Chengdu Journal
Originally my plan was to write a book describing my experience in China. It was to contain two parts: (1) Chengdu and (2) Wuhan. This is the third attempt to move this writing along. After several migrations it is important that I migrate what has been written so far, which is the Chengdu part, into the WordPress environment.
Introduction to Part One
Introduction – Fall of 2004 when life was about to change
The seed for my adventure was planted in the late 1940’s when I was taking a world history class in middle school located in Batavia, New York. It was a required class and once each week we saw a film on a different world culture. I found each one interesting, but one in particular stood out. Its focus was the region around southern China. The music, the people and their customs caught my attention and sparked an interest in that culture.
As the school years passed my focus stayed with farming and construction with no plans to go to college, but God had other plans. During the summer between my eleventh and twelfth grades I had the opportunity to travel from Batavia, New York to the Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, located in Cimarron, New Mexico. The group consisted of nine boys and three leaders. The plan was to drive three cars, each with a leader, three boys and their gear. The leader and driver of my group turned out to be a Christian who was living out his faith. He found a number of opportunities to stress the importance of Christian values and was an effective mentor for us. I was already a believer, but God used him to cause me to think more deeply about my walk with the Lord and the direction of my life.
The hiking and camping at the ranch in the mountains provided an environment for God to really take a hold of my heart. I sensed he was directing me to prepare for college. When my senior year began school administration agreed to allow me to take a fifth year to prepare for college entrance. I decided I would study Agricultural Engineering with an emphasis on structures with the idea I could use this knowledge on the mission field.
To make a long story short I didn’t go to the mission field but taught at the college and university level for twenty years and then transitioned into software development for a national Christian radio network. On the side I studied the Bible daily, wrote Bible studies and taught Bible classes at my home church. Finally it was time to retire and spend time hiking in the mountains outside my home in Tucson, Arizona, but God had other plans that would soon surface.
He connected me with a missionary friend, who had just returned from the Middle East for a short furlough, who talked about the developing home church in China. This discussion of the home church stimulated an interest in me to learn more about them. Several books were suggested on how to establish and operate a home church. In the United States these home churches usually have a little different nature and are known as small groups associated with large churches. Reading these books caused me to seriously consider making some changes in how I taught Christian material. I began to see the value of moving from standing in front of a class and lecturing to sitting down with a smaller group, of under 20 students, and leading a discussion. It took me several years to effectively make that transition, but it was a very rewarding one.
During this transition time I sensed the Lord’s leading to move to Texas and live near our grandkids; actually it was to get me one step closer to China. Connie and I made the move and settled into Christ Fellowship Church (CFC), which was known for its life group ministry and was also very active in Asia. I quickly became involved in its life group ministry by deciding to lead one. This was a very rewarding experience and provided an opportunity for the leadership of the church to learn more about me, resulting in an invitation to join the church staff in attending a seminar on life groups. At the seminar I was asked to attend the next staff meeting and take part in a discussion about the seminar we had just attended. It was at this staff meeting that I was asked to join the teaching team that was going to China.
I accepted the offer and went and spend eight days teaching in an underground training center. It was there that I learned that this training center was part of the home church movement and was preparing missionaries to be sent across Asia. To realize that God had taken me from hearing about the home church movement from my friend in Tucson to now actually teaching missionaries for the movement was a very humbling and exciting experience. Being in such a training center and teaching these students was another important piece of the Asian picture for me.
Enough background as we are getting ahead of the story.
Page Index
Chapter 1 – A School of Opportunity
The focus of this chapter is on an illegal training center located someplace in Chengdu at the time of my visit. It was my first encounter with Chinese people and their culture. It was my first experience of being smuggled into a place under the cover of darkness. It was my first encounter with Chinese food and the use of chopsticks and when the urge came it was my first encounter with a hole in the floor called an Eastern Toilet.
Teaching in that school was an opportunity of a lifetime and sparked a love for these people and a total of seventeen trips to China to have English conversations and to teach Bible in churches and a seminary. I even had my own apartment for a while in Wuhan but traded that experience for the opportunity to live with a Chinese family. All of this will come in future chapters.
1.1 A Teaching Opportunity
During 2004 Connie and I moved from Tucson, Arizona to McKinney, Texas and started attending McKinney Fellowship Bible Church (McFBC) where we became involved in small group ministry.
As I taught our small group I sensed that The Lord was urging me to reformat my Bible study of James into a twelve week study suitable for use in my small group. As I worked on this material I shared it with the pastoral staff, seeking their guidance and keeping then informed of my progress. During this process I was approached by our Pastor of Global Missions and asked if I would consider joining a teaching team that was going to China in April of 2005 and teach my material to a group of students being trained to become missionaries and pastors.
This was an exciting opportunity for me to which I gave much consideration because of the cost involved and several questions it raised.
- Should I pay my own way or raise funds through an appeal?
- Should I take time away from my home construction to take this trip?
- Should I risk teaching at an illegal school and possibility getting caught?
- Should I go against my family’s will?
After thinking, praying and talking with various people I decided it was an opportunity that I could not pass up. It was an open door I felt, at the time, that I had to go through and as I look back now it is clear that it was God’s timing.
Having made the decision to go required that I obtain a passport to leave the US and a visa to enter China. Assuming I could obtain both documents I had to next decide how to pay the $2300 travel expenses; should I pay my own expenses or humble myself and learn to ask others.
Our team leader encouraged us to compose a letter describing the mission of the trip, compile a list of friends and send the letter requesting them to become team members through their prayer and financial support. Little did I know then that my letter was the first of many that would raise support to cover seventeen trips to China over an eight-year period.
Meetings were held to help prepare us for cultural differences. We discussed a list of do’s and don’ts and considered how to communicate and behave with the people we would meet and spend time with.
As we spent time together preparing for our trip we got to know one another and looked forward to our time together serving the Lord in a foreign culture with some risk of our mission being discovered by government officials. Excitement grew as we watched God provide for our expenses and work in our hearts.
Locate Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Shanghai and Guangzhou on the map aove for Future Reference
Finally, April 10th came and with luggage ready we headed to DFW and the experience of a lifetime. Mission groups visiting China usually travel first to Beijing where some sightseeing introduces them to the culture and provides some time for our tired bodies to adjust to the change in time. From Beijing they would fly to their designation city; in our case it was Chengdu.
1.2 The Training Center
Christ Fellowship was very involved with the home church movement in China and was funding the operation of several training centers there. Each training center had an average of 16 students equally divided between men and women. These students are handpicked by the elders of the home churches and sent to these training centers for two to three years, depending on what breaks are required for certain other activities. Except for these short breaks, these students are essentially confined inside the training centers because if discovered the centers would be closed and the students could be sent to prison.
My entrance and exit to the center in which I was assigned to teach for eight days at was done late at night and with much caution.
Life inside the center is not one that is easily tolerated by most Americans. To begin with the building has no heat or air conditioning, which is common in that area. As a result, there are times when it can become quite uncomfortable.
The first floor is a large garage for the purpose of driving in to transfer people away from the eyes of anyone outside. The second floor contains the teaching room, kitchen, instructor’s bedroom, women’s bedroom and their restroom. The third floor contains sleeping space for the men and their restroom. There is also an extra room there for drying cloths and some exercise.
The kitchen is a room that measures five by nine feet and is used by three students, on rotation, to provide meals in about an hour for all present, three times a day. The meals are primarily vegetables along with some things that I ate that I didn’t want to know the names of. My attitude was to eat what was put in front of me and learn to like it. As a result I found their diet to be very enjoyable and many times healthier than our American diets. They made their own bread each day, right after lunch, so it can steam during the afternoon.
The kitchen has no oven and no sink. There are no sinks in the bathrooms and no toilets either. The hole in the floor works just fine with your used toilet paper going in the basket nearby.
You step p on the platform turn left a quarter turn, squat and find relief. Try to imagine Americans using such a hole in the floor.
You sleep on bunk beds made from pipe and plywood. Over the plywood you lay a blanket for your mattress and sleep in another when it is cold enough. After about four days I found that I got used to the hardness and slept well.
You don’t need much storage space because you don’t have much to store. Each of us had a washbasin large enough to get both feet in, a small blue stool the height of a chair that was used to sit on for ten hours a day and a blue cup which held your toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. Besides the clothes you had on you would have one more change. Besides bathing with your washbasin, you would do your laundry in it every four or five days. You would have a few other personal items.
In the training center that I was assigned to the schedule was the same each day, seven days a week. You got up each morning between 5:30 and 5:45 and got cleaned up for an hour of prayer, praise and worship, which started at 6:00.
You usually stood up for the full hour experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit. It was so clear that He was in control by the way the students would transition from one student praying and the rest saying amen in unison at each break in the praying, to all praying at the same time, to everyone singing with one praying from time to time as the rest sang. These three expressions continued with variations of intensity and emotion.
Though I was not required to be with them during this time, I could not pass up the blessing it was for me to be there. When they prayed I prayed silently and when they sang I joined them gradually learning their words. Their singing was such an act of praise and worship and always brought us who were visiting to tears. It often brought the students to tears which would then lead them into some very intense expressions of prayer. Never in all my experience of praise, worship and prayer have I ever experienced the sincerity and intensity that these students displayed with God. What a blessing it was for me.
During this time three students were getting breakfast ready, which would consist of steamed bread, several dishes of vegetables, one which might have scrambled eggs mixed in, and maybe a thin white soup.
Between seven and eight it was breakfast time, cleanup time and preparations for the first study time, which always started at eight sharp with more singing and prayer which lasted for about twenty minutes. I would then teach from the Bible through an interrupter who had less than a year of English training.
Lucy and I Teaching
Lucy was my first interrupter and enjoyed the experience so much that she left one evening and went and got her friend Joanna to share the experience. I sure enjoyed working with these two young women and seeing God work in them as I taught.
Within the first hour Lucy and I we had learned to work as one. During the second hour I began to realize what was happening and how the Holy Spirit was working. Lucy stood at my side as I taught but she became more and more like a teacher as I taught. In my mind I saw her standing in front of me, listening to every word I said and then using her mind she was taking what I said and adjusting it to the Chinese culture and language, she then taught the students. But then I realized that someone was standing behind me speaking to me. When I teach I always listen very carefully to what God has to say because the function of the Holy Spirit in a believer is to bring to mind what is needed at the time. He was providing information in an exciting way, drawing on many years of daily Bible study. As I listened to Him and followed my notes, I was using my mind to select the words to express the thoughts that were developing. As I spoke these words, Lucy was doing her part and as she spoke the students were listening, thinking about what she was saying and taking notes.
What an experience it was to stand between God and Lucy and experience God teaching through us. At the break I shared this with Lucy she said that she had the same revelation and was quite moved by it. I would teach until nine and we would break for five minutes and start the next hour with a song. At ten we had another five minute break. We started with a song and then ended our morning session at eleven. Beginning each session with a song was my idea because they were so beautiful and prepared our hearts of another teaching session.
At eleven, three students headed to the 45 square foot kitchen to prepare the noon meal of rice, soup and three or four vegetable dishes.
Such Delicious Food
The picture shows the food prepared for our last meal with them. It was so good and a bit more than usual. There were five of us that ate most of what was shown. With our chopsticks we would reach out to a dish and get a bite of food. As you reach for the food you would talk with one another. The soup you drank. The students were served in the same way.
While the food was being prepared the remaining students stayed in the classroom and read the Bible, memorized passages from it, prayed, sang or did some form of homework.
The classroom (second picture up) contained a small narrow table, at the end opposite the windows, to support a white board. A large table, which was four foot wide and sixteen feet long made from two sheets of plywood placed end to end, was placed between the specials white board and the windows. Around this table each sat on his or her little blue stool. This was a very orderly time of quiet study and devotion.
Students Preparing Bread for Steaming
At twelve it was time for lunch and then kitchen cleanup. Following cleanup, eight students worked the bread dough (See picture at left.) and made it into small round balls to be placed in the steamer to steam during the afternoon. Other students did miscellaneous things and at 1:00 everyone turned in for an hour and one-half nap.
At 2:30 everyone was back at the table in the classroom to sing and pray for five minutes before starting the afternoon session. Four other instructors rotated in and out of the training center for a two day stay to cover the afternoon and evening session. I covered all the mornings.
The afternoon sessions went to 5:00. Between 5:00 and 6:00, three students prepared dinner, which was very much like lunch, which was very much like breakfast. Nine to twelve servings of vegetables each day made for a very healthy diet, one that I grew to like very much, even if I couldn’t identify some of what I ate. The other students stayed at the table for a devotion time like the one before lunch. At 6:00 we ate and then came kitchen cleanup. At 7:00 the evening session started and lasted until 8:30. At that time several students got mops and cleaned all the floors in the training center. We all washed our feet and were in bed by 9:00 for a good night’s sleep.
This schedule is kept by these students for over two years. I have never seen such harmony, respect and friendship between people as I saw in the training center. Their love for and devotion to the Lord and the purity of their relationships and environment is so different than life in the world. This is a time of saturation by the word of God and of growth in Him.
The purpose of our visits into this environment is to bring outside topics and specialized training to broaden their experience as they prepare to be sent out as missionaries in this movement across Asia toward Israel.
As we went about our daily activities, we all had in the back of our minds the possibility of being discovered and sent to prison. One of the students doesn’t know his dad because of his stay in prison for his Christian witness. Their love and devotion to the Lord eliminates their fear but leaves an element of caution.
1.3 The Students
The students range in age from about seventeen to the mid-twenties and come from different providences in China. They are chosen by the elders of their home church based on their love for God and their desire to serve Him. When I think about what it means to love God, I think of these students that I spent eight days with. Their love was so pure and so focused. It was a love for God that was demonstrated by their worship of and their obedience to God.
Their worship was from the heart and was so filled with the presence of God that it would draw you to your knees in repentance and adoration. Their spontaneous worship in song literally brought us to tears many times as God’s presence filled us and His love overflowed our hearts. It was a worship that contained a desire for holiness. There were eight young men and eight young women living in very close quarters, at that site, but a desire for holiness set the standard of conduct resulting in purity amongst them.
A love for God must always include obedience to Him. Their obedience was to the call of God through the elders of their home church to leave family and friends and enter an underground training center for more than two years and follow a rigorous schedule of learning the Bible, getting to know and to understand God with the awareness that they could go to prison if discovered. In their love for God they reverenced His sacredness. This element of holiness was so apparent in their worship time, in their relationship with God and with one another. Their hearts were so humble and gentle as they honored God and gave Him thanks.
Truly, these students loved God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and because of their love for others they are willing to pay any price to become effective servants of the One and only living God. These students found a very special place in my heart. How I wish I could have spent more time with them and others like them, teaching them more about God and His word.
1.4 The Future
The gospel started in Jerusalem and circled the globe to the West. It has now come to China and Christians there see that it is their responsibility to take it back to Jerusalem to complete the sweep of the world. This final leg includes all of the Muslim countries in the 10/40 window where the majority of the world’s terrorist live.
Having taken that short term mission trip, I came to realize that God had uniquely prepared me to be a part of that movement. I found that I could easily tolerate the conditions of the training centers, really enjoyed their diet, and have the gifts needed to work with these students. However I needed to learn some Chinese. When I got ready to leave the students begged me to come back and when I left, I left part of my heart there with them.
I seemed to have no fear of being in their underground environment and I truly longed to be there and I believe that God was calling me to return. It was my desire to put together 24 lessons and go back and spend twelve days in each of two training centers, teaching two lessons each day. With travel time I could just accomplish this on a 30 day visa. My goal was to do that as often as God sends me, reaching out to other training centers and other opportunities that God provides.
When one is willing to give themselves completely to God and walk by faith with Him daily, enjoying His presence, He will open doors and take you places and have you do things that you can hardly imagine and He will always provide all the resources needed to do the job He assigns to you and as you work together His peace and His joy will fill your heart. I know because I now have firsthand experience.
1.5 Another Trip Planned
Time passed all too quickly and as it did I continued to think of my experience in that training center and thought about returning. CFC was planning a trip to a country in Asia outside of China and asked if I would consider traveling with them part of the way and then fly alone to the location of the training center in China. My assignment would be to teach from the Bible for four days at the first center and then have a day to be moved to the second center to repeat the lessons. After four days at the second center I would be brought out for a one day special assignment and then would fly back to the city where I left the others and join them on the return trip. If everything goes well, this may become an opportunity for me twice each year and for longer periods of time. This is an important assignment that comes with some risk, but it is one that I long to be a part of.
As details of the trip were being worked out and documents put in order I realized that short term mission trips are one of the best ways to experience God because it takes you out of a familiar environment and places you in one that may be quite different culturally. Being confined in one of these training centers in close quarters with sixteen to twenty young people one third of my age is a good example. They did not speak a language I understood, ate food that was very different from my normal diet, and living in a rather primitive environment, provided ample opportunity to stretch my experience with God.
On this trip I would travel with the group to Bangkok, Thailand. They would continue on to teach at a pastor’s conference further into Asia and I would travel alone to Chengdu, China. I was not expecting to experience any problems as I had all the necessary documentation and it was a non-stop flight with someone assigned to meet me at the airport in Chengdu.
It should have been an easy flight, but easy can sometimes become a learning experience. Computers in the US didn’t adjust for the International Date Line and as a result my ticket was not for the correct day. With no flights scheduled by the airline I was flying with to Chengdu that day, I was forced to fly to Guangzhou, China and then on to Chengdu on a partner airline. Circumstances required that I purchase the ticket in Guangzhou for the additional leg and have the cost billed to the airline in Bangkok.
As I walked off the plane in Guangzhou, I saw a person holding a sign with my name on it. The airline had graciously called ahead and told them to help me through the process of securing my ticket for the last leg of my flight. For the next 40 minutes I was led through the process of securing that ticket, going through customs and getting to the partner airline boarding counter.
As I waited for my plane, I needed to figure out how to get in contact with somebody in Chengdu to pick me up. My cell phone would not work in China, but fortunately, I was given a cell phone that worked in China, by a member of the group I left in Bangkok. It was a working phone, but I was facing two problems: I only knew one name on the contact list and the numbers were all local numbers for Chengdu.
Out of desperation I searched for an English speaker who could help me. I finally found a person who could help near a phone store. I got the area code and called the only person I knew on the list, but no answer. At this point I picked a name at random and dialed it. A person answered, spoke English, and was in fact waiting for me at the airport wondering where I was. I explained the situation and made arrangements to be picked up by him when my flight came in. What an example this was of how God provides.
I finally arrived in Chengdu on the evening of the scheduled day, got to my hotel to get some needed sleep because late the next day I would enter the first school. I would be in for four days to teach, using an interpreter, for seven hours each day. The fifth day would be a day out of the school allowing me to get cleaned up, rest, meet with particular people and enter the next school for a repeat four days in and one day out before going to the airport to spend the next 21 hours on three airplanes and 10 hours in airports waiting for connecting flights. It was a long hard trip home, but worth every tired minute of it.
1.6 My Time in the Training Center
Unlike most other teachers who come to visit from the west, I enter the school and live with them and I don’t come out until my time is up. I sleep on a piece of plywood like they do, eat their food and live as close to the way they live as possible. As a result they have become like sons and daughters, or grandsons and granddaughters to me and I have been accepted as father and grandfather to them. In China, this is a great honor and is needed for me to have the kind of ministry I want to have with them.
I divided each of the four days up into three teaching segments. Three hours each morning are devoted to a specific topic consisting of a total of twelve hours of instruction. Another topic is covered in the four three hour afternoon sessions. The hour in the evening is devoted to teaching English by learning to read verses written on the board in English. This is a fun time to learn how to place the tongue to pronounce certain English words. It is amazing how fast they learn and how slow this old man learns their Chinese words. But I guess that keeps me humble.
First Training Center Classroom
On this trip, the topic for the morning sessions was an adaptation of Bruce Wilkinson’s work on “The Secrets of the Vine”. He describes four levels of fruit bearing and how God the Father encourages us to move from one level to another. Our focus in the first morning session is about fruit. What is it and who can produce it? We learned that only those in Christ can bear fruit because He is its source of life that is needed for the fruit. We also learn that we were created by God for the purpose of bearing fruit to His glory and have been commanded to do so.
Part one is about the importance of discipline and was the focus on the first day. We begin physical and spiritual life as children and in both cases, discipline is required to guide our growth toward becoming effective young men and women. As God’s children our Father desire is that we turn away from our former sinful life and live a life of obedience. This change is encouraged by His wise application of discipline. We study this process of discipline and see how God the Father uses it in our lives to encourage us to grow and bear fruit. If only more Christians understood this discipline process, they would understand how some of the pain and suffering they experience in life was at the hand of a loving God trying to raise his children. As the child matures toward becoming a young person in both the physical and spiritual realm the process of discipline is gradually replaced with a process called pruning.
Part two is about pruning and was the focus on the second day. Obedience is learned through discipline but focusing that life toward the work that God created us for is accomplished by the process of pruning. Pruning cuts away those activities in life that draws our energy away from the central focus of God’s design for us. A life that becomes more focused, according to the will of God, is a life that will be exciting and full, and you will find your desire for God becoming irresistible and one that will produce more fruit.
Part three is about one’s desires and motivation and was the focus on the third day. As young people mature into adults, discipline and pruning, by their physical and spiritual fathers, is replaced by the desires and motivation of the person to abide in Christ.
Part four is learning about the abiding process and is the focus on the fourth day. It is a process that not many Christians believe they embrace as they should. Paul describes the Christian experience as a race we run. It is not a jog in the park but rather a demanding and grueling, sometimes agonizing race. It is a race that takes great effort to finish strong. As we grow older as Christians, we should be developing greater endurance so that our best work will be our final work. But often those who run get tired and turn off the path and then watch others run by. The Lord wants us to abide in Him, to draw life from Him and with His strength run with endurance to the end and bear much fruit to His glory. I think of Jesus and how his best work was his final work, as ours should be. The key for us is to continue to abide more deeply in Him.
I didn’t mean to turn this into a teaching session, but this study and its presentation to the students meant a lot to them and to me. The fruit bearing process and how God stimulates it in our lives is a lifelong process and one that we should encourage with time spent with Him and his word.
On this trip the four afternoons in each school were spent in a verse by verse study of the last half of the book of James. I covered the first half on my first trip. This is such a practical book, one we should all know and be living.
The evening sessions were times of fun using the Scriptures as a means of learning how to speak English words.
While serving at the first school a very personal and touching experience happened to me that supports my reasons to live like they do while I am there. The event happened on the second evening after we had learned the letters of the English alphabet and had learned how to sing them with the alphabet song we all learned as kids. This song became an emotional experience and one of great meaning for them.
After the session I went to my place of sleep to be joined shortly by the wife of the husband/wife teaching team of the school and her sister who was a student in the school. They had two wash pans with them and explained that one was for me to wash my face and the other was for them to wash my feet. They waited for me to wash my face and then they asked me to sit on the edge of my bed because they were my servants and they were going to honor me by washing my feet.
The next evening the event was repeated by her husband and one of the male students. The teachers of the school had accepted me as their teacher by humbling themselves before me. These foot washings were truly humbling experiences for me and will never forgotten.
The foot washing also occurred in the second school, but there was another very significant experience that involved food. It occurred at lunch on the second day. As I sat at the head of the table with the schools teachers on my right and my interpreter on my left, a student brought a dish containing two whole, cooked, six inch fish with their eyes looking directly at me. They set them down in front of me and said, “Teacher, these are for you.”
This was the one day they gave me a plate in addition to my usual bowl of rice and soup. On my plate they placed some vegetables and sat back to see what I would do. Without hesitation I made room on the plate for one of the fish and placed it there and with my chopsticks started picking off pieces of fish to eat along with my vegetables and rice. I finished one side of the fish and flipped it over and as I started the second side I offered the second fish to those who sat at the head table with me. They accepted and we cleaned up those two fish.
As we did the students moved up closer to us and started to talk, laugh and look at me. I turned to my interpreter and asked, “Are they talking about me?” She said, “Yes teacher.” I asked her, “What are they saying about me?” She said, “You are different than the other teachers because you live with us and eat our food and seem to enjoy it. We want to accept you as one of us.” What an honor that was. It was sure worth any discomfort I experienced as I lived with them.
The future for this kind of ministry is uncertain. The schools could be raided at any time and the work ended. But that is a risk that has to be taken when the authority of the government and the authority of the Bible are in conflict. In the future we may experience this conflict to where as a Christian we will be forced like they are to make a choice. My work in China makes this very clear to me and stimulates me to invest my life more deeply in Him and in His service.
1.7 Meaningful Memories
I would like to close this section with two pictures that flood my mind with memories.
The above picture, at another school, shows a typical meal. Always a bowl of rice and usually a watery or thin soup. We do not drink during a meal as the soup provides the liquid. We do not put the vegetables on a plate to eat from. We may put some on our rice and eat with the rice or each bite is reached for and taken from the community dish. This is a great way to eat. You share the food and have great conversation. You eat until you are satisfied, not stuffed.
This was one of the classes at another school. Young people from the age of sixteen and up to mid-twenties. They were chosen by the leadership of their church to enter into full-time ministry. They have accepted and are in training. Life for these young people is so uncertain. Today they are here, but tomorrow it may be confinement some place. They really need our prayers as they live here in isolation from the outside for over two years.
1.8 A Great Disappointment
As I spent time in the schools on this trip I had a growing awareness of their vulnerability and shared my concern with the school leadership. They assured me that everything was ok, but I was not convinced. Shortly after I had returned from my last teaching assignment in November of 2005, I learned that the school I had just left had been raided by authorities and shut down. Those unable to escape were taken into custody where they were questioned, fingerprinted and photographed. Fortunately, the students were released and sent to their homes across the region.
We knew the other schools would be found so the students were quickly released and the schools closed. I was so disappointed to see this training stop and these students sent home. The emotional impact on me was sobering because it was like my own kids had been affected. These were students that accepted me as one of their own. We formed memories and emotional bonds to the point where I felt their loss. This really brought persecution home to me and helped me appreciate my freedom.
Chapter 2: Lord, Now What?
My adventure in Asia was exciting, and it seemed that God wanted me to visit these underground training centers on a regular basis as a teacher. The adventure grew with each trip and my love for the students and desire to be with them continued to flourish. As I continue to travel along the road of life, I was confident this was God’s call for me until word came that the training centers were no more. My cry was, “Lord, why this? Why now? Now what?”
In this chapter I struggle to find God’s will and what I am to do next. It is a time to refocus and draw closer to the Lord to sense what is on his heart.
2.1 – A Need To Change Our Focus
Since all three schools are currently closed the focus of our next team will have to change. What other kind of ministry could we be involved in? Maybe we should connect with a school or college and help students with conversational English. Maybe we should try to improve the health of school children in remote poor areas. Maybe we should spend some time engaged in prayer walking. Maybe we should establish some form of business that would allow us to have an outreach from, like a coffee shop, a health clinic, or some form of teaching good business principles.
The church that had the three schools in China also had other ministry interest there. They supported several full time people there to establish a business like a coffee shop that specialized in conversational English. For the price of a cup of great coffee students could come and talk with English speaking people from the west. By having these full time people serving there they were able to gather information concerning opportunities and needs, establish relationships with church leaders and government agencies, and grow in an understanding of their culture so that they would know their limitations and learn acceptable behavior. This kind of preparation is so important when planning to work in a culture that is so different from ours. If you make proper preparations and carefully plan your ways, you will spend less time failing and then having to start all over. They are learning and getting better at what they do there and are becoming much more effective in meeting ministry objectives.
As an example of being cautious consider the area of sharing your faith. We found that we are free to answer any questions asked us about Christianity, but if we go beyond what was being asked and if by chance the person asking the questions was a government official, you will find yourself in trouble and any work associated with you, that has been established there, will be compromised. Our challenge is to live in such a way and answer their questions with well-chosen words so that a desire is created for them to ask more questions so that they acquire more information. Our job is to create an environment that gives them this opportunity. Frequently, these people we meet and have a dialog with will continue to seek us out and will usually give us their email and request that we continue to communicate with them. In our email conversations we can say more but we need to be careful to protect them in case our communication is being monitored. This example illustrates why it is so important for us to select and properly instruct those going on our short term missionary trips. One person saying too much or saying the wrong thing can destroy years of hard work that was required to establish our acceptance and a platform from which people are free to ask questions.
2.2 – A New Focus
With a growing number of full time missionaries and employees serving in the field or working in businesses that have been established there, it was decided to send over short term missionaries on a regular basis to work alongside them. In the past, my assignment was to provide teaching support in the underground schools. This provided a welcomed relief for the teaching couple, who led the school, and presented to the students an opportunity to learn Biblical concepts from an outside experienced teacher. With the schools closed I would be assigned to an activity above ground where I would obtain a clearer understanding of some of our other ministries. On this trip, which occurred March 18 – 30, 2006, I devoted most of my time in a planned prayer walk and had English conversations with Chinese college students who came to one of our coffee shops to practice.
Why is a prayer walk so important that a ministry would send people halfway around the world to pray when you they pray from the comfort of their own home? I believe there are several reasons. By going to the field where the battle is being waged you gain first hand insight and information needed for effective prayer. By being there you see and hear things that affected how you pray. By going there we enter the field of battle, giving a greater meaning and urgency to our prayer. Being there on the field with our brothers and sisters is much different than sitting in an easy chair at home, trying to stay awake with pressures of the day before you. Your attention is undivided as your pair up with someone and start your prayer journey.
Prayer walking is not casual praying. It begins before we leave this country with a search of the Scriptures to find appropriate passages for the battle. These are written on 3 by 5 cards and studied. From these passages a body of prayer will begin to emerge that can be applied to field situations. This preparation is a form of training and sharpens our spiritual senses. As we walk the streets of that huge city, in pairs, it appears to others that we are two tourist having conversation. We are, but it is under the direction of the Lord and it is with Him.
As we walked and prayed we understood more clearly that there is a cost to expanding the influence of Christianity. It cost Jesus Christ his life on the cross and many others have suffered and even given their lives and are doing so in this part of the world today. Maybe for us the cost is time and money. For me it is the time and effort to prepare for and take these trips to Asia.
I have gotten ahead in the story and need to back up and take a closer look at the details of the trip. Phil, a member of the team that signed up for the trip, and I were to spend our time together doing prayer walking, being available for English conversation practice at the coffee house, and helping other full time missionaries where needed. Phil, the son of a missionary family who at that time were still serving in Asia, grew up in Taiwan and spoke fairly good Chinese. It was a joy to get to know him and at times was very helpful from a language standpoint to have him with me. He and his wife, who is a daughter of another missionary family, would be an ideal couple to serve there in Asia as their children are grown and now living on their own. As a result of this trip, Phil and his wife were giving this some consideration.
Both Phil and I came with limited experience in prayer walking, so our first day in the field was somewhat awkward and a bit frustrating. That night we talked about our experience and prayed for guidance for the next day. We were beginning to understand that there was more to prayer walking than just walking and praying.
Walking required our attention because of the press of people and the conditions of the walkway. Prayer required information from the environment if it was to be relevant. We also needed to listen to what the Lord was telling us about the area and what He wanted to accomplish there.
We figured out that prayer walking contained three basic steps. First, you gather input from the location: what do you see, hear and sense? Second, with the Lord you process the input along with past life experiences and knowledge of the Scriptures. Then, third, from this process an output forms, which becomes the prayer offered to God on behalf of the people there. But what we are doing is only the first step of another three step process. Our informed prayer is input to God, who will process it and in His wisdom and power He may then begin to produce changes to His glory in the area.
James tells us that “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James 5:16b). Would we see any results while we were there? We did not have to wait long. The next day I walked into the coffee house at about 9:00 AM and wandered up to the third floor lounge area and found a group of twelve students from the nearby university sitting together in a circle talking in English and drinking our delicious coffee. When they saw me enter the room one of them got up and invited me to join them. I learned that she was an English literature major working on her master’s degree at the nearby University, where we had done some prayer walking. These were her students that she teaches English to each Saturday morning. She knew about the coffee house and decided to take her class there and see what it was like and as a result I had a chance to meet them.
Visiting English Class at Coffiee Shop in Chengdu
At first they had questions for me to answer and then they wanted help pronouncing certain English words. Because of my extensive background in teaching this experience with them was so natural and such a joy for all that after two hours with them a special bond had developed.
As I got up to leave, their teacher noticed my camera and asked if I would have someone take a picture of me with the group and then email it back to them. The picture was taken and we exchanged emails. Their teacher is on the left side of the picture in the blue blouse.
When I wrote down my email it prompted a question. My email began with SteveJn316. They understood the Steve part, but what was the Jn316? I explained that it was a reference to a verse in the Bible and asked if they would like to know what it was. They said “Yes” so I recited it. They asked me to repeat it, so I did, but they asked no further questions so I could not go any further without crossing the line and maybe hurting our work there. I will have opportunity to explain more to them in future emails. I also learned that their teacher, being an English literature major, uses the Bible in her class. This also opens a door for me with her.
Consider what had just happened. This class met here for the first time, I came all the way from the US and entered the room while they were there. My email contained a reference to John 3:16 and their teacher was using the Bible in class. Do you suppose this was just chance? Maybe, but maybe it was part of a plan.
2.3 – A Mock Wedding
Example of a Western Wedding
On Saturday evening at the coffee shop we held a mock western wedding in English to help them understand a piece of our western culture. We had an audience of about 100 students. Since this was simply a cultural demonstration we were able to include everything, including a Scripture reading and a sermon, all of which was very carefully planned.
About half way through the ceremony we stopped and put a sign on each actor giving the English word for the part they were acting. This introduced an element of fun and really brought the audience into the ceremony.
The wedding continued on through to the reception. During the reception we all got a piece of wedding cake, some ordered coffee, and we sat down in groups to discuss what took place and to answer their questions. One question asked was, “Who is this Jesus Christ you were talking about in the wedding?” That was a question so we were free to answer it. A professional person I talked with expressed that she would really like to have such a wedding because it had so much meaning. She gave me her email and asked if we could communicate further. This was another open door.
2.4 – An Interview
Help Needed to Prepare for an Interview
Earlier on Saturday two students stopped by and asked me if I would help them prepare for an interview they were going to have in a couple of days. The interview was to be in English and was for a cooking position on an ocean liner. I spent the next hour working with them. When we finished they left after having someone take a picture of the three of us. Monday evening they returned with their entire cooking class, the picture of the three of us and a gift for me, but I was not there. Someone else had to fill my spot because I was really sick on Monday, apparently from something I had eaten on Sunday. I have their email and this is another open door to some really great students.
There were other contacts at the coffee house and more emails for future communications. It was a very special time. Now I would need to seek wisdom to find the time and to know how to correspond with them.
2.5 – Possible Opportunities
Through a series of missionary events, Phil knew a missionary in the area where we were staying and arranged to meet with him one evening. In the course of their conversation it was learned that this person had relationships with and authority over other schools like ours. Phil told him about me and my experience teaching in the schools. He asked Phil to arrange a meeting with me, and so the next evening he and his wife, Phil and I met for dinner and talked in depth about these schools. He felt there was a place for me to teach and wanted to think about it. The next day he contacted my pastor of missions, who was on this trip with us, and talked about our involvement in these schools in the future. Maybe I might have an opportunity to go back underground a year from now and for longer periods of time if I am available.
There are many opportunities before me. I was asked if I would go with a group during the summer, but I had a software project I need to finish for the church I attended and I had several responsibilities at home that need my attention, so I declined.
With the possibility of being back in the schools, English work at the coffee house or other opportunities in the area, I could easily go three times a year and stay a month each time. This would allow a balance of ministry in serving at home and abroad. I needed time to determine if this was of the Lord and if I could raise that level of financial support. The support team that I had was so supportive and so gracious, but to make three trips each year and for a month each I needed more team members.
2.6 – Another Opportunity
She Nearly Destroyed Her Car on this Trip
I hardly had a chance to recover from my last trip when I was approached by the mission’s pastor of my church and offered another opportunity. An opportunity to lead a team that was being formed to do health screening at a school up on the Tibetan Plato. But do I want to fly halfway around the world, spend a day on a bus and then a day and one half riding in a SUV over roads fit only for a tank to do health screenings of 180 school children? That is a question I will try to answer later.
When taking people on a short term mission trip to a foreign country there are two things you would like to see happen. The first relates to the person going and the second relates to the work to be accomplished at the location.
First, it is desirable for the person going to experience something at the hand of God that would cause Him to be seen in a new and refreshing way so as to impact their life in some positive way; to stimulate spiritual awareness and/or growth in their walk with Him. This expanded awareness of God, I believe, is realized in those who spend time earnestly praying before and during their trips.
Second, it is desirable that spiritual work be accomplished at the target location. It is fairly easy to go and do some visible work, but to accomplish spiritual work the bridge of faith to God must be in place. The team goes to do their work and as they do they believe that God will work alongside them doing the spiritual work that only God can do. We can plant and water, but it is God who provides the increase. Again, this is where prayer comes in. When a trip is bathed with sincere prayer, you can expect that much will be accomplished (James 5:16b).
With these two points in mind, join me as I head down to DFW with two team members to catch our flight to Chicago and then on to Shanghai. The leg to Chicago was not bad, but the 12 to 14-hour leg to Shanghai is long and is a good time to watch movies, read, sleep, eat three meals, and do whatever else you can find to occupy your time.
Traveling west you travel with the sun causing the day to appear unusually long. It is late in the afternoon, of that very long day, when we finally board the plane at Shanghai for our third and last leg to Chengdu. We taxied out away from the terminal, stopped and waited. Then when they got dinner out and started the movie, we knew we were going to sit there for a while. Three hours later we finally took off to cover that last leg of a now very, very long day.
Arriving in Chengdu, we checked into our room to get a few hours of sleep before our day long bus ride to a somewhat remote location where we were to meet a ministry worker of ours who would take us the remaining distance to the school where we were to spend the next few days doing the health screening. That trip in her SUV will be long remembered.
One six hour section of road we traveled was so rough and she drove so fast that we arrived at our hotel for the night with the radiator exposed and the two headlights hanging by their power cables. Somewhere along the way we had lost the front grill. We wired the lights in place and in the morning we drove four more hours to our target location. Near the end of that trip the main leaf in a rear spring broke. We limped on wondering how we would get our vehicle fixed in such a remote village, but she found a welder who fixed us up.
On the way back from the target location, we got stuck in a stream we tried to cross, had a flat tire, and lost our brakes coming down from a 14,000 foot pass. We drove for about two hours through hairpin turns in first and second gear with only the emergency brake as backup. We finally arrived back at the point where we would catch the bus back to Chengdu and our flights back home. Sandwiched in the middle of this travel was a most interesting time at the school located way out in the back country.
2.7 – Our Mountain Travel
Before we go any further with the story, let us take a look at a few pictures of some things we saw along the way.
Our first day of travel up into the mountains outside of Chengdu was beautiful. After a day on the bus we arrived the beautiful mountain town of Daofu, China, where we met the person that would take us up to our mountain school. She was a missionary who had worked in the area for several years and knew the area and its people.
It was unique to see the water from the mountain stream running down the middle of the town. The environment was so different from the big city of Chengdu. I can imagine a potential problem if there was a long-lasting severe storm up in the mountains.
As we continued on up into the mountains to higher elevations, we exchanged the lush trees for grass and some snow. You can see the hairpin turns we covered to get up to this higher elevation.
Along the way we saw a Buddhist temple and stopped for some pictures. The flags up on the side of the mountain are prayer flags and the cylinders are known as prayer wheels. A person would start down at the far end and walk by each and give it a spin. How cold and distant god must be to these people. What a contrast to the love and warmth we have with God our Father through his Son Jesus Christ.
As the terrain gets rougher and we get closer to the snow line we also are getting closer to the school where we will do our health screening.
2.8 – Our School Experience
I need to back up again in the story and fill in a few details. I brought with me an RN and a worker like me. In Chengdu we met a Chinese Christian medical doctor. She would be the fourth member of the team and would help us get bus tickets to Kangding and provide any needed communications with Chinese speaking people along the way. In Kangding we were met by our full time ministry worker who was to take us up to Daofu where she lives. In Daofu we were joined by two medical people that are part of our organization in China. We are now a team of seven. In the morning a second vehicle with four Chinese medical doctors joined our group making a total of eleven. Together we made our way farther up into the mountains to the school at our target location.
The two-story grey building under construction at the bottom of the above photo is a new classroom building. There were 180 students living at the school when we were there and it was expected to expand to over 300 the following fall. The next two rows of building behind this one is the present school where we stayed and did the health screenings.
To the extreme right of the picture, in the shade, is the classroom building containing several rooms where we set up our four examination areas. The building to the left of the picture is the dorm where the students lived. Students were brought to us in groups of ten. Each came to us, with an identification sheet, and posed for a picture to start the process.
Each of the students stood in this spot, allowing me to take their picture. It was interesting to see the different expressions and level of projected self-confidence. The picture number was recorded on the identification sheet and returned to the student, along with an examination sheet. Each student then preceded through the examination areas, having different parts of their anatomy checked by the assigned medical practitioner. Results of the examination were recorded on the examination sheet, with any abnormalities marked in red. The student took the sheets and gave them to a checkout person who marked the picture number on the examination sheet and entered the information along with the picture into an electronic form on the computer.
School officials and teachers watched our team work and saw how we related to the students and as a result they became more and more supportive of our work. By the end of the first day they were very impressed and decided to honor us the following afternoon with a presentation by the school dance team. That was a very special time for us and for those at the school. This was greater acceptance than we ever expected. Doing this kind of work and presenting ourselves as we did may one day result in questions being asked about Christianity by those whose hearts are being prepared by the Lord. We must work and pray and wait for the questions. If we move ahead of the questions we know from past experience that we might be asked to leave and not be able to return. To be effective, people must know and understand the culture and respect it and earn the hearing.
The examinations resulted in numerous red marks, indicating health issues. Our medical personnel will summarize the results and make follow-up calls were possible. The school officials have already asked what can be done to improve the level of health. Things like a toothbrush for each student so they don’t have to share. Wash their clothing, their hands and their bodies more often. These are a people who go to the outhouse and relieve themselves and pull up their pants without wiping. Then with hands covered with layers of filth they would cup them at the one water outlet, located in the school courtyard, and drink from them. Being at this school allowed us to see and experience life at a much different level.
While we were there the weather turned cold and we got a taste of living in very unpleasant conditions. The buildings have no heat and it gets really cold inside. Pushing your pants down in the outhouse and squatting over an open space in the floor is not what I call enjoyable, but that is how these kids live and that is how we lived while we were there.
Here is where the three of us stayed who came over from Texas. We ate and slept here. I had this room and slept on the bench by the wall. The two ladies that came with me slept in the room behind the wall at the end of counter. Their room was heated from my room so I nearly died from the heat and they nearly froze to death. I would like to have had their room, but privacy was better for them if I didn’t have to pass through their room to go to the outhouse during the night. It was not the best conditions, but we had to make do with what we were given.
What was the special dance event like? We expected the dance to last a short while and then we would return to our examinations. The dancing started and after about an hour and one half we were asked to dance with them. That lasted another half hour and that led to picture taking and a great social time. Losing nearly a full afternoon put us in a time crunch but we managed to catch up the following day.
By the end of our examinations, school officials were proud of the fact that a milestone had been established in the form of a health baseline. They now had something tangible that they could build upon and when they learned that we planned to return in one year and repeat the process, they were real pleased. Not only do we plan to reexamine these 180 students but also examine all new ones. The school expects to have over 300 enrolled that following year.
Our goal is to do this work for three years and by then we hope that the local health team will be well enough trained to do the work themselves. The medical level of these health practitioners in these outlying areas is not very good. As the students were being examined the local health team gained in much needed experience.
What a blessing it has been for me to see how we carefully earned our way into this school to do this health screening and see how it opened up the hearts of so many people there. I now have firsthand experience of how the Lord begins a work in what was a closed area to people from the West. It is my prayer that what I have written, has helped you understand the process. It is a process that takes time, focus, caution, and prayer.
2.9 – The Community
Before we head back to Chengdu and our flight back to Texas I would like to close this part of the report with a series of four pictures that shows the community as seen from the top of Turtle Hill. The community wraps around the end of the hill like the letter C.
We will begin on the right side of Turtle Hill looking at the town below us. What a beautiful view it was after the snow melted and it felt more like spring.
This is the center of town with the largest building being the temple in the center of the picture. Life is so different here than what we are used to in the west where I came from.
This is the left side of town where the school is located. Behind the buildings and at the base of the mountain is another stream that is out of view. The two streams meet at the end of the great pasture beyond town as can be seen in the first picture of this group.
This picture is the extreme left side of town and shows the edge of the school on the right side of the picture. It is a simple little town of poverty, but you will find cell phones and some TV’s there, but no inside running water.
I couldn’t leave without showing one more picture. It is a picture of the local saw mill. I wish I had a picture when it was in operation. The pile of lumber was cut with hand saws by two men while we were at the school. They rolled the log up onto the top of the stand and using a two man hand saw, with one man on top and one man on the ground, they would pull the saw up and down and cut off the lumber seen in the pile. As I watched them one day, without my camera, I was totally amazed. But that is how it is done in these remote areas.
We began this report with the question; “Do I want to fly halfway around the world, spend a day on a bus and then a day and one half riding in a SUV over roads fit only for a tank to do health screenings of 180 school children?” I wonder if I came anywhere close to answering it. What do you think? Here is a people group that is lost because they have not Christ. They will live in spiritual darkness until someone brings the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ to them in such a way that they will hunger and thirst for it. We have learned that we through work and prayer must create an environment that will stimulate this hunger and thirst. We can start by loving them in a practical way. We can help them live better lives and pray that they will soon wonder if we have something else for them that they really need.
There is so much more one could write about but it is time to move on in the adventure. We retraced our steps and finally ended up back home, totally worn out but blessed well beyond our expectations. I got some rest and then got out my pictures to relive the experience when one caught my eye and flooded me with emotion.
Our work was finished at the school and the students knew we were leaving. As I stood across the courtyard I saw the children in their classrooms looking out their windows. It was like seeing them behind bars in bondage and without receiving the gift of xxthey would grow up without any hope of eternal life. As I look at the picture I wonder if there was any chance that the work we are doing will ever result in any of these finding joy, peace and freedom of life in Christ. It is pictures like this and the experience associated with them that has gripped my heart and draws me back to experience more life under their conditions. We must continue to go and work and pray. We can’t do any less than this can we?
As word got out here at home about the work we did and the conditions of the children, it wasn’t long before people wondered if it were possible to sponsor a child if arrangements could be made. As plans were being formulated, it was discovered by a government official in the area that we had failed to fulfill a requirement of theirs and as a result we were asked to suspend any further work there until the issue could be resolved. That is part of the learning process of working in a different culture.
As time went by, we learned that we would not be able to resolve the issue. Someone did not want us there and used this issue as a way to keep us away. We also learned that the person that took us up to the school was forced to leave the area and the work of ministry of several years.
2.10 – A Fall Trip Planned
My next Asia trip was planned for the end of November 2006. It will be a small group, going for the purpose of establishing contacts with college students who come to our coffee shop for a break from their studies, have a little social time, and have English conversations with any English speaking people who might be there. In this setting they are free to ask questions about Christianity, which most of them do. We are free to answer their questions, but must be very careful not to add additional information that goes beyond what was being asked. Authorities know what we are doing there and test us from time to time by sending in a decoy. As long as we stay within their guidelines we are free to continue our presence there and answer any appropriate questions and carry on conversation. Any further conversation we would like to have must be done with them personally and appropriately at some other location. These conversations can continue by email. I have several that have gone on for years.
Another purpose of our trip is to have a time of prayer on location. It is true that we could stay here in the states and pray, but our prayers would lack the detail and context they would have by being there in person. Hearing about something is not the same as experiencing it. The experience provides a much greater depth and breadth to our prayers and justifies the expense and inconvenience of traveling there. When I now return to the locations where I have spent time prayer walking I experience a sense of His presence and a value of past activity that I had not had before. You really experience and understand something that others may see as foolish until they also become involved.
Soon it was time to pack my bags and head off to DFW for the long and exhausting trip over, but as with past trips I always return with many memories, some which linger clearly in my mind today years after they happened. On this trip there were memories of a very close call as we crossed the intersection of a busy highway one night, memories of special times of prayer and fellowship with each other, and memories of special times with some very special people we met at our coffee house.
The road we were crossing one night was an eight lane highway with two additional bike lanes. At this intersection two high speed lanes came down off a bridge and join two service lanes. Going the other way are four normal city lanes of traffic. There is a narrow median separating the different directions of traffic flow. We were crossing with the light with traffic stopped at our left. As we approached the last lane before the median we heard the screeching of tires and then the crunching of metal and the breaking of glass to our left. After the first collision came a second and then a third, each one getting closer and closer to us. Just as we stepped into the median the last car was hit and driven into the space we had just stepped out of. A person following me was just ready to step ahead into that last lane when the car was driven by just in front of her. By God’s grace everyone made it across safely, but what a mess of smashed vehicles existed behind us. That night we all had some very vivid dreams as we relived the experience that could have ended in disaster for us.
The times of prayer and fellowship with members of the team were special. Since there were just four of us men we were given a room with four beds. This was really a neat experience. Our times of prayer as a team, as we walked from place to place was very special and is an experience you can’t appreciate until you have done it. Time alone with national leaders who spoke English was a time not to be missed. What a special time as God’s children came together and got to know each other.
Time at the coffee house was unusually rich this time as the depth of conversation reflected hearts of people who were searching for something to give meaning to their lives. In particular there were four business men and two women from the university who were seriously interested in learning about Christianity and wanted further dialog by email. The process of watching God work in their hearts is a joy to experience. Seeing them move from a position of contention to the desire to know more is a very rewarding experience. One asked me privately outside where he could obtain a copy of the Bible.
Near the end of this fall trip I received a call from one of our full time workers located in a large city to the east of us. He wanted to know if I would be interested and able to come for a four month teaching and mentoring assignment. The students would be seminary students and the content would be Bible and English. As he shared with me I felt in my heart that this was an opportunity that God had spent a lifetime preparing me for and one that I desperately want to enter into. This would come with some sacrifice, but I needed to prayerfully consider it.
This trip, in many ways, was like watching a flower open up into a beautiful blossom as life returned at springtime. Previous trips reminded me of fall and winter as I saw opportunities drying up and going away. The Bible tells us that there are season when things flourish and a time when they don’t. It seemed like I had come through the barren time of winter and now after much prayer I am beginning to see new life that comes with the advent of the spring season.
The opportunity presented to me could open up an area of ministry for others as they join me in working there. I am so glad for the experience of these past five trips for without them I would be unqualified from a cultural position to know how to live there and serve in this next opportunity, if I were to accept it.
Summary of the Chengdu Journal
Summary produced by AI
The Chengdu Journal recounts your first mission trip to China in 2004, a journey that reshaped your life and launched eight years of ministry across seventeen trips. After moving to McKinney and developing a Bible study on James, you were invited to teach in an underground Christian training center in Chengdu—an illegal, tightly confined environment where young men and women lived with remarkable devotion, discipline, and purity. You describe entering the center secretly at night, adapting to primitive living conditions, and witnessing extraordinary worship marked by sincerity, intensity, and the evident presence of the Holy Spirit. Teaching through an interpreter became a deeply spiritual partnership, and living among the students forged profound bonds of love and respect. The journal details their rigorous daily schedule, sacrificial lifestyle, and unwavering commitment to serve God despite the risk of imprisonment. Your time with them revealed God’s preparation in your own life, ignited a desire to return, and opened the door to future ministry—teaching Scripture, sharing life with the students, and experiencing humbling acts of service such as foot washing and shared meals. The narrative closes with accounts of travel challenges, cultural immersion, and the deep sense of calling that grew from these experiences.
