The China Partnership Blog is 1 year old! Join us during the month of October for a glance back over our favorite posts from the year. Many of our most read posts highlight stories and the CP blog has enjoyed sharing these experiences from individuals and ministries. We have compiled a list of these posts for you to revisit and hope reading about God’s faithfulness encourages you.
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In Christ,
The China Partnership
1) The Wise Men from the East: A Chinese Scholar Meets the King
“I met Jenny in quite an interesting way. One Sunday morning, we were done with our fellowship meeting and walked to the street outside of the church building. Suddenly, an American lady blocked my way and said to me in a rapid voice, “Come! There is a Chinese. You should share the gospel with her!” I realized that she was one of the church members and knew our ministry well. I followed her pointing finger and saw a young Chinese woman standing across the street looking at us with a bit of embarrassment.”
2) From China to Harvard (And Back Again) – What Is the Ultimate Good?
“I couldn’t afford to stop my work for some wishy-washy “spiritual exploration.” In fact, I thought of myself as a noble person. In that case, did I still need to have a faith to teach me how to become a good person? I was already good. But what is the ultimate good? What is the ultimate benchmark of a successful Harvard graduate – Bill Gates, John F. Kennedy, Mark Zuckerberg, or some combination of them all? Who should I be?”
3) Conference Voices: Planting and Pastoring a Multicultural Church
“Early on, we noted that other organizations outside the church such as my kids basketball league, or the Wake County public school system, or our homeowners association all have multiculturalism as a top value. This means that as a church, you can have multiculturalism as a value, but really be no different substantively than your local school, Kiwanis club, or youth sports league.”
4) A Story of Friendship: Cross-Cultural Relationships that Encourage Towards Christ
“I genuinely appreciated our friendship as it grew. I remember how appreciative Lucy was when I invited her over for a very casual Friday night where we ate homemade apple pie and watched the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. By the end of the term, we would get together for a quick lunch as a break from work just like regular friends. The benefits of the friendship felt very mutual, as it was refreshing to hang out with someone outside of my other social circles during the week.”
5) Encouraged by the Strangeness of the Gospel: A Story of Making Space in Church Small Groups
“Qing and I had hit it off pretty quickly when we first connected as language partners. This was primarily due to his friendly and engaging personality, though it also helped that we shared a background in economics, and could dive right into the details of the project he was working on at Harvard Business School. On top of that, his English was already excellent, so we had no trouble communicating; he had signed up for the language partner program primarily to improve his fluency in conversational English and to learn more about American culture. ‘Do you know any other places I could go,’ he asked me, ‘to spend more time with Americans and have conversations with them?’”
6) Realizing God is Love – A Scholar’s Story of Repentance and Growth
“When I came to America, I wanted to know more about Christianity. In China, I studied psychology and I practiced positive psychology methods to improve my happiness, such as writing three good things every day. I insisted on writing gratitude for nearly six hundred days. This practice did improve my happiness, but still I found it was not enough. The happiness could not last long. There was still a hole unfilled in my soul or spirit. So this feeling moved me to look for solutions in religion.”
7) Going When Circumstances Say Stay: Deciding to Become a Missionary
“We initially could not resolve all the questions because my wife felt that all the data suggested that we should stay the course and remain in the U.S. as faithful senders and disciplers. I agreed with her in many ways, but felt torn because I could not shake the deep burden that I was feeling. As we wrestled with these questions, 2013 proved to be the most stressful year we had ever endured together. Unlike most missionary couples we knew, our calling was not clear and we had tremendous difficulty coming to a shared decision together. After many tears, sleepless nights, long conversations, hours of searching the scriptures, and heart-wrenching prayers, we committed in unity to moving to China.”
8) Seeing Reality and Imagining More – A Brief Return to China
“The meteoric rise of China not only increased my uncle’s personal wealth, but also afforded him opportunities to travel the world. I used to travel to Europe thinking that none of my elementary school friends in China would have the experience that I was having. Now many of them are traveling to different continents for their honeymoons, while my wife and I drove to the Poconos. Yet as I see collective pride rising in many places in China, I also notice much insecurity and uncertainty. Like much of the Western world, which has been observing the rise of China with both wonder and suspicion, the people in China are also not sure what to do with themselves.”
9) “The Air that I Breathe” – Personal Reflections on Pollution in China
“I’ll be honest, my original intention in not buying a car in China was not that of environmental concern (carbon emissions, etc), but those concerns are also not insignificant. I don’t know how much I am contributing to reducing global pollution by not owning a car, but I am sure I’m not adding to it either.”
