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Chi, Oang
1872-1946
Taiwan Tribal Church
Taiwan


Taiwan tribal evangelist.

Chi Oang was the daughter of a chief of the Tayal tribe in the mountains of northeast Taiwan. Her clan resisted Japanese rule and continued to fight for ten years after Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895. Peace finally came through the mediation of Chi-Oang, who was known by both sides as "the reconciler."

Through her marriage to a Taiwanese of Chinese extraction, she learned the dominant language of the island and became accustomed to life on the plains. She also became a Christian and in her early fifties studied in a Bible school. Chinese were not allowed to enter the tribal areas and Christian preaching was very strictly prohibited by the Japanese rulers, but this did not inhibit Chi-Oang. In 1931, already frail, she returned to her own people and began an itinerant evangelistic ministry. By foot, by train, and sometimes on the backs of young men she evangelized her people. When travel became impossible, they came to her. Chi-Oang, the political reconciler, reconciled men and women to God until she died, and the hundreds of mountain churches now in existence honor her as their apostle.

H. Daniel Beeby



Bibliography
Edward Band, ed., He Brought Them Out (1950); George Vicedom, Faith that Moves Mountains (1967).


This article is from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, by Macmillan Reference USA., (c) 1999, Macmillan Reference USA Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group.