UPDATE FIRST- We are in South Africa, Cape St. Francis to be specific, near Port Elizabeth. We just got here yesterday and finally have internet! I have missed you all!! Video at the end on this and more to come soon-ish!
Wow, how start explaining my last month in China… First of all, I have really missed contacting everyone, and this month was harder than I thought it would be. I got pretty homesick. On top of that, I had numerous dreams about going on a shopping spree and switched out all my old clothes I have been forced to wear day in and day out…. that was a rotten trick, I woke up so disappointed! Needless to say, I am tired of my clothes already, five outfits just doesn’t cut it for me. However, this month because it was SO DANGGGG cold I had maybeeeeee 3 outfits. ON TOP of that, finding other clothes in Asia is not an easy task… And side-note, before I start the real blog part, our contacts, Jake and Steph were THAAA BOMB DIGGITY PANTS.
Moving on to the juicy details about my month is China.
This month consisted of Evangelism.
Scary word for me. Scary word for a lot of people.
These were my thoughts when I heard that word, thoughts that you might share with me…
-Standing on a corner holding signs
-Handing out tracks, shouting, “Jesus Saves!”
-Telling people if they don’t believe in Christ they will burn for eternity.
-The Crazies.
I never wanted to be that person. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.
Don’t worry I am still not that person.
It is interesting how many times Christians treasure the Ghandi quote: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” I myself, held that quote very close to me, and I still think it is relevant at times, but I look at it in a different light. One of our first days here our contact, Jake talked to us about his view, and this was his example. (give or take a few words of course)
Keep in mind, GOSPEL=GOOD NEWS
“Obviously the evening news is not mimed, it is spoken, otherwise it would not be called ‘news’, so the Gospel is not the ‘GOOD NEWS’ without spoken words.”
BAM!
UMMMMMMM, never thought about that analogy. Granted, that does not take away from the fact we are to use actions with our faith but it adds a whole new sense of urgency I feel towards being evangelical………………..eh, still freaks me out using that word, honestly, I wish I could change that word. I have spent the last four years of my life trying to erase the word from my vocabulary, for the sake of the connotation that goes along with it. Which, somewhat leaves a bitter taste is my mouth towards the people that have ruined the reputation of the word EVANGELISM.
So this is what our week looked like. We live on a college campus so college students were our ministry. We ended up here on a Friday, so that night we went to English Corner, which is chinese students that want to practice their english. SO you answer a lot of yes or no questions, talk about American music, American food, how old I am, do I like china, where is my home, what is my name, so on and so forth. Which sounds all fun and dandy, in reality really wears on a person… choose joy, choose joy, choose joy. SO I chose it, I was joyful, answered the same questions over and over and made some ‘friends’. Our task at english corner was to get as many phone numbers as we could, use those numbers and invite EVERYONE to a ‘party’ which was held at the church, have fun games and activities. So for most of us Americans, food makes a party right? WELL we learned in Chinese culture, food is a little less of a deal breaker, so eventually we figured out all the snacks we were buying ended up in the Americans bellies and saved some money. I digress, so the key to this party is not to be a bait and switch, the whole come to my party but really we learn about Jesus. However, at the Tuesday parties we tell them about Bible Study Thursday night and that we would love them to come and plan lunches with them, really get to know them and present the gospel to them when they are aware you are planning to. So besides English Corner on Friday nights, party of Tuesday night, Bible Study on Thursday night, evening church service on Wednesday night, and our free day on Monday, our schedules were stock full of appointments with the college students we met. Let me tell you, having to present the gospel to students that do not know english completely really makes you break it down to simple terms. Yes, it is a fact we used the cliché two cliffs, God on one side me on the other, Jesus’ cross being the bridge over to God example… never in my life thought I would pull that out. I personally used the ‘Romans Road’ a lot as well. Each time I shared the gospel with a student I felt like it validated why I believe it. I was able to sit back, break down what I believe and think to myself… “Hey, yeah, I really do believe this, it makes sense.”
Another neat element to this whole process was the Thursday night Bible study we were inviting students to was actually a church plant in the process. The church that Jake has already is so full, considering it is in a little apartment building, so some of the guys Jake has been training as pastors are going to start another church a few miles away. NOT only are we sharing the gospel with students but we are getting a chance to help plant a church… awesome? I think so.
So each week was the same, we fished out the students that we most interested in spending time with us and learning and focused on building a strong relationship with them, then we got new numbers from english corner and started fishing through those people. By the last week we each had 1-4 people that we were investing a considerable amount of time with. While we were getting ready to leave it was very important that we gave our students the numbers of other people in the church that they can be discipled by, so we worked hard to build a connection for after we left.
