In my last blog, I left off with us preparing to speak to Mr. Cherry about Jesus. We had planned to talk after dinner, but Mr. Cherry got home later than planned, so we ended up playing a card game with Juan and Bo.
Sensing that Mr. Cherry wouldn’t want to interrupt us, I told Juan via translate that we were ready to talk whenever he was. Juan immediately went to go tell him, and for a moment, I thought, “You know, it’s okay if we don’t get to talk tonight. Maybe playing another game would be better.”
I know now that was the Enemy’s voice, because none of us could have predicted what was about to happen.
* * * * *
The mood in the room went from jovial to serious as Mr. Cherry sat down next to Eric. We had brought a Chinese Bible with us, but to our surprise the family produced THREE well-used Bibles they had found in the abandoned house next door.
Mr. Cherry took us to Genesis 1:26: Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…’
“God is one. Himself,” Mr. Cherry said in broken English. “So why ‘our’? There is no one else!”
This led Eric to explain about the Trinity. “It is like the sun,” he said. “We know that the sun exists (God), but it also sends light down to earth (Jesus) and we feel its warmth (Holy Spirit).”
Mr. Cherry then asked about Matthew 7:13-14: Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
“Jesus was speaking to shepherds,” Eric said. “He was using a story that made sense to them to explain truths about spiritual life. He is saying that many people think they are going the right way, but the only way to true spiritual life is through Jesus.”
Mr. Cherry said that he understood. His favorite story is Peter walking to Jesus on the water. He told us that if he were Peter, he would not question. He would go to Jesus immediately and not doubt.
Through a series of other questions, we started talking about being vegetarian, kung fu, and meditation. Our team shared that these things are all good things—things that honor our bodies and therefore honor Jesus. When we shared about meditation, especially, Jake spoke into the translator, “When you meditate, you empty your mind, yes?”
Mr. Cherry nodded.
“When we meditate, we do not empty our minds of everything,” Jake explained. “Instead, we seek to fill them with Jesus’s words and his truth, so that we can know him more.”
“How do you do this?” Mr. Cherry asked.
A hurried discussion ensued about which passage to use. Finally we decided on John 3:16, because Eric thought it wise to keep things simple. After flipping through the Bible (which is very difficult when you don’t read Chinese) we directed Mr. Cherry to read the verse out loud, then read it again and meditate on the words, asking Jesus to speak to him.
“How does he speak?” Mr. Cherry wanted to know.
“God is spirit,” Eric said. “He speaks to our spirits. You must ask him to speak to your spirit through these words.”
Mr. Cherry read the verse five times aloud, then closed his eyes. After a few seconds tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I feel everything I have ever done wrong,” he said.
“Jesus wants to forgive you,” Eric said. “All you need to do is tell him that you will follow him.” He went on to explain how to communicate with God—Mr. Cherry could do it the same way he had meditated on the verse, simply talking to God through his spirit.
Silence fell in that echo-y concrete room, except for the sound of Mr. Cherry’s progressively louder sobs. All of us are furiously praying, and meanwhile I am looking around at Juan and Bo, who have been listening to this entire thing. Finally, Mr. Cherry opened his eyes, explaining that he felt as if Jesus had removed a stake from his back, and now all he felt was light and peace.
Eric directed him to 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. Then he stood and hugged Mr. Cherry, welcoming him as a brother.
At this point, my team and I are looking around at each other in complete awe. What just happened? We came to China expecting to pray, not to share the gospel! For me personally, it was a special moment as I have never been witness to a change of eternity. What a privilege!
Next thing we know, Mrs. Cherry—in pajamas and half asleep—joins us at the table. “He asked me to come,” she explains, gesturing to her husband.
“Can I tell my wife what happened?” Mr. Cherry says.
We say an enthusiastic yes. While they’re talking in Chinese, I look at Juan and Bo. Juan has taken out his own Bible and is flipping through it, typing back and forth on the translator with Becca, while Bo (whose translator was being used for Mr. Cherry and Eric) had reverted to taking turns drawing pictures on an Etch-a-Sketch with Laura Leigh.
Once more for the people in the back: an Etch-a-Sketch. We are literally using PICTIONARY to share the gospel. I mean, WHAT?!
At this point, all I can do is pray. Especially for Juan, who I had spent so much time getting to know.
Mr. Cherry and Mrs. Cherry are finished now. Mrs. Cherry asks if she can do the meditation as well, so we lead her through the same process. She says that she feels like there is warmth from her head to her toes.
“Would you like to follow Jesus?” Eric says.
Mrs. Cherry replies that she would like Jesus to be her Teacher, so Eric instructs her to meditate and speak to him through her spirit, telling him that she desires that. She takes longer than Mr. Cherry, so I glance over at Juan. Bo and Laura Leigh are still drawing furiously on the Etch-a-Sketch but Juan has his eyes closed, frowning, one hand pressed to his heart. I’m praying so furiously I’ve lost track of the words.
Mrs. Cherry opens her eyes after her husband prompts her to share. She says she imagined a light on her forehead like a crown, and that now Jesus is her new master.
A few minutes later, Becca grips my arm. “Juan just prayed!” she whispers. “He is part of the family now, too!”
I stand up and give him a hug. Probably not the most culturally appropriate, but I don’t really care.
After Mrs. Cherry speaks to us (in English), I ask her to share with her husband. Juan also jumps in. Through their motions during the conversation, we gather that they are each sharing different experiences with Jesus and how he spoke to them. Later, Becca shares that after meditating, Juan had felt a physical weight, like the darkness of all of his mistakes was brought to bear on his soul. She encouraged him to go back to Jesus and talk to him one more time because he is loved and free from all the things he’s done. He did, and felt a burning in his chest.
At some point (I don’t remember exactly when), Bo gets up to leave. Laura Leigh tells us that he preferred to talk to Jesus in private, because he was not confident of his ability to be serious in the group. The next morning, he shares with her (again via Etch-a-Sketch) that during the night he saw Jesus come out of his head and hover over his bed, and spoke to him, asking him to be Lord of his life.
Four people. Every person older than 10 (except Grandma Cherry) in this household now has a different eternal destination, and gained a global family in the course of one night. And to think, I thought it would be better to just play another game!
* * * * *
Cross Referencing Bibles (Harder than it Looks!)
One of the coolest things about being here is being able to fit form to culture. We often talk about form and function, meaning that while we don’t compromise the truths of the gospel, those truths can (and should) be expressed differently in different cultures. One of the coolest moments of this whole story was being able to meditate with the entire family the next morning, but this time picking a verse to meditate on together. We picked Psalm 103:8: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” In doing this, we gave the family a way to express their faith within their context—hijacking something the enemy was using for evil and changing it back to the good!
Meditating on Psalm 103:8…
…even Little Cherry & Grandma Cherry joined in!
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