Matthew 5:14-16
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Being here in China is so surreal! All the way up to launch I wasn’t sure this was something I was supposed to do but after receiving the $2,000 anonymous donation, that put me a lot closer to my goal, it just gave me affirmation that this was something that He wanted me to do. God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called! Its all in God’s timing, someone explained it to me this way, its like when you buy a present for someone. You’re excited to give them the present but its all in giving the present at the right time. What you have is good but what God has is greater! I feel that he is teaching me to be patient and to trust Him.
I’m so excited to see how God brings my team together to minister to the town we are in. For our first month of ministry we will be in a small town in Western China that is home to a local Monastery. Our ministry is focused on building relationships with the locals.
There’s a local coffee shop about 30 minutes walking distance from where I’m staying. There aren’t many tourists that come to this town so when we make our walk to the coffee shop a lot of people stare and some take pictures of us, which I think is funny. Most of the small children know some phrases in English so we’ll stop to say ‘hi’. The owner of the coffee shop speaks English, his name is Tsering. He teaches us Tibetan and in return we teach him English. They speak Chinese but mostly Tibetan in this town. He surprised me with how much he knew about America and our politics, he has a great desire to visit America. He inspired me to know more of the world around me. As much as they want to know about me I want to know about them.
We have collaborated to minister with another group that is part of Adventures in Missions called Kingdom Journey that happed to be in China too. Their group consist of four guys that have done the world race and are now ministering in China and India. One of the projects we did with them was track bombing, where we walk around towns in the middle of the night distributing literature, with information about Christ, on people’s doorsteps. These towns are mostly Buddhist and have never heard of Christ. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t scared doing this but as I was walking through a field I looked up to see a sky full of stars with the shadows of the mountains in the background, an outline of a willow tree while listening to the running water of a local river. It was then I remembered why I was doing this.
One of the guys from Kingdom Journey prophesied over our team. While not having very many conversations with him and only have spent four days with him, his prophecy over me was that I would somehow work with women’s right and work with sex trafficking victims. I found this ironic because working with sex trafficking victims was one of the ministries I was most excited about. I believe God has great plans in store for my team! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue on our journey through Asia.
I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world. -Mary Anne Radmache
