John Birch (missionary) - Missionary Work

Missionary Work

While at Mercer, he decided to become a missionary and enrolled in J. Frank Norris' Fundamental Baptist Bible Institute, Fort Worth, Texas. After completing a two-year curriculum in a single year, he sailed for China, sent by the World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship. Arriving in Shanghai in 1940, he began intensive study of Mandarin Chinese. After six months of training, he was assigned to Hangzhou, outside the area occupied by the Japanese fighting in the Second Sino-Japanese War. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor ended that; and the Japanese sent a force to Hangzhou to arrest him. He and other Christian missionaries fled inland to eastern China. Cut off from the outside world, he began trying to establish new missions in Zhejiang province.