Never in my life did I think I would be sitting outside in China on a chilly Sunday morning worshiping God with my squad. As I looked around at my squad worshipping without hesitation or fear, the verse in Romans 1:16 took on a new meaning. “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes…”
This month we are in Harbin, China working with a church. The missionary does things a little differently then I would have imagined ministry in China to look like. The first few days we were here, we snuck around Harbin not praying over our food and telling everyone that we are simply tourists. When we met with our ministry contact, he told us that we are free to tell people we meet the truth, we are here to work with a church.
My team is going around an area of the city to meet people these next two weeks. We have already met many college students who want to be friends so they can practice their English with us. Once we have established a relationship with them, we will ask them if they would like to meet up with us to study the Bible and hopefully we will have an opportunity to share with them about the hope that we have. Our ultimate goal is to connect them to a local church in their area so they can continue to grow when we leave here in a few weeks.
We are blessed to be in an area in China where this kind of ministry is possible. The missionary said they do occasionally have problems with the authorities, but not the horror stories I have so often heard about in China.
The longer I am here, the more I am falling in love with China. I am becoming an expert at eating with chopsticks, thanks to my love for P.F. Changs. My team has already become regulars at a restaurant within walking distance from our apartment building. There is a noodle place we frequent that we all call “Mama’s” because the owner takes such good care of us when we go. We order huge bowls of noodles to split and she cuts our noodles for us while chattering away in Mandarin. We have been there for one meal almost every day we have been here and we all laughed hysterically when we left last night and she said “see you tomorrow!” We are studying up on our Chinese to hopefully be able to better communicate with her when we go there for meals.
Things to be praying for:
- Pray for the contacts we make these next few weeks, that some would be open to hearing the Gospel
- Please pray for our team to stay healthy and safe
- Pray for the finances to come in for me and my teammate Ryan to meet our November deadlines
