China contains one of the world’s oldest civilisations and certainly the world’s largest population. During the past 30 years, the Chinese church has experienced immense persecution and as a result has experienced the largest growth ever recorded. At present, there are an estimated 50-80 million Christians in China; with some estimates of up to one hundred million. There have been many books written about this amazing growth, perhaps the most famous being the autobiography by Brother Yun entitled “The Heavenly Man”. However, Christianity in China remains largely a lower class phenomenon with many of the upper classes holding the Marxist attitude that science and modern thought have disproved the existence of God, and perhaps more importantly seeing no need for any god.
This summer, I was part of a team of Christians from top universities in England and the USA who went out to China to teach English. We worked in a ‘tent-making’ style; in other words, in return for our English teaching services, we were given subsidised flights and a free week’s travel in China. As part of the Christian program we also had a few days training in Hong Kong and several days of debriefing afterwards.
Whilst nowadays it is legal to tell adults the Good News about Jesus, it is illegal to “indoctrinate” under-18′s. In other words, whenever we spoke to children about Jesus, we always had to be careful to not start the conversation but to answer any questions that they had. The only way to get such conversations started was by trying to live holy lives and make people interested in this way.
After we had arrived in Hong Kong and had our training about cross-cultural mission, we went on a week of travel. During this week of travel, organised by several members of the Young Communists party, we decided to give free English lessons to Chinese English teachers in the morning, and then travel around with them in the afternoon. This was a wonderful opportunity to share all of our lives with them, and quite a few were very interested in finding out more about Jesus. We asked our organisers from the Young Communist party if they could find a church for us to go to. They managed to, and so we announced to all of our ‘students’ that we were going to church and they were welcome to come if they wanted. About thirty people came with us, and in addition the Young Communist party leaders came! We managed to give most of these people Chinese/English Bibles and various other Christian literature. We also held a meeting up in the conference room of our hotel where we did Bible studies and answered any questions about Jesus which people wanted to ask. We had perhaps 40 or 50 people come along to this meeting. Although no-one here professed to becoming a Christian, I am aware of several people who are seriously searching and we are still in touch with them.
We then started teaching in the first school where we had 240 children. Upon arrival we were told that we had a much lower age of child than we were expecting to teach, so about half of us had to totally change our lessons. It was quite annoying that most of the children did not have sufficient English to be able to talk to them about Jesus, however several were interested. In spite of this, we were able to have good conversations with the Chinese teachers that we were paired up with (they were there to help us with the translation of our lessons and class control).
In fact, a lady called Miss Jung (not her real name), the organiser of the Chinese teachers heard that we were all Christians and asked us if it would be possible to have a Christian meeting to which she could come! (It turns out that the head-teacher at her teacher-training college had been to America and had been so impressed with some of the Christians he had seen when he went to a church that he came back and told all the teachers there to find out more about Christianity.) So, after she came to a small service that we ran during one of the lunch-breaks she asked if it would be possible to have another in a few days time. When we had another service a couple of days later, Miss Jung told all 12 of the Chinese teachers to come as well. In addition, several of the children came. In the ensuing conversations, two of the teachers said that they wanted to become Christians and there were perhaps 6 more who were very seriously interested in finding out more about Jesus.
We then went to the second and final school where we discovered that there were only about 80 students and 3 helper teachers and they were all of quite high language ability. We started running services every other day and perhaps 30 or 40 of the children decided to come to these, as well as all of the teachers coming of their own accord. So many people at the second school were interested in finding out about Jesus that we had to buy lots more Bibles and Christian literature to give them! God was working in so many lives it was difficult to keep track of what was happening! Perhaps 6 or 7 children there decided to become Christians, and we have now found out that several more people from that camp have since become Christians. Definitely the most moving conversion was that of a girl called Michelle.
Michelle was 8 and in my class. From day one she was trouble. She was very spoilt and would yell at people and cry if she did not get things to happen her way. For the first week, during siesta time, she would be wailing up and down the corridors because she thought that everyone else was picking on her. There was nothing any of the teachers could do to pacify her.
One day, towards the end of the camp, we were having a meeting where several of us simply shared how God had worked in our lives. Near the end, the leader asked if any of the other English teachers wanted to share anything but this got mistranslated and the invitation extended to everyone. We were surprised when Michelle and her friend came to this meeting, and they did not know why they came; they were just looking for something to do in their lunch break. Anyway, half way through the meeting Michelle stood up, crying and shaking and simply said, “I’m only eight years old, and I don’t know much, but after hearing this I realise that there is a God and that he created my father, my mother and me. He created all of us and I believe in Him”.
My co-teacher from America, Lillian had a long conversation with her afterwards in Chinese and English, explaining about prayer, forgiveness and the sacrifice which Jesus had made for her, and Michelle said that she had become a Christian. For the final few days of the camp she was very much changed and started being nice to people and helping some of the children in my class who were struggling with things. This would have been amazing it itself, however two days after the camp had finished, Lillian received a phone-call from Michelle’s mother. Lillian was rather scared because we all knew that it was a legal grey area for someone to talk to an under-eighteen about Jesus. However, Michelle’s mother said, “As her mother, I know Michelle is a very impatient girl, attention-seeking and always wanting things her way. Every day at home she would yell and cry. However, since Michelle came back she hasn’t yelled at anyone or cried for the past two days. She says that it’s because Jesus tells me that instead of being selfish we should forgive others and be generous. She has shown me this book that you have given her; perhaps you could explain more about this to me?”. So Lillian was able to tell Michelle’s family about Jesus as well!
However, it’s not easy being a Christian in China; one girl who became a Christian during this camp was heavily persecuted for several weeks by her parents once she returned home, to the point where she had to hide her Bible and read it in secret. Fortunately in the last message we had from her she said that this has eased off somewhat.
Perhaps the most important lesson which I learnt from this summer trip was to trust in God even more. Even though I was never worried about breaking the law by talking to someone about Jesus, I decided early on that I would attempt to obey the Chinese law in this area and I tried to “live in a manner worthy of the Good News”. God honoured that and I had many good conversations with children and adults about Him!