The Gospel in China

Twenty-four hours later, I’ve still got a headache from the noise of the fireworks. At midnight, the whole city pretty much erupted. People were setting them off on the street outside our house, and thanks to our fourth floor location, a good percentage of them just exploded right in front of our window.  Since today […]

Only two hours left in the lunar year. So, if you already blew your January 1 New Year’s Resolution, you can pretend you’re Chinese and start again. Twelve o’clock will release a real barrage of fireworks, but there’s been a steady clamor all day. Most of their fireworks are just horrifically loud, just a minute-long […]

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, though little noticed on our Western calendar, is the cause of the world’s largest migration of people. Millions leave home by train every year to visit relatives in other cities and provinces, some on the other side of the country.  This year though, millions of people will spend Chun […]

I don’t really know what the official complete definition of “discipline” is, but sure noticed something today that ought to be included. One of the students that we know from this city had called me yesterday to tell me that his family had made some food for us for New Years. He wanted to know […]

Threw our New Year’s bash tonight. Shot off some fireworks, ate some dumplings, and played some games. It’s strange to light fireworks right on a city street. It’s going on all over the city and the echoes off the building cranks the volume up a few notches. Overall though, I find the Chinese, the inventors […]

Tonight we had our Saturday night Gospel class. Went through the doctrine of salvation. Well, part of it, obviously. But it was a great opportunity to make crystal clear to everyone where we stand. I think a growing sense of anticipation is working its way into some of the students about the burden that God […]

As we work our way closer to Chinese New Year, the city sounds more and more like a war zone. It’s like they’ve got military-grade fireworks going off intermittently throughout the day. And it’s pretty much holiday-marathon season. Last night was a holiday, too, which St., T., and D. suddenly realized after a few hours […]

How about the language? There’s some parts of language learning that I think are like learning to play an instrument. Granted, even when I could only speak English, I spoke more languages than I played instruments, so I’m hardly an expert. But I remember when I was in high school, I had a friend that […]

Since they don’t have any university classes right now, St. and T. and I are meeting together just about everyday to study the Bible together and work on my Chinese. Today we worked through some Psalms together, started on the letters to the churches in Revelation, translated two songs for us to sing in our […]

Though we’re illegal and all that, it’s surprising how seldom we’re reminded of that. It doesn’t feel all that dangerous. Only occasionally does something happen that shakes us up a bit and reminds us that there’s some very real adversaries in our area. Maybe we’re being a little loud in the building, or the doorbell […]