By Tom Shanklin

It all began with a dream that I had earlier this year (2000). In my dream I saw a map with the outline of China. In the southwestern part of the country the words were written, “Pulpit Ground.” Suddenly, the map ignited, like the Bonanza show from years ago where the map of the West caught on fire. The flame burned from the southwestern part of China across the country to the east.

I interpreted this dream to mean that a great move of God is coming to China, and that the southwestern territory, Yunnan Province specifically, is a key to the coming move of God. I also surmised that in God’s strategy it is very important for the church to provide a strong ministry of teaching and encouragement to the people of God is this region.

Later, I began to pursue the possibility of traveling to China. Through a series of contacts, I met an American missionary to China, who was on furlough in the States. He invited me to come to Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, to see what God is doing in this part of the world. With the financial help and prayers of our local church and partners around the country, I traveled to China October 17-31.

It was an amazing trip!

The story is one of endless bus trips, unsavory conditions, strange food, sleeping with rats, and mysterious remote villages in the awesome mountains of southwest Yunnan. But more than that, it is a story of people-a forgotten and yearning people, a people with hearts ready to receive the greatest message ever told.

After 30 hours of travel, including stops in San Francisco and Hong Kong, I arrived in Kunming, a relatively prosperous city of 3.5 million people. In my journal I wrote: “China is full of people: people in cabs, people in busses, people on bicycles, people pulling produce around and selling it. This city is more advanced than many of the other places I have been. There are banks, businesses, modern hotels, police, street sweepers and a basic sense of order. A person feels fairly safe here.They really are a precious people unto God. But so many, how do we reach them?”

People. . . and how. . . nearly 1.3 billion of them. . . over one fifth of the world’s population-desolate, needy and longing after 50 years of communist oppression. There’s hollowness in the eyes. . . an emptiness of spirit.

Even the children are different-more subdued, appearing at first indifferent to strangers from the West. The red scarves and monotone uniforms of school children produce an impression of a cookie-cutter society, everyone cut from the same mold. The adults, too, seem to this Westerner to be fitting a pattern-not too much excitement, not too much emotion, no public affection between the sexes, not wanting to stick out, just be part of the crowd. But underneath it all there is a vacuum, and hearts longing for reality that only needs to be awakened by the greatest message in the universe. . .the message of God’s love through Jesus Christ.

THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH 

The underground church in China: stoic, sad, disfigured, oppressed. . . right?

Wrong! At least not what I saw.

In China there are two main branches of the church. First, the legal, above ground, Three Self Church, licensed and approved by the government . . . and the underground church, operating in homes all over China, in clandestine meetings, its leaders operating in an aura of secrecy, moving about undercover to strengthen, encourage and keep this tremendous giant (the body of Christ in China), moving in the right direction.

An underground church service which I visited in Kunming was vibrant, lively, full of the love of the Lord. A missionary from a neighboring Asian country guided the meeting, setting the tone and direction and then letting the Holy Spirit take over. Exuberant praise, worship, laughter, tears and fits of joy marked the beginning of the meeting. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” even in communist China.

It was a gathering after the pattern of 1 Corithinans:

How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. (1 Corinthians 14:26, KJV).

During the meeting, the Lord gave me a word of prophecy for the Chinese church. The essence of the message was that no weapon that had been formed against them was going to prosper, that they should continue to persevere in prayer against the powers of darkness and that their nation was going to open up to a new era and many would come to the Lord.

A young Chinese man interpreted for me as I shared a teaching from Zechariah 4 on the restoration of the temple (the church) and the need for the anointing on the believers to stand as kings and priests before God. There was a heavy emphasis on the weapons of our warfare and the ability to pull down strongholds. The people were greatly encouraged.

The meeting concluded with people weeping and interceding for one another and for the work of God in their nation. After the main meeting, the believers then continued to fellowship, shared some food together, interspersed with times of further worship. It was a very unique, powerful, encouraging, refreshing and uplifting experience. The spirit of love was tremendous.

It is estimated that there are 100 million Christians in China. What I experienced is just a very small part. However, just like in the West, the body of Christ in China has it’s problems, including strife, division and false doctrine.
Missionaries in China

They hold student visas, teacher’s visas, business visas, but their real business is the Kingdom of God. There backgrounds are Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, independent and other, but they are God’s missionaries, reaching out, making a difference in this needy land.

Their heroes are the likes of Hudson Taylor and James Fraser, late 19th and early 20th century missionaries of the China Inland Mission. Like these great pioneers of the missions movement in China, they often work in the midst of a backward and primitive people, sometimes living amongst them, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to hungry hearts.

But unlike their earlier predecessors, these modern-day Gospel adventurers make use of cell phones, computers, e-mail, CD burners. One Southern Baptist missionary is even said to use Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology as he treks through the mountains of Burma and southern China, reaching out to unevangelized people groups in that area, with a bicycle and pup tent. The GPS system enables him to create his own maps in rugged terrain and to find his way in and out of remote villages.

It’s a strange contrast between all this modern technology and the backwards, primitive people in remote areas of southwest China. One wonders what Hudson Taylor would have given to have the benefit of e-mail to communicate with benefactors and supporters in native England. His biography tells tales of confusion and miscommunication, based on the long seasons of waiting necessary for the exchange of mail.

UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS 

My host missionary is part of an interdenominational apostolic team, whose members hail from the United States, Ireland, Denmark, Holland and elsewhere, and which is dedicated to bringing the Gospel to the 26 minority groups which are part of Yunnan Province, groups with names like the Wa, the Wegers, Dia, Lahu, and Tibetan, many of whom are largely untouched by the Gospel. These groups exist along side the Han (or ethnic Chinese) which make up the majority of the population of China.

Metering hundreds of arduous bus hours traveling in outreaches to these minority groups, these mobile missionaries take the Gospel into remote mountainous villages where the name of Jesus has never been heard, sharing the love of God and making friends among these simple hardworking peasants. Their vision then is to raise up disciples among the people who will then be able to continue the work of sharing the Good News with their friends and family.

Periodically, week-long training sessions are held in a central location to establish men and women from minority villages in the basic truths of the Gospel. Bus trips, food and literature are provided and these hungry minorities sit under the tutelage of strong Chinese Christian minister who establishes them in the basics of the Christian faith. The training includes water baptism and an impartation of a strong sense of faith and commitment to these new believers. They then carry this message back to their people and the fire begins to spread.

Each of these minority people groups form a nation within a nation. They are part of the kindreds and nations mentioned in the book of Revelation.

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; (Revelation 7:9, KJV).

Jesus said:

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Matthew 24:14, KJV).

The word “nations” is a translation of the Greek word “ethnos.” or ethnic group. The Lord’s compelling call and purpose for the worldwide church of Jesus Christ, according to these visionary missionaries, is to establish a witness in each ethnic group that exist on the earth today. There are approximately 2,400 ethnic groups; approximately 1,200 are unreached. Their focus, then, is to establish the indigenous church amongst each of these ethnic groups.

A TRIP TO THE WA MINORITY 

I was privileged to travel with a team of three Americans and three Chinese into southwest Yunnan Province near the border of Burma to minister to a minority group known as the Wa. Notorious headhunters, these dark-skinned people with an appearance somewhat similar to the native Americans, were known to practice their bloody ritual into the 1960’s. It was thought that their head hunting appeased the gods, thus allowing for productive crops. Without head hunting, the crops were sure to fail. These animistic people still fall pray to fear of evil spirits, witch doctors and superstitions. Gambling, drunkenness and drug abuse add to the bondage of this particular minority group. The Wa have become the primary focus of my host’s ministry in China.

Our trip took us through an extremely mountainous, remote region of China, far away from civilization or tourists. In fact, we were in cities and villages amongst people that had never seen a foreigner before. As I journaled at the time, “I’m a strange foreigner. They look at me for along seasons. They look, that is, until I look back. Then they turn away. Such a strange sight I am. . .”

The 26-hour sleeper bus trip is in itself an adventure. The vessel, which is a red Chinese-manufactured Daewoo, is fitted with narrow, two teared bunks throughout. Each bunk is more narrow than a twin sized bed and shorter. Two tickets are sold for each bunk. As we begin our trip, I am surrounded by Chinese. Huge packages and duffel bags fill the middle aisle. The top of the bus is also filled with freight. My own bag is on the bed with me. Fortunately, I was advised to buy two tickets, or I would not have had room to breathe.

Narrow gravel roads wind a passage through the steep mountains of southwest Yunnan. There are huge switch backs and alternating curves. The road meanders through the countryside, forming part of the patchwork quilt created on the hillsides.

Peasant farmers eke out an existence from these steep mountainsides, with rice patty terraces, sugar cane and a myriad of other crops. Vegetable gardens are everywhere. Water buffalo, raunchy razorback pigs, and humpback oxen complete the cycle of life, feeding on gleanings from the fields, supervised by herdsmen with a switch in their hands. They glean and deposit their droppings and the cycle of life begins again with men and women with heavy hoes in hand breaking up the ground once again, preparing for a new crop. Mostly they work in teams, churning up the soil with unceasing labor, preparing the fertile ground.

It’s intensive farming, mostly done by hand, the people are occupied. . . plenty to do. Wide-brimmed hats protect them from the sun. Under the hats are stern, weather-worn faces. No animosity is evident, but no joy either, the people seem to be victims of an evaporated spirit, robbed by years of communism and a cultural revolution which seemed to steal the soul of a nation.

Six or eight men are seen working on the edge of a small field, creating a deep ditch. No back hoe for this crew. Rather in their hands are heavy metal hoes with thick handles which they use to scrape away at the earth beneath. Like a chain gang in rhythmic fashion they chip away at the project, conquering the earth and draining the field. It’s all just part of the pattern of life in the forgotten hills of southwest Yunnan.

Other clusters of workers are everywhere, too. Road crews dig on the sides of the road, excavating sand, gravel and dirt to fill the pot holes that mar the surface of the road, and which cause the bus to bounce, flex and jostle it’s way through the mountainous terrain. Large trucks, a few busses and mini vans dominate the traffic on this road, with an occasional Jeep. Very few people, in the cities or the country, have cars. Public transportation includes buses, mini-buses and vans. In the cities, there are buses, taxis and, in some places, rickshaws made out of motorbikes. The most common private transportation in the cities is bicycles, (lots of bicycles). In the rural areas there are a few small tractors with wagons that are used to transport farmers, work crews, livestock and crops. And of course, many just travel on foot.

I was never able to ascertain how the buses were able to pass one another on this narrow road. Occasionally, we would stop and back up onto the edge of the road, near steep drop offs, to allow a large truck to pass by the other way. The trees on the side of the road are painted white to provide guidance for night travel. Horns beeping, breaks squeaking, buses rocking, the trip is a total adventure. With speeds ranging from 10-50 miles an hours we made our way through these mysterious hills. . . a trip covering about 250 miles as the crow flies, taking us over 24 hours.

We stopped for a few hours in Gengma, where we first saw the motorbike rickshaws, and got a taste of the culture of rural Yunnan. In this city we had lunch in a small streetside feeding station. It is open to the street-bones and scraps litter the floor. This dishes and pots and pans are washed out front on the sidewalk. In a back room, they cooked our meal. Some of our fellow diners where quite fascinated, as they had never previously seen foreigners. The bus drivers there struggled to unload a four-wheel, all-terrain vehicle which had been transported on the roof of the bus. The vehicle became stuck on the roof. After a long struggle, the vehicle was unloaded and the bus drivers argued for additional freight costs from the new owner. We spent awhile in Gengma.

We then traveled on to Cangyuan, about 12 miles from the Burma border, arriving near dark. After dinner, we spent the night in our guest house, the Chinese version of a hotel. It was relatively clean and the room included a bathroom, for which I was thankful.
The next day the rest of the team went to visit a Buddhist monk who had previously expressed interest in the Gospel. I spent the day sick in bed with stomach problems and diarrhea. . .one too many sloppy roadside restaurants. Cleanliness is not a priority, especially in the remote regions, and one grows quickly tired of the chop sticks, rice, and common bowls of meat and vegetables sitting in the middle of the dirty table.

The day before I left for China I had gone to the doctor to ask for a prescription for antibiotics to help with potential traveler’s diarrhea. I was grateful for it on this particular day. I was seemingly glued to the bed with body ache, fever, and alternating chills. I spent the hours sipping Sprite, popping Tetracycline and quoting healing verses from the Bible. It all seemed to work fairly well and by evening I was able to go out and visit a Wa village.

We visited Bawei, a small Wa village of about 200 homes located approximately 8 kilometers from Cangyuan. This is a village where my host had worked previously and he was anxious to revisit this town and see what progress had been made for the Gospel.

Four men from the village had come out for the week of training four months previous to our visit. We were excited to find that the Gospel was finding root in the hearts of these men and in the village of Bawei. Here are some excerpts from my host’s journal concerning one of the four men, a carpenter named Xiao Jin Guo:

“Xui Jin Guo told me that out of the four guys that came out for training, he has been growing the most, he feels. He said that with a humble spirit. ‘After all, Tian Wei Guang has not had the opportunity to study as much as me. I made it to the third grade,’ he told me.

“He has been studying and memorizing the Bible, tracts and other materials we have given him. ‘I love you Jesus’ was the inscription that he had written on the study materials “Basic Truths,” that I gave him. He has also been teaching two young men 16 and 17.

“He has completely given up drinking and smoking. His household has completely changed as well. In the evening, he leads his family in prayer and the times that he is busy or forgets, his five-year-old son Xiao Le Lei, youngest of his three children reminds him to pray.

“In his personal life, he has become a sort of evangelist as well. ‘Whenever I go to someone’s house for dinner, I will stop at the door before entering and think the Lord for providing the food,’ he told me. ‘Sometimes I don’t pray at the table of the other people’s houses because I don’t want them to think I’m crazy or something.’

“If he hears someone outside swearing or sinning in some way he speaks out against their sin. ‘I hate what they do,’ he says, “but sometimes I explode in anger and they get mad at me too. I need to learn to respond to them in a loving way.’

” ‘You need to love the sinner and hate the sin like Jesus did,’ I encouraged him. He agreed and longs for more teaching.”

Xui Jin Guo also reported some sad news to my host. His brother had just been sent back to prison near Kunming for drug use. He had shared the Gospel with him and tried to help him, but so far to no avail. His brother is addicted to heroin.
The mountains of Southern China, Burma (also known as Myanmar), and Thailand are a major narcotic producing center of the world, growing poppies for about 70 percent of the world’s heroin. This is a source of income for many of the people as well as a source of problems. The government attempts to keep a watchful eye on the drug traffic.

REACHING AN UNTOUCHED VILLAGE

The next day my host planned to take our team into a new village that he had never visited previously, to share in the experience of entering a Wa village “cold turkey.” We traveled a narrow gravel road by mini van to a village called Jinnong. This village is made up of two parts, the lower village, which is made up of Dia minorities, and the upper village, which is comprised of the Wa minority.
The driver found his way into the upper village and seemed to instinctively stop near a house on about a one-acre spot in the middle of the village. We took our pack inside the gate and greeted the lady of the house. The driver was then paid and sent back to Cangyuan. For better or worse, we had burned our bridges and we would spend the night in a Wa village.

Amazingly, we were immediately invited to stay at the woman’s home. She began working steadily on the meal which we would later eat. The team put down our packs in the living area, and begin to make conversation with some of the children. The family’s house actually consisted of two buildings: one housing the main living area, a bed room and another sleeping room partitions off with blankets. The other building included a storage room and the kitchen. The outhouse (or out-hole I might say) was up the hill, behind the house about 30 yards away.

My host and other members of the team started making hats, animals, flowers and swords out of the long, colorful balloons that were in their pockets. The children were ecstatic. The ice was broken. A cultural hurtle was overcome.
Like most minorities, the Wa have their own language. The young people, because of the unification efforts of the communist government, speak fluent Chinese, the older people speak one of the many dialects of the Wa language. They understand Chinese to a degree, but communication is a challenge. There were times when I was speaking to these people that two translations were taking place: first, from English to Chinese, then Chinese to Wa. “Wa-d” a trip!

As the team continued to make balloon figures, the children kept coming. They loved the balloons, eyes sparkling with the joy of new experience and new friends, with foreign skin and strange and unusual happenings in their village. . .exhilarated by the fun of something new, something colorful, something . . . exciting!

All the time the lady of the house was cooking. At 7:30 p.m. or so, we ate. Her husband arrived home about 7 p.m. A team member told me, “The rule is, you eat what is set before you, regardless.” So I ate in spite of my queasy stomach and memories of diarrhea past. The man of the house gave me a generous second helping, which I tried to refuse-unsuccessfully.

The kitchen was dark and dismal. An open wood burning area with a grill stood on one side of the room, with no chimney. On the other side was a huge metal vessel that looked like a wok with garbage in it. This, I assumed was for the pigs. We sat at a short legged table on 8-inch stools. We each had bowls and chopsticks and there were common bowls of all sorts of things in the middle of the table.
The dinner was a rice dish with chicken. It had a heavy garlic flavor-not too bad really. We enjoyed a meal together and polite conversation. I showed pictures of my children and talked a little, with help from by Chinese teammates.

After dinner, the woman (her name is Li Anna) asked me if I spoke Chinese. Through an interpreter I understood her question and said, “No.” She then asked if I was “quiet,” meaning an introvert. I said “Yes,” I tended to be quiet except when I preached.

She then asked me why I had come to this very poor Wa village. “What purpose could I have here?”

I told her that I had Jesus in my heart, that He had told me to “Go into all the world. . .” and had put a love in my heart for people.

We discovered that Li Anna and the other people of the village had never heard about Jesus. Not only were they completely ignorant about the Gospel message, but they had never heard even the name of the Savior. Multiply this scenario hundreds of times, and you have a picture of the spiritual state of many of the cities and villages of China, as well as many other parts of the world. The need is great! The world is waiting! We have the message! The question is: will we go?
Li Anna then began to share about a sickness that she had, stomach problems and extreme fatigue. I asked her if we could pray with her and she said, “Yes.” I then asked her if I could share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with her before we prayed.
She said “Yes” and I proceeded to give her the Gospel message in the simplest terms. I told her about God’s perfect creation: no sickness, no poverty, no sin; about man’s sin and separation from God; about God’s plan to save man through the cross of Calvary; about the resurrection; about believing in the Savior and receiving Him into your heart as Lord.

After this I prayed for her healing and sensed a mighty healing anointing. She then prayed a prayer of salvation asking Jesus to become the Lord of her life. Li Anna was obviously touched as were many others before we left the village. I told her that she was like Lydia, the first convert in Phillippi, whose heart was opened by the Lord. (Acts 16:14))

We then showed the Jesus film (translated in Chinese). It was quite touching. At the end, about 10 people prayed and accepted the Lord. Then it was time for bed.
I was dreading bedtime. The room where we were staying doubled as a storage area for about 50 large bags of rice. I felt sure that we would have additional guests in the room that night.

I was right!

Li Anna brought in a large straw mat to lay on the floor between the two piles of the bushels of rice. She also gave us some blankets. I had brought a sheet and I rolled up some clothing to serve as a pillow. The four guys from our team all slept on the floor. The two Chinese girls were given a bed.

I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching, like a small dog or a cat. It was louder than the sound made by mice. Our guests were. . .yes. . .RATS!
They scurried about throughout the rest of the night. . .at times over our legs and feet. When they did, I quickly kicked them away. I took the sheet, tucked it under my feet, under my head and hoped for the morning. It’s much more fun to laugh about it in the morning and to talk about now than it was to actually experience it. . . but there are, no doubt, far worse things. . . and we survived with all our toes and fingers. Praise the Lord!

People ask me about the food in China. Well, from my experience, it’s all about the same-not too good. However, it is extremely cheap-like, $4 for a meal for 6 people. And the bathrooms? Well the best you usually find is a “squatty potty” in a hotel or apartment. These are basically holes in the floor with some running water. Sorry, no stool. The shower, if available, is usually located directly above the squatty potty, which doubles as a drain. Other than that, it might be an open pit with some boards over it in a village, or an extremely raunchy public toilet with trenches in one side and a series of open square holes on the other side over which to squat embarrassingly and publicly. Well, it’s not so bad. . . if you can hold it.

Of course, there are also 4 and 5 star hotels in the major cities. . .but for the rest of us . . . well.

The day after the rat experience, people started coming from all over the village asking for prayer for various ailments. We prayed for them and led a number of them to the Lord. A 16-year-old girl who had watched the Jesus film and asked Jesus into her heart the night before brought her mother for prayer. The mother has had a great deal of heart problems. Before prayer I shared the Gospel from Mark 16. . . she accepted Christ and received prayer from the team.

One of our Chinese team members, encouraged the people to come together regularly and read the scriptures and pray that a church might be established in their village. We left Bibles and teaching materials with the new converts also. There was a tremendous openness. As I wrote at the time: “There’s hunger in this land. The harvest oh so ripe, but the laborers are few. The people are ready, willing and open.”

My trip “cold turkey” to a Wa village in southwest Yunnan is an experience that I will never forget.

BACK TO CIVILIZATION

We spent a week of travel and ministry in the forgotten hills of southwest Yunnan. One of our Chinese team members commented on the way back to Kunming, “I fell in love with God this week.” The trip had affected all of us as much as the people that we were reaching. The prayer, the Bible study we did each morning, the fellowship, the common goal of reaching the Wa, had brought us closer to the King of Kings.

On the way back we stayed for a night in Gengma, where we had dinner with our bus drivers’ families. These were prosperous Chinese businessmen. We spent the evening eating, and singing Karoke in their living room.

One of the bus drivers said to us: “We don’t know what you are used to, but we are serving you the best, the very best.” The meal included a bowl of liver with special spices from Hunan Province, near the home of Mao Tse-tung, a fatty fish which was boiled, and a chicken cooked whole, including the head and the feet. Many Chinese consider the feet a great delicacy.

I was looking for as nice piece of chicken to include with my meal. As I probed in the common bowl, I found a good chunk of meat and pinched it with my forceps and placed it in my bowl. Much to my consternation, I had fished out the head, which now was sitting in my bowl. I starred at the new prize, chuckling to my self, feeling even more queasy in my stomach as I looked at the featherless crown, including beak and eyeballs.

It was dark and the bus drivers were unaware of my dilemma, but apparently noticed I had more in my bowl than I desired. “Just throw the bones anywhere,” I was told. “Just throw them on the ground.” We were eating on a verandah. So the head and the bones were tossed behind me on the ground. It’s a different world!
The next day, one of the bus drivers began asking questions about the Gospel.
After a total of 24 hours of travel we arrived safely back in Kunming early on Sunday morning. A tongue-in-cheek excerpt from my host’s journal gives insight into life during the long sleeper bus rides. David has logged about 700 hours on these land-loving versions of Jonah’s whale:

“Sleeper buses help me preach with more eloquence and passion. For after I have experienced the weeping and gnashing of teeth, outer darkness, and the almost eternal damnation of these sleeper buses, I understand hell and the need of humankind a bit better! Yes, woe is me if I do not preach!”

In my own thoughts, I found my self comparing the bus trip to an earlier missionaries’ journeys by sailing ship from England to China. I wrote: “Unlike Hudson Taylor, who traveled by boat to China taking four or more months, we only have a 24 hour bus trip to go to get back to Kunming-SHORT! Yeh, right!”
I have been to a number of poor third-world countries. China has its poverty. But the thing that struck me more than anything was not the poverty, but the bondage created by a demoralizing system of government. If I may be allowed a gross generalization, I found the people to often be zombie-like, robbed of their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit by a system that attempts to put all people in a common box for the common good and ends up with something very average to poor.

I found myself very thankful for the liberty that we enjoy in America, and somewhat chastening myself for not taking advantage of the freedoms that we have: the freedom to worship, the freedom to share the Good News, the freedom to create, the freedom to entrepreneur, to build. . . to live. Let us live big! Let us create with all the God-given faculties within ourselves, never taking life for granted, using the gifts that we have to shape and form the world around us.

I preached to myself in my journal: “Oh how I appreciate what I have. Please, Tom, do not waste it. Use it to its exponential value. Release the creative you within. Loose yourself from the bounds of self-imposed mediocrity and stifled expression. Live life to its fullest. Live with a zest for the real, the tangible, the creative, the joyful, the playful, the fun, the serious, the powerful. The choice is yours. Expand the possibilities. Hope in the future!”

I continued, “Find partners, comrades of creative passion, mind-expanding avenues of unity and power. Kill the divisive spirit with total enthusiasm-enthusiasm for the task, enthusiasm for life, enthusiasm for the will of God. Find enthusiasm in the potential of the people around you. Feel their potential. Let them feel your belief in them. Challenge them to be their best. . . to open their hearts to truth, to respond to their creative instinct, to expand to their Creator. Be who God made you to be. . .not some self-imposed clone of a preconceived notion. Explore the possibilities!

Before leaving China, I also had the privilege of ministering to about 50 missionaries in Kunming at their regular weekly church service. I encouraged them in their relationship with God and remembering Him as their source of strength in continuing the vital work that God had given them to do. It’s amazing how the call of God has brought these people from all over the globe to this needy land and how their hearts cry out for a move of God in China.

I shared the dream that God had given me that had brought me to China. I encouraged them in the work that they are doing, in the teaching, the training, the evangelizing. . . that every part of it is vital to the plan of God for this amazing land. . . that God, in His mercy, was sending a great move to China. That hungry hearts were about to catch on fire, that the vacuum created by a godless communism, was about to be filled by the most glorious message ever heard-the message of God’s love through Jesus Christ.

Pray for China! Pray for the world! Pray for laborers!

Be a go-er! Be a sender! Let’s get going and complete the work that Jesus called us to do, to preach the Gospel in all the world, for a witness to all the nations.