Our month in China was a month of evangelism. At training camp, Trainer Josh said, “Evangelism is just making new friends and telling them about the most important thing in your life.” So, as much as I have a heart for social justice, I was also excited to make new friends around the world and share with them all that God is and all that He’s done in my life.
Within hours of arriving in China, we sat down with our contact, Jake, and he mapped out what we would be doing with fantastic clarity. He said, “You’re not here to paint a wall. I can pay people to paint walls for me. I can’t pay them to tell people about God.” And we were off. . .
That very night, we found ourselves at an “English Corner” sponsored by a student group of the university where we spent most of our time. The English Corners are set up to help students learn English by conversing with one another and, if any are available, foreigners who speak English. English Corners are where we met all our new friends.
Throughout the week, we hosted fun events to provide more opportunities to hang out with our new Chinese friends and get to know them. Every Tuesday, we threw a party, playing board games or doing American cooking or karaoke or my birthday party! Every Wednesday, Jake and Steph’s church held their mid-week service. Every Friday, we went back to English Corner. On Saturdays, Tim and I headed to a university north of the river for a Bible study led by one of Jake’s disciples. Then every Sunday, Jake and Steph’s church held their regular morning service, which was packed and over-flowing, giving reason to the idea of expanding to a new church plant. On Thursdays, we held services for this new church!
During the first week of our time in China, Jake informed us that he wanted to utilize our team to expand the church. He has three Chinese men discipling under him, and they are ready to move out on their own. While Stephen had already begun his ministry north of the river, Team Nikao helped Thomas to launch his own ministry, and Levi will be close behind. It was amazing to be a part of such an incredible movement of the church!
While some people might believe that short term missions is not effective and one cannot have an impact in only a month, I was really encouraged to hear the missionaries in China talk about the impact of their interns. They said that the three disciples, men we looked at as our church leaders, had come to know the Lord through American students like us, and in launching a new church, we would have twice the draw they would as locals. It made our time there just that much more meaningful, and I learned more about sharing my faith in that three weeks than I have in my entire life.
So, enjoy these videos. The first one is about our ministry, made by Kathryn. On top of our weekly events, we met individually with different students to continue building relationships and engage in conversations. The second one I made about one of our free days, Monday, when we went to a tiger park. The last one is just a fun one that Kathryn also made during our time offline in China.
