His Grace is sufficient for us!
around Oct, 1997
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do undo you,
for this sums up the law and the Prophets (Matt 7:12)
~ 1. Not a coincidence that we meet: Thirsty ~
Thank the Lord for your support and encouragement, we had already been
in "Hah-Hah Land" for half a year. Three months ago, the Lord has reminded
us: "Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead
they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house"
(Matt. 5:15) The second day after we were touched by this message,
and on our way home, we met up with a Chinese man named Thirsty. He's an
international trader. When he heard us speaking in Chinese, he's very pleased.
In fact, he already noticed us from the day before!
Under God's reminder in the Word, we opened up ourselves to him as friends.
Later on, he told us that he dreamt about himself being born-again as Christian.
From then on, we started visiting each other. He encouraged us to study
the Bible with him and to share our faith. In the summer, we invited him
to our house. At the time, we also had a few visitors (brothers and sisters)
from Hong Kong with us. Praise the Lord, after all our sharing that night,
Thirsty decided to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal savior.
~ 2. Peacemaker for the gospel: LidoTube ~
We participated in a short term mission trip for three weeks, along with
brothers and sisters coming from other countries. For three other villages
and the community we live in, we prayed region by region and sent out gospel
books/tracts. In one of the villages, most of the people living there are
Gentiles. The Gentiles have a very bad relationship with the Chinese; in
fact, many of them dislike the Chinese. One day, Filbert fasted and prayed
for the Gentiles. The Lord spoke to him through Isaiah 58. That afternoon,
while a live cultural show was on, he asked the organizer for permission
to go up to the stage. He said sorry to the Gentiles, as a Chinese, representing
the Chinese. As soon as he left the stage, a Gentile named LidoTube came
up to Filbert and said, "I'm very comforted to hear what you've said".
Surprisingly, this Gentile can speak fluent Mandarin!
Since then, in different occasions, different colleagues had been sharing
their faith with him. Please remember LidoTube in your prayers, so that
he will become a peacemaker amongst the two groups of people.
~ 3. No more shame: Loved ~
One gospel team arrived at a village named Blessed to evangelize. Loved,
a sister on the team lives in this village with her family. Her Muslim
husband didn't know Loved was a Christian for many years. In the last fifteen
years, her relationship with her husband was very poor - she was beaten
up or had been pushed out of the house even when it was cold outside at
times. After she accepted the Lord, the situation improved. Her husband
began to love her again.
When the short term mission team decided to visit her own village, she
struggled very hard. She was afraid that her Muslim husband would abandon
and mistreat her again. In the end, after much prayers, Loved decided to
follow the mission team. She only got involved with the visitation during
the day-time. At night, she didn't participate in any outdoor evangelistic
meetings.
One night, the evangelistic meeting was held close to her home. Her
son brought back a booklet for his dad. The booklet listed her work address.
That night, Loved prayed in tears, fearing that her husband would beat
her up again. Praise God that after her husband knowing her workplace was
associated with Christianity, he didn't beat her up at all. Rather, he
was proud of her because he thought that the content of the book was very
good. From then on, Loved was not ashamed to admit that she's a Christian
in front of others.
~ 4. Our serving experience is a training in our patience ~
During the last two months, we both felt very tired. We were organizing
short term mission trips and the retreats right after. To organize them
in this country, it requires more special procedures to make it happen,
such as apply for visas, invitation cards as well as registration. We also
had to book flights and bus tickets. One time, to help confirm a colleague's
plane ticket for him, without a phone at the retreat site, we walked for
a half hour to a post office. Unfortunately, the post office was closed
by 12:00 p.m. So we had to use our limited and broken local language to
ask around for a phone to use. At last, some one lent it to us. To dial
a phone number really took a lot of patience: after each dialing, we had
to wait about 10 to 20 seconds for it to go through before dialing another
number. Fortunately, we both encouraged each other to persevere, otherwise,
we would have given up. For us to confirm for three tickets, that took
us a total of two hours. We were never used to this kind of pace when in
Hong Kong.
During the summer, there were much more visitors in our house. This
also gave Iris a chance to practice hospitality and her cooking! Since
she wasn't too experienced in housework while in Hong Kong, it's a challenge
to her. But we enjoy having company and hearing from folks on what wonderful
things God had done in their lives at our place.
Please lift up your holy hands and pray
for us