Every year, 100,000 Chinese leave China to study abroad, seeking to gain the upper hand in China’s fiercely competitive job market.
Hundreds of these are designated future leaders who are sent overseas to gain international exposure and get a world-class education at the world’s best universities.
It is clear that most of China’s future leaders will emerge from the thousands of scholars who have studied overseas.
Currently, more than 3 million Chinese students, scholars and their families are scattered abroad, living outside their homelands - all ages, from every part of China.
But is the church awake to God’s plans for China and the world? Are we responding appropriately to this strategic move of God?
“From one man God made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth. He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him” (Acts 17:26-27).
Both Deng Xiao Ping and Zhou En Lai (past Chinese leaders) studied in France. What would China be like today if these leaders had come to know the love of God in Paris?
The vast majority of these Chinese arrive overseas without any previous exposure to the gospel. Many are quite young and going overseas means freedom for the first time from parental control and cultural restraints. Far too often, such freedom, unrestrained by faith and moral foundations, leads to tragic consequences. For couples, the pressures of living and raising children cross-culturally often lead to breakups in marriages and families. And yet these new freedoms and challenges cause many to seek for purpose and meaning in their lives, and thus become open to the gospel. “He determined the exact places they should live ... so that men would seek him.”
Is God calling you to respond? We are looking for people called by God to go to these scattered Chinese - in Europe, Asia, Australasia and North America. We need people who are able to evangelize, disciple, train and equip in the heart language of the Chinese (Mandarin). Are you willing to learn the Chinese language and culture, and learn it well, so that you can reach into these young broken lives and broken families with the message of God’ grace by his power?
It is now widely estimated that of the 100,000 Chinese who go abroad each year, about 10,000 of them return to China as Christians! However, as new creations returning to China, these returnees face many challenges to their faith:
- Pressure to renounce their faith.
- Pressure to marry unbelievers.
- Pressure to compromise morally in a competitive business climate.
- Difficulty relating to unbelieving family and friends.
- Being envied and resented because of their overseas experience.
- Being viewed with suspicion by local churches.
- Accepting and being accepted by local churches.
OMF is committed to preparing and equipping returnees so that they can overcome these challenges, flourish spiritually and impact China and the world for Christ.
OMF International’s Chinese Diaspora Ministry (CDM) is currently working in six countries: Japan, New Zealand, Germany, the UK, Canada, and the U.S. We are an international team, and our workers are evangelists, church planters, pastors and seminary instructors. Could you see yourself teaching the Bible to Chinese students in Europe or discipling Chinese scholars in North America? We even have opportunities to reach Chinese factory workers in Laos and construction workers in Malaysia or Singapore!
We are seeking to enter more countries in Eastern and Western Europe as well as east and Southeast Asia. Our vision is to see the worldwide flow of Chinese diaspora reached and discipled to take the gospel back to China and to the rest of the world. We are looking for people called by God to love the Chinese wherever they are.
Where will your love for China take you?
Contact our Chinese Diaspora Ministry team for more information.
