Tomorrow, I'll be talking to a geography class at school about China. I visited with them about Africa a couple of months ago. They're interested in all the pictures and in a first-hand account. It's quite a privilege to be asked and to participate in opening some young minds.China is such a big subject, though. So many people, so much culture and history, so many crazy food choices! Taxi rides there are like no where else. Bicycles. Apartments. Everyone stares at you because "you are Not from here" and it's totally obvious. Subway rides in Beijing mean violations of personal space in all 360 degrees.
But what I cannot talk much about tomorrow is the complete miracle of the Chinese Christian experience. 20,000 (some say 50,000) people are turning to Christ in China per day. They are building churches that seat 3,000 people and filling them 7 times a week, with different people in every service. They are printing Bibles in China. There are eight Christian seminaries in China. But they cannot turn out pastors fast enough. Counties with 1 million people have only 10 pastors. And thousands of new converts. Baptism services are held for 500 people at a time.
I was in a service in cold, rainy weather in a small building. People were outside, listening through the windows. I told my interpreter, "We need to do something for the people outside!" He said, "They are the Christians. They have stayed outside so that their seats can be given to those who are not yet Christians."
I've been privileged to hand out Bibles in China and seen the tears flow from an elderly woman's eyes as she held what was probably her first Bible.
I've ridden in a car with an RAB man (Religious Affairs Bureau, government official charged with monitoring church activities) as he drove us to the site of a new town. New factories to be built so that new apartments would be built and new schools and hospitals, and, according to the RAB man, a new church. I thought I'd misheard. No. They were planning to have a church in the new town. "Why?" "The Christians are our best workers. We want to encourage them."
Wish I could tell these kinds of things about China tomorrow at the school. But rather than shaking our heads over that, what about if we Christians in free America lived and witnessed with the commitment that our Chinese brothers and sisters have demonstrated? They are exponentially exploding the Kingdom of God. It is one of the great miracles of modern days. Rejoice! Christianity is alive and well and growing in China!
Would to God it should be reinvigorated here. In America. Soon.
