My team leader, Kevin, and I walk to get “daily bread” for our team every morning from a vendor about one block from our hotel. One morning during our last week at our ministry
site we were walking back to the hotel, bread in hand, when we passed four Chinese individuals wearing Muslim head coverings. One of the ladies smiled at me so we stopped to say hello expecting no more than the usual communication of: “hello”, “what’s your name?”, and “it’s nice to meet you”. As it turned out, one of the four knew a lot of English, more than anyone we had met on the streets yet, and she asked why we were there. Up to this point, for safety purposes, our team had been telling those we met on the streets that we were travelers or backpackers. We had recently had a conversation as a team about becoming more bold in what we share about our purpose here, so I looked at Kevin for confirmation and told them that we were there to tell people about Jesus…AND GUESS WHAT?!…she said, “us too”! This is where we see how amazing
God is…we could have just said we were travelers as we usually did and we might have never found out that they were Christian missionaries from a Chinese National Church eight hours away who were there living out their church’s vision from God to spread the gospel to the Muslim sect in this town! God made us bold in that moment for that reason. I literally jumped up and down when they told us they were believers. We asked if they would be willing to meet with us again and exchanged contact information. The next day myself, Kevin and Amanda met with them in our hotel room. They were a gift to us from God. The love and supernatural connection between believers was so evident as we talked. They encouraged us in our ministry and taught us some of the cultural norms they had learned. I told them that they are such an example to me (and us in America) because of how they truly devote their lives to the message of the gospel. They are “those people” we talk about in America who risk everything to tell people about Jesus. Before they left we held hands and prayed for each other and the surrounding villages. It was an experience I will never forget. It was incredibly encouraging for our team to know that the Chinese Church is going to be sending missionaries to this town that we have poured our hearts into for a month…that once we leave there will be more work done here as we have prayed for. We are going to connect our new friends with our organization’s China contact so that they could potentially partner in the future. More divine appointments please Lord!
