hiskidscare.com

Friday, July 16 – Saturday, July 17

I sit in my room this evening wondering why my faith is so small that I get amazed at what should be expected. Yesterday’s final camp day went extremely well. There were many tears and open doors of opportunity with parents and children. Heidi is very close to salvation. She has agreed to read through the Book of John and wants to know God but doesn’t want to believe just so she can go to heaven. She said, “I don’t want to become a Christian just so I can go to heaven. That seems selfish. If I become a Christian, I want to be a Christian who lives my life for this Jesus.” Pretty cool, huh? The final performance by the kids was great! We were so proud of them. After the performance, we were greeted by a fireworks that would’ve been very illegal in America. But, this is China and it was cool!

Today the majority of the team went to the Great Wall. Traffic was terrible so what should have been a 1 hour ride ended up being closer to 4 hours. Some folks stayed behind to rest but all the first timers took the trek. I’m sure you’ll be seeing tons of pictures.

Today was the first day of our second parenting conference. Vince and I went and expected to have a comparable crowd to what we saw last week at Kuanjie Church. We arrived to Hidian Church about 30 minutes early and made 50 copies in hopes that we would exceed our attendance from last week. We went into a room to meet with a couple of the pastors and, when we came out, the room was fairly full. I don’t have a final number but Vince said he had to make over 350 copies of our handout for the parents.

Even though it was a parenting conference, there were many young people there. Between the young people and the parents they had great questions they wanted to ask personally. We stayed for about an hour just to try to field all the questions. When we left, there was still a line of people promising to come back tomorrow. Here are some of the questions I was approached with:

• “How can I get this peace that I see in you and other Christians? Is Jesus the only way to get it?”
• “Why are Christians always so happy?”
• “This is my first time I have ever been to church (I was told this at least 4 times), how can I know about Jesus?”
• “Can Jesus make a difference in my life as a University student?”

Should I be amazed? People were coming to this meeting in this church who have never been to church before. They weren’t invited by anyone in particular but simply walked in off the streets.

I ask that you would pray for the 2nd part of our conference tomorrow. I know you’ll probably be sleeping but if God happens to wake you up between 3:30 and 5:30 in the morning, know that He’s waking you up to pray for this meeting.

Other than the parent meeting tomorrow, we’ll be attending church and worshiping alongside our Chinese brethren. In the afternoon, a number of people are going to Hope Foster Home for another visit with the orphans there. Thank you for your prayers. All is amazing on this side of the world.

Press On!

Mike