Parley Birger Eugen Gulbrandsen (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

: ,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: , born October 30, 1889, in Christiania, died 1959 in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

) was a Norwegian

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

to China affiliated with the Norwegian Evangelical Mission (NEM) which belonged to the Pentecostal movement. He was the brother of Henry Gulbrandsen, who was also a missionary to China. After coming in contact with a

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

meeting at the Filadelfia Assembly in Christiania, Gulbrandsen studied their teachings at the mission's home in Stabekk in 1909. Afterwards he studied at the

Bible Training Institute Bible Training Institute, established in 1892, was a bible college which aimed to evangelise the working classes in Scotland. It was closed in 2018 due to financial deficit. History The foundation of the Bible Training Institute, originally lo ...

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, Scotland. In September 1910, he went to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and worked in the North Chihli Mission in

North Zhili North Zhili, formerly romanized as , was a province of Imperial China in Ming dynasty. It was composed of the modern provinces of Hebei, the direct-administered municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as a small parts of Henan and Shan ...

(romanized as Chihli at the time) until 1914. He was active in the Longmen district (). In 1916, he joined the Norwegian Free Evangelical Mission Association (, NFEH), launched by the Pentecostal movement in Norway the previous year. When this mission was dissolved in 1934, the former Norwegian missionaries of the NFEH were directly supported by local churches in Norway. Parley Gulbrandsen was in charge for the work at Xinbao'an () in

Zhili Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th-century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed ...

(later part of Chahar). This work, which was begun in 1916, became known as the Norwegian mission in Sinpaoan. In Norway, the work was supported by the Filadelfia church at 24 in Oslo. Gulbrandsen later worked in the

Xuanhua District Xuanhua is an urban district of Zhangjiakou in northwestern Hebei Province, China. Xuanhua is a very old city with a rich military and agricultural history. Xuanhua was historically the "Gateway to Beijing", which lies to its southeast. As a c ...

, Longguan and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. He returned to Norway in 1948; he was awarded the King's Medal of Merit in 1952. Gulbrandsen died in 1959. Parley Gulbrandsen married Christina "Chrissie" Beruldsen in China in 1911.

Works

*''Greetings from China'' (), 1926 *''Thoughts about the outer mission and a brief overview of Pentecostal mission field'' () Oslo: Filadelfia, 1939

Literature

* Johansen, Oddvar; Hagen, Kjell; Nyen, Astrid Neema; Kolbjørnsrud, Paul and Filberg, Trond. 2010. De norske pinsemenigheters ytremisjon (PYM). *''Norsk Misjonsleksikon'', Volume 2, sp. 143.

Notes, references, and further reading

External links

Revival in Norway and Denmark
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gulbrandsen, Parley Norwegian expatriates in China 1959 deaths 1889 births Norwegian Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in China Norwegian Pentecostal missionaries