Chinese Christianity

If you speak a language other than English, sometime in your life, you need to hear someone give their testimony in that language. Today, I brought my parents to a Chinese church. I had brought them to various church services before, but they were for the most part English, and when I did bring them to the Chinese church before, we split and I went to the English Bible study. I decided today that, one, I should probably have the patience to sit through a real Chinese service with them, and two, it might help with my Chinese Christianese, which could come in handy for the graduate small group where half the members are literally fresh off the plane.

It just so happened that the church was doing baptisms this week (which I only figured out right before the pastor started sprinkling water). That in itself was pretty awesome. The auditorium was packed with fobby, mostly older Chinese Americans as we watched six people publicly declare their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Maybe it’s because I never went to an Asian church growing up, but this was amazing because the Chinese people (Maoist generation) I grew up around were the last people you would expect to be Christian. And I understand there's all too many Asian churches out there where church is little more than a social gathering, but these people (two of them had just lost their husbands) getting baptized were not here for that.

I felt so blessed that my parents got to see this and I thought what would be really awesome is if they got to hear a real testimony in Chinese. Which is what happened next. Now I've seen and kind of know how God works in the U.S., but the stories of God working in oppressed places like China are always those legendary and mythical things that I don't really relate with. For this testimony however, they actually invited someone from China with a story that showed God's ability to work in our everyday lives regardless of what country we live in, and for that reason, it was that much more amazing.

I don't have all the details of the story because her entire testimony was given in rapid-fire Chinese, which...yeah, not gonna happen. But here's what I got.

Her name is Lydia. She's looks in her upper twenties and grew up in and went to college in China. Her story begins in college, where she was studying English to be a teacher. Somehow or another she and her friend met a Korean couple, who invited them over for dinner and Bible study. Like most Chinese people, she thought religion was stupid, but they went because the food was good and they were super friendly. The meetings began to happen more regularly and they kept going for the same reasons. After a few months, the friend that she went with suddenly tells Lydia that she's Christian now. Her friend explained that after Bible study once, the Korean couple prayed with her, and she said the prayer to accept Jesus. Lydia felt betrayed, because to her, religion remained something pointless and manipulative. She felt betrayed because it was under the premises of good food (haha familiar anyone?) that her friend was now tricked into this crazy thing. So she stopped going to the couple's house and ignored all their phone calls. She began to give her friend a hard time about her new found religion and often made fun of her.

Meanwhile, she was still in college, her grades were good, and things seemed to be going well. However, she still sometimes felt an emptiness in her heart. She tried various things like partying and ???(something Chinese I didn't understand), but it didn't help. Somehow, she picked up her Bible again, with the justification that if she knew more about it, she could win the arguments against her friend about why religion is stupid. But as she read, she began to feel a peace in her heart that she couldn't explain. After a few months, this led to curiosity, and she finally decided to ask her friend why she became Christian, this time with a more open heart. Then something happens (??? sorry) and she accepts Christ. Her friend begins crying because she says that she had been praying for her for the past however many months and that she was the last person of their Bible study group that she would've expected to become Christian since she made fun of her so much.

So a little time passes and she really experiences God causing her to develop a deep desire to serve God. Except that she's in China, which comes with a host of reasons why that's a bad idea. One of the big things on her mind was that her parents, who aren't Christian, would never be able to understand. They paid for her to go to college to learn English and get a job, not to become a poor minister. So in the end, she takes a job teaching high schoolers with ministry on the back of her mind.

One day on the job, she heard noises behind some classroom door after hours. When she opened it, there were several of her students in there who quickly hid what they were doing. Thinking it was something inappropriate, she asks for the item, and it turns out to be a Bible. She discovers through this that 4 out of the 6 kids in her teaching group are Christians. More importantly, it seemed like a confirmation of what God wanted her to do. She began regular Bible studies with these children, which I think is absolutely amazing considering this is China. All the while, she has been in "church", which is basically a group of 20-30 people meeting at someone's house. This is the primary form of Christianity in China.

Sometime later, her old Christian friend is getting married in another city and she asks Lydia to be one of her bridesmaids (or maid of honor?). However, she discovers that there is also some important Christian leadership event?/gathering?/conference? that happens to be in the same city as the wedding on the same day. Obviously as an honored guest, she can't go. But the night before, during a worship session with some people, she feels the small voice of God telling her she needs to go. To which she says, Nonono. No way. But she hears it again. No God, I can't. I would need some sort of miraculous sign if this is what you want me to do. So she thinks to herself, if the next worship song that is played is the song I'm thinking of, I will know its You. She even made sure to pick an obscure old song that was rarely played. But the moment she picked it, the current song ended, and the next song that began playing was the one she picked.

She went to the event instead of the wedding and I'm not really sure what that led to, but I know that she has now devoted her life to ministry. Her stay in Atlanta was brief because she had to fly off to some other place to speak. She ended by emphasizing how much God had financially provided even for her father, who was poor and was going to rely on her income (as is often the tradition in China).

I don't believe she has ever had any kind of formal theological training and so it’s amazing to me how theologically sound she is from what God has shown and taught her. I can definitely see how God can use her to bless so many Chinese people, including myself. For me, it was such a blessing to hear the familiar ways of God in a place so hostile to the concept of religion. It also made realize how much I limit God's power to my immediate world. God is so much greater than what I know and perhaps there's no better place than another country to see that.

And yeah, this testimony was so much better in Chinese.

It's funny God, how you know exactly right spot to hit me to get my attention.