Kong where she pastored a Chinese church.

She and Papa Kwong, her husband, who also spent years in labor camp for his faith, supervised the internal distribution system for Project Pearl. She had told Dr. Ed Neteland, the then Executive Vice-President of Open Doors, that a million Bibles delivered into China would be as “significant as Joshua commanding the sun to stand still.”

During her third imprisonment for preaching in the early 1970’s, Mama Kwong was given a vision from the Lord. She saw thousands of missionaries from the West and the East working side-by-side digging a trench. The trench became bigger and longer after much hard work. Then water started to flow into it. It became the River of Life.

She saw it flow first through all parts of China and after that into the whole world. The workers were very happy and their singing filled heaven and earth. Forty years later, we now see the beginning of the fulfillment of the vision.

The Kwong’s had four children. Peter, their eldest, was martyred by Red Guards during the infamous Cultural Revolution. The other three children and their families live today in southern California.

The most recent documentation of her life is in Open Doors’ new book that I had the privilege of writing. Called “Night of a Million Miracles: The Inside Story of Project Pearl,” it is available from the Open Doors office or their website (www.opendoorsusa.org).

My warmest memories of Mama Kwong are the hours spent at her home in Hong Kong in early 1982 going over the results of Project Pearl. And then hosting her and Papa Kwong for many large church meetings in Singapore in 1984 where she shared about the church revival movement inside China.

Mama Kwong is survived by her husband, children Daniel, Joseph and Mary, and seven grandchildren. There will be a memorial service at Calvary Chapel Chinese Fellowship, 3945 Shaefer St., Chino, CA from 9:30 a.m. – 11:30 on Saturday, February 5, 2011, followed by an internment service at the Rose Hills Garden of Serenity in Whittier, CA at 1:00 p.m.