Like I said in my previous blog, our ministry this month is very relational. We are basically just making our own ministry by making friends and sharing with them about God. The first few days were a little slow, and then God showed up in a big way. Tuesday we set out to count houses in our area of Harbin to try and get an estimate of how many people lived there so our contact Jake would have the information for church planting. Not really the most exciting way to spend the morning, and we were all feeling a little discouraged. Then our Chinese contact Rebecca took us to a coffee shop she knew of that is owned by Christians. It’s called Milk and Honey Land Café and ya’ll, it’s basically the cutest thing ever. As soon as we walked in we felt amazing peace and excitement, it was exactly what our souls needed! The owners Chris and Lucy have been so sweet and amazing to us, offering their time and resources in incredible ways. That first day they eagerly agreed to let us use the coffee shop for anything we needed, English Corners, Bible Studies, Movie Nights, and have even printed off hundreds of fliers for our events for free. Not to mention they have provided free tea and coffee during the events! We held an English corner there on Friday and over thirty Chinese people showed up! We got make friends and talk with them for a few hours, and we got to share about Jesus with almost every single one of them. Tomorrow we are holding a Bible study there and Thursday we are showing The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with discussion afterwards. Please be in prayer for these events, as well as Milk and Honey in general, God is doing amazing things in Harbin through this place because of Lucy and Chris’ willing hearts. Every time we thank them for their incredible generosity they say they are honored to be using their shop to spread the gospel and glorify God.
Speaking of prayer, let’s talk about the power of prayer for just a second. God has been teaching me a lot about prayer in China. Mainly, that it works. I’m very guilty of being one of those people that say they are going to pray for you, and then never actually get around to it, and God has been convicting me of that this month. Lucy told us that three days before we walked into her shop she prayed God would begin to use it in a big way to share Jesus in China. She said we are literally an amazing answer to her prayer. Also Bethany, who is on team Uniquely Knit, told us about an email she got from a lady back home, who woke up at 3 o’clock Tuesday morning (so 3pm Tuesday China time) with the urge to pray for Bethany at that moment, which happens to be the exact time we walked into the coffee shop! God is so cool. He hears and answers us, so please, please continue to pray for us, and be encouraged that your prayers are making a huge difference!
