Marie Monsen, a Norwegian missionary to China, was invited to speak at a series of nightly meetings at a theological college near Beijing in the late 1920s. The director longed for the kind of revival that had broken out in other regions, but he was discouraged about the possibility.
“The students are a wild set,” he told her.
The director assured her that he and his staff had been praying for revival, so Marie asked to join them one evening. “It was an unspeakably dry prayer meeting,” she later wrote. She told him that this was not the kind of prayer that led to an awakening.
Marie formed a group of intercessors with Swedish missionary colleagues, and they prayed daily for each student, especially the troublemakers. Their prayers were bold and specific — we might even call them severe, though the heart behind them definitely was not — and one by one, the students were humbled and transformed.
Rebellious ringleaders lost their influence, cynics lost their sharp tongues, and hard hearts softened. Many students openly wept as they confessed their sins against each other.
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