For years, Christians have been subjected to violent persecution in China, with some 500,000 Chinese Christians killed because of their faith during the late 1940s.

Now, this atheist country that has long taken efforts to snuff out Christianity is witnessing the extraordinary growth of an expression of faith: a prayer movement involving thousands of Christians who take their turns in praying 24 hours a day non-stop for seven days a week, according to CBN News.

The initiative started as a small gathering in 2009 but has now become a nationwide prayer movement in a site in northeast China now involving hundreds of Chinese churches. The non-stop prayer services in these churches are largely unknown to outsiders since TV cameras and reporters are not allowed inside these churches. However, CBN News said Chinese Christian leaders granted it exclusive access to their movement.

The movement started merely as a dream of Christian couple Ha Bining and Feng Kai, who aspired to turn a piece of land in a corner of northeast China into a place of collective prayer, CBN News said

"We had a dream that someday we would build a church focused on prayer for China and the world," Bining shared.

"My tears fell like the rain and I started praying. God gave us a vision to help bring churches across China together for 24-hour non-stop prayer for our country and the world," she added.

The Christian couple then started building the place for prayer on the property. Nine years after their vision, and the construction almost complete, they invited friends and pastors to a prayer meeting through email and text messages.

The prayer leaders did not expect a lot of people to respond to their invitation, but they were positively shocked about the initial outcome of their effort.

"We didn't know who would show up or how many. I was praying that at least people from seven churches would show up. To my absolute amazement 70 churches joined us that day," Bining said.

"We were overwhelmed at the response. It was totally beyond our expectations," she added.

During the first prayer meeting, the attendees took turn praying, particularly asking the Lord to make their movement flourish.

God seems to be hearing their prayers. Since they started the prayer movement in June 2009, 617 churches from across China have already signed up to pray round-the-clock.

"Every day, we receive guests from around the world. It's so exciting," Bining said.