We have just completed six days in Won Gai, a mostly Muslim city in Northwest China. Amazingly, we didn’t minister to Muslims at all, but rather to the Han Chinese. For whatever reason, God opened up doors among the Han, so we just walked right through them.
At any rate, we ended up speaking to 800 teenagers studying English, and we shared with them the reasons for Easter and Christmas, and Katherine taught them all to sing “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” in English. This launched our rockstar lifestyle. After the assemblies, we were mobbed by adoring teenage fans wanting autographs.
Terrific, I though to myself.
Another opportunity to tell them that God loves them, and this one a lasting ink impression they will take home. Perfect.
I underestimated the power of the crowd. They mobbed us in droves, swarming around us like jackals on a downed caribou. Within moments, I was completely hemmed in, little Chinese bodies pressing into me from all sides, their notebooks and pens completely obscuring my field of vision. At one point, I had to stop signing completely because I could no longer even
see the notebook I was writing in. This was popularity on a scale I had never experienced before. I had become a celebrity.
The glow of fame lasted most of the week, though not at such a frenzied pitch. As we walked down the street, local teens would elbow their friends and stare at us. The braver ones actually came up to us and introduced themselves in English. We even had one pair of girls engage us in the lobby of our hotel. (We would end up spending much of the week with her, and we later gave her the English name, Hannah.)
But this experience of fame has bothered me somewhat over these last few days. To be sure, our speaking at the school planted seeds in the hearts of our hearers about what foreigners are like, about how Christians conduct themselves, and most-importantly, about the all-surpassing love of God for everyone in that room. It also helped us forge great relationships with the English teachers we spent so much time with all week. So clearly, I would not take back anything we did or said at the school.
I just wonder, did we miss something? Did we fail to capitalize on the celebrity status the students bestowed upon us? Should we have seized the moment and evangelized our adoring fans on the spot? Or would that have been distasteful, and would it have torn asunder the good reputation we had been so careful to earn among them?
At this point, I can only pray that God would bring a permanent Christian presence to Won Gai. There is an opportunity for a foreign teacher at the school, if only we can find someone willing to go, to be salt and light in a community that currently lacks both.
