Vineyard Writing Ministry - From China ICOC 2-1 Lessons on Mission Journey
2-1 Special Report: Lessons on Mission Journey
Editor’s note: AK, a brother in Beijing, the model and testimony of a disciple’s faith, whose story “Lessons on Mission Journey” is worth our learning and imitation.
From July to August in 1992 I had a “Dragon Trip”1 together with campus and young single disciples from Hong Kong. At the end of that trip, I decided to devote my life to the mission in mainland China and chose Shanghai as my destination, as I was then working as an investment analyst2. In the following two years I prayed every day facing the motherland in the north. Eventually, I got my prayer answered.
Shanghai: Trial of persecution
In August 1994, a mission group named Wild Donkeys, formed by 21 Hong Kong disciples, arrived in Shanghai full of passion and faith, ready to save the lost souls and to build God’s kingdom there. As a member of the mission group I had a strong sense of pride and honor. Naturally the pride was well hidden and I thought I was being very sacrificial.
I experienced a lot of challenges and even failures in those two years in Shanghai. The sister, who had prepared to join the mission group and whom I had gone steady with for several months, left me as well as God. Then I encountered many challenges on relationship, because I was the only one working while everybody was doing ministry all day long. I was often alone in the night and networking3 on Nanjing East Road in the city center. That was stupid of me, networking in such a popular tourist spot.
At the same time my skin allergy grew more and more severe, which made it difficult for me to fall asleep. The relations in the brothers’ household was not going well, and once I even thought of hurting a brother with a hot iron. You can imagine how low my spirit was at one point. The only one time that I didn’t want to join the Sunday worship in my 26 years of Christian life was in that period.
In the beginning of 1996, I lost my job and soon we were threatened by “red terror”. We were told that we had been being watched by the national security and police departments, but we were not sure when they would take action. It turned out to be the morning on June 23rd. We were arrested when Sunday service had just begun, and after one whole night of interrogation we were forced to leave Shanghai. It was with lots of reluctance, regret and sorrow at the departure, and I didn’t know what to do in the future at this abrupt end of my China dream. I suddenly became aware that it wasn’t Shanghai that needed me, but me who needed Shanghai.
Months later some of us decided to make another try and started to plan another mission team to Nanjing, a city near Shanghai. One day, I went on a day trip in Shenzhen with a brother who had been in charge of church finance in Shanghai and had been viewed as one of the key leaders. Unfortunately, his “Mainland Travel Permit” was confiscated by the Chinese immigration officer on that day. We then realized that the Shanghai police were not joking as they had said they wouldn’t want us to evangelize in the mainland in the future. Hence, we were not going to be sent out as a mission team in a big church conference, and not many disciple friends in Hong Kong were even aware of our move. Some of us on this new team managed to sneak into China on our own. For security reasons I had sat on the train for 90 hours and then reached Chengdu city for a temporary stay. During the journey I had memorized the whole book of the Philippians, getting ready to encourage myself in case I got captured and put into jail.
In summarizing the those first two years, I became aware that God had tested me with these troubles. Suffering may crush our hopes and dreams, but it may also generate humility and determination. Suffering may make us feel confused, but it may also help us to deeply understand ourselves. Facing suffering, some people choose to blame God and the church, but we may also choose to understand God better and walk with him in humility.
Macau: A humbling trial
In 1998 I joined another mission team to Macau. There I completed several important life tasks: dating, getting married, buying a flat and having a child. Life was getting more and more stable, but my faith was actually on a downward slide.
I had thought I would stay in Shanghai when I was there, but ended up leaving within two years. I had presumed that within two years in Macau I could help quite a number of people to get baptized and then I could go back to Hong Kong. In reality, I stayed there for ten years, and in that period there was more adversity than prosperity. My career was not going well in Macau. In the beginning I had been unemployed for two years and was doing some translation jobs to make a living. Later I got my first teaching job and was working hard in it. However, my contract was not extended due to some colleagues’ slander. In my second teaching post in a newly founded school, I was never able to advance in my career because of a big cultural difference between the management’s expectations and mine.
I have been invited many times to share in church meetings on various topics, but career success is absolutely not one of them. From another perspective, I can share lots of experience of career failure. Meanwhile, our ministry among young singles in Macau saw no prospect of improvement after four years, and we just couldn’t find any effective ways of attracting them to the gospel. During those days I found myself getting more and more distant from the ministry in mainland China, which was in that period growing more healthily. There was no my share in the dream of China and my faith was struggling for existence. (Fortunately I found there my life-long soulmate – Evan (short for Evangeline), which was very important.)
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Beijing: A costly trial
In mid-2007 I somehow regained my faith and heard a clear summon: it is time to leave the comfort zone and depart again. However, I was then approaching 40, my child was of pre-school age, and I was having a stable job with better prospects and a cozy accommodation. For a while I hesitated to heed this calling. To be honest I couldn’t afford the potential failure. What if I couldn’t fit in the new place after two years’ efforts, especially since I would have to give up everything I had then. If we had chosen to stay in Macau for two more years, we would have become permanent residents of Macau, and it would end up in nothing if I quit then. I would need to search for a new job and suffer from the trouble of flat-renting and moving. I would definitely get harsh criticism from family for bringing such an upheaval to my family simply because of my faith.
Reflecting on such difficulties, I was hoping that God would give me a clear enlightenment that it was His will, and I would then be brave enough to do it again. In the end, God answered me with two verses:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)
If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:13-15)
This mission trip seemed to be an out-of-mind choice, because the risk would be high and the consequences could be costly. But these verses reminded me that if this move to Beijing was a risky one, God totally deserved me taking this risk for Him. I died in that night 27 years ago when I got baptized in Birmingham in Britain, and every day after that I have been living for Christ. There is a well-known advertisement slogan: You deserve it. This sentence should be our word to God. He deserves to own everything of us.
Therefore the whole family of three came to Beijing 7 years ago. There were quite a lot of challenges in the first year. I found that I could not do ministry work like I used to, because the age gap with campus students was big and they were calling me “uncle”. My family life and marriage came across some shocks as well, such as heated conversations with Evan, such as her miscarriage. About two years ago I wrote an article reviewing our first five years in Beijing and I used the word “happy” to summarize my deepest feeling. To put it simply, we have prepared to give and to sacrifice, but in the contrary God has rewarded us much more. I have been blessed and shepherded very much in every aspect, not only in my job, my family, my marriage, but also in my relation with God and my role in the Beijing church. I have thoroughly enjoyed every day in Beijing.
No regret in this life
In 1992 not long after I went back to Hong Kong after the dragon trip, I received a letter from the government telling me that I had been offered the post of Administrative Officer, after passing several turns of written and oral tests. Even 23 years ago the starting wage was over 20,000 HK dollars with extra fringe benefits, and later I could have been promoted to the rank of government official. If, and only if, everything had gone well, I could have become rather successful in this public career and could be enjoying an abundant material living.
However, looking back to these 23 years life of mission, I have no regrets at all. I have led a wonderful life, making impact in other people’s lives, and having been blessed with love and non-material riches. I look forward to giving back to God the thousands of silver earned with the same amount He has entrusted to me and to his compliment that I am a good and faithful servant. That is all I hope and desire. How people judge me by my income, career, rented flat or my car does not count.
The Cross has given my life a new definition, a new value, a clear direction, a destiny and a Lord who is worthy of my sacrifice. Just as it says in Psalms 16, “apart from you I have no good thing”. To be more exactly, apart from the Cross, if you find any good quality or anything one might admire in my life, I can assure you that it must certainly be due to Jesus’ Cross.
Note：
1. “Dragon Trip”: in the ‘90s, the Hong Kong church encouraged campus and young single disciples to make group travel to mainland China so as to get a better understanding of the motherland and to have mission dreams for China.
2. There is stock market in Shanghai so that AK could find a job there.
3. Networking: evangelizing