China Kaleidoscope

THE URGENT NEED FOR TRAINING
“I am 39 years old. I have been leading nine churches in nearby villages for more than ten years. The number of believers in these churches ranges from 20 to 120. I have only ten co-workers. None have received any systematic Bible teaching training. Their sermons are disorganized and dull. Even the co-workers seldom meet for worship. The churches cannot operate normally. I am very worried, weak and ashamed.”—A church-worker in Anhui (CCL May 2004)

MSI’S DECADE OF SERVICE
“These people come to you in the spirit of Christ.” With these words the respected representative of the Yenching Alumni Association from Beijing introduced a group of Christian workers to the Sichuan Provincial Public Health Bureau leaders in Chengdu. It was March 1, 1994. It was stated that this was a Christian organization drawing colleagues from many different countries. Its desire was to work with the Chinese government in raising the standard of health care, especially in poverty-stricken areas of Inland China, including cities, rural areas and among minority groups. These people, with a heart for China, want to serve shoulder to shoulder with the local leaders, doctors, nurses and village healthy care workers in their fight against disease, poverty and ignorance.

Praise God that from just a vision ten years ago, he has raised up hundreds of long- and short-term professionals to serve in needy areas of inland China, given the trust and goodwill of officials, supplied resources for the task and blessed with fruit. He truly is the One who brings something out of nothing.

TESTIMONY OF A GRADUATE
“It was one summer six years ago when my life took a sharp turn. Suddenly, I found myself caught at the crossroads of life upon graduation. I used to be very self-confident but I found myself at a loss. As I grew up with an atheistic education, the idea of a fairytale god never dawned on me. Neither did I believe in a savior. I had the strong conviction that my future would depend all on my own efforts and my destiny would be in my own hands. However, my self-confidence began to shake as I thought of having to go through various difficulties all by myself as a single woman. I began to desire a harbor to shelter me from the storms of life or a solid rock to lean on. I got to know a Christian teacher at my college. Her lifestyle was very different from the other people and she demonstrated selfless love towards her students. These traits caused me to sense deeply the fragrance of a Christ-centered life. The gospel she shared with me was like a refreshing breeze in a sweltering summer. It immediately opened my spiritual eyes. In the light of God’s word I saw all the ugliness inside me—the sins of pride, selfishness, lies etc. But the salvation of the Lord cleansed my soul. The faith and hope I now have are not castles built in the air because they are not built upon myself but upon the Rock of my life. The love of Jesus has touched me and changed me.”—This testimony, published by CCL Hong Kong in May 2004, shows clearly the importance of Christlike love shown by his people as a major means of winning Chinese to Christ today.

EFFECTIVE EVANGELISM
“We have three co-workers on our visitation evangelistic team. In a short ten days, over ten Christian families were visited and some sick friends were comforted. Over 20 people were brought to Christ. Now a new meeting place has been set up. After prayer, we witnessed God’s miraculous work on two cancer patients who were in the last stages of their illness. Their condition has noticeably improved. Thank God for his grace!”—A Christian in Jiangxi in a letter to FEBC.

OUTREACH TO MUSLIMS IN CHINA
There are over 20 million Muslims in China (including 11 million Hui and 9 million Uygurs in Xinjiang). Most are totally unreached by the gospel. Some Chinese Christians have a vision to take the gospel to Muslims in the Middle East, but the fact remains that evangelism by the Chinese church of the Muslims in their own country is still in its infancy. The TSPM churches are strongly discouraged, if not outrightly banned, from engaging in Muslim evangelism, especially in Xinjiang, because of the political sensitivities. There are thriving Han house churches in Xinjiang but they face a wall of cultural and religious separation dividing the Han from their Muslim neighbors. Strict Muslims will have nothing to do with Han Chinese and, if they were forced to eat together, break the crockery afterwards, regarding it as “defiled.” Muslims who become Christians face total ostracism from their community.

In one village Han Chinese Christians, who had migrated to Xinjiang from further east, have led quite a number of their Uygur neighbors to Christ. This is unusual—more often one or two converts are won after a long, patient process of friendship and low-key evangelism. This is what some of the original Back to Jerusalem pioneers are still engaged in today after arriving in Xinjiang over 50 years ago. They have seen very little fruit in terms of numbers but are quietly witnessing to the Lord, faithful to the original vision.

Henan province, which has been a center of house-church revival for 30 years, has 1 million Hui Muslims but there is hardly any outreach by the house churches. The Hui all speak Mandarin and, apart from their religion, are very close culturally to the Han Chinese. If the Back to Jerusalem vision is to become a reality, much more must be done to equip Chinese Christians to reach out in love to their Muslim neighbors within China itself. The Muslim areas of Xinjiang and Ningxia are ideal training grounds for those who feel called to go to the Middle East. Much prayer is needed as well as in-depth cross-cultural training. The provision of sensitively-written training materials to help Han Chinese Christians understand Islam and how to witness effectively to Muslims is a top priority, as such books do not exist at all in Mainland China.

DEVASTATION IN NORTH KOREA
“I walk into a town that looks as if it has been hit by a nuclear bomb. The primary school just 100 yards from the railtrack is in ruins. Lessons finished there ten minutes before a trainload of exploding ammonium nitrate ripped through the station [on April 22]. In all, 76 children died, many of them trapped in classrooms. At least 154 people died in Ryongchon and an estimated 1,300 were injured. The streets around the railway tracks are scarred by craters 150 feet deep. Hundreds of dazed survivors sit amid the ruins of their homes wondering when help will come.”

The cloistered dictatorship made an almost unprecedented appeal for international aid. But the doors were soon closing once more. Doctors only ten miles across the border in Dandong, China—put on the alert to tend to the injured—were still waiting for permission to enter North Korea. They had been advised that up to 1,000 patients would be ferried across the Yalu River for treatment. None appeared. Instead, the official North Korean news agency claimed that people “evacuated portraits of the ‘Great Leader’ Kim Jong-Il before searching for members of their own families.” (Sunday Telegraph 25 April 2004)

DEMOCRACY DEFERRED IN HONG KONG
On April 26, in a striking example of rule by fiat, the Chinese government through its parliament, the National People’s Congress, vetoed early democratic elections. It said universal suffrage would not apply for the election of Hong Kong’s next chief executive in 2007. A huge rally in Hong Kong last July 1 forced Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, to drop Beijing-backed anti-subversion legislation, then the protesters buoyed by success moved the agenda to free elections and finally inflicted a huge defeat on pro-Beijing parties in November’s district elections.

On May 1 the People’s Liberation Army sailed eight warships on a goodwill visit to Hong Kong—and also the greatest show of naval might since it was transferred from British rule in 1997. (Guardian and Daily Telegraph 1 May 2004)

WESTERN UNIVERSITIES OPEN IN CHINA
Thousands of Chinese students will soon be able to experience a British university education without leaving their homeland. Nottingham University became the first British university to announce the establishment of a campus on the Chinese mainland taking advantage of legislation passed by the Chinese government that allows foreign education enterprises to be set up in China. The campus will be in Ningbo. The first students will be recruited this autumn and by 2008 may number 4,000. The campus will concentrate on arts and social sciences. Students will be charged the equivalent of US$6,800 a year. The university is tapping into a massive expansion of higher education planned by the Chinese government. At present only one percent of the population in China goes to university compared to 44 percent in the UK. (The Independent 16 April)

This exciting development has obvious repercussions for Western Christians. As other universities in Britain, the USA and other countries follow suit, there will be many more opportunities for them to go to China—a wonderful open door!