The Hope Chapel mission team was en route to a dinner in our honor. It was the last night that we would be in Beijing and our gracious hosts went all out to give us a very warm goodbye. Richard, our driver for the last two weeks, was in a hurry to get to our destination, so much so that he decided to take a short cut by driving the wrong way down a one-way street—on purpose! It was a very long two miles as he swerved to miss oncoming traffic, pulling over to the side to miss a bus, careening to the center to avoid a motorcycle. I don’t know how he kept his focus while listening to us alternately screaming in terror and hooting out wild peals of nervous laughter.

The two weeks were over. Shortly after the parting gifts were given and the kind words were spoken it would be time to prepare for real life back in Los Angeles. But there was still so much work to do…

When Winnie had the vision to come to China, she didn’t know how it would take shape or if it would ever happen. She prayed and waited and trusted God to bring it to fruition, having no idea that it would take the form of a teaching team sent to strengthen young professionals in the heart of China’s capitol city. With the support and leadership of her husband Brian, God gave her the desires of her heart—sixteen years later!

Our hope was that the church would birth a second fellowship, then a third, and so on. The Chinese people, like all people need Jesus, but these1.4 billion souls have had God purged from their midst by a government who believes that it is God. How easy it would be to preach the Gospel to these naturally curious people who gather into a crowd at the slightest provocation. How wonderful it would be to hand out millions of Gospel tracts in this country, to stand on every street corner and shout out the Good News. How easy it would be if it were legal to do so. But to every season there is a reason and God is still in control; His purposes cannot be thwarted.

God is raising up warriors for Himself that are unafraid to preach the Word in season and out of season. People like “John” the evangelist who led twenty-one people to the Lord in the two weeks we were there using his newfound weapon, the Ten Commandments. Warriors like “Evie”, who also discovered this long-forgotten principle of Biblical evangelism, and led her first two souls to Christ—the first fruits of many more to come. And the brave house church leader and thousands more like him, who will continue to pour themselves out like drink offerings before the Lord so His work will continue unabated.

Pray for China.

Two aggressive ladies hurriedly pulled our luggage off the bus as we arrived at the airport. They weren’t porters, just itinerant baggage handlers looking to make a quick buck through unwanted service at the curb. “Thank-you, thank-you,” I said.

“No thank-yous,” one lady replied angrily in broken English. “I want money.”

We made our way to the terminal to meet our plane, avoiding the toilet paper-less bathrooms. After checking our suitcases we got in line to board the plane. I noticed a woman staring at me and recognized her instantly. She sat next to me for twelve hours on the flight from San Francisco and I never said one thing about the Gospel— I was too chicken—but not this time.

“Hi Rachel,” I greeted.

“Hello. How was your trip to China?” she said cheerily.

“It was great. Hey, there was something I meant to tell you when we were flying together two weeks ago.”

“Oh what’s that?” she asked quite intrigued. Our line started moving onto the plane and the agents inspected our boarding passes.

I pulled out two Curved Illusion Tracts with the Gospel clearly written on the backside. I held them up in front of her. She had a very quizzical look on her face. “Which one is bigger, the pink or the blue?” Everyone was boarding the plane quickly by now.

“The pink one is bigger,” she answered moving along in line.

I switched the pink and the blue. “Now which is bigger, the pink or the blue?”

Surprised, she said, “The blue one?”

Before she could say, How did you do that? I gave them to her to keep. “You can’t believe everything you see, and you can’t believe everything you hear,” I explained. “Please read the back and if you have any questions, look me up on the plane.” It was the best I could do at the time. We boarded the plane and found our separate seats

At least I was able to Do something! Do something! Do something!

The End