Preacher Ed, Buddhist Train Conductor, Mongolian JWs and Me

Here are a few short stories and praise reports from the last few weeks! Please join us in thanking God for all that He's doing…

1) We met a lady at the local Chinese church the other week who has been a believer for 6-7 years. Her family all want her to reject Jesus (including her husband, who is threatening divorce). She is one of only 3 (known) Chinese Christians in a county of nearly a quarter million people, and had to travel a couple hours by bus just to get to the nearest church (it was her second time to church this year).

Please pray for Mrs. Wang, the two grandkids she cares for regularly (2 yr old girl, 3 yr old boy), and for the rest of the unreached people in her county!

If the Lord permits, we hope to visit her village this Thursday (July 11) to encourage her, pray for her, and deliver some toys and clothes for her grandkids.

2) We have teamed up with a project to promote the Bible online (free downloads) by targeting websites that are accessed by local Muslims in our area. So far there's been a great response, with thousands of site visits and downloads this month alone!

Pray that this continues to grow and that the seeds of God's word bear fruit in the hearts of so many young, misguided, Muslims!

3) We returned home about a week ago from a 10 day trip to Beijing (to renew 3 of our passports) then to the China-Mongolia border (to extend 3 of our Chinese visas), which all went smoothly. But it wasn't an easy trip. We spent a total of about 45 hours on 4 different trains, including a 12.5 hour stint on the Beijing-Moscow Express! (the 500 miles we were aboard comes out to only 1/10 of its total trajectory!)

We spent a day or two in the hot, dusty border town with another American friend*, Edward Stagl, who has been in and out of China, Sri Lanka, and India for much of the last year sharing the Gospel and encouraging local believers. Before we arrived, he prayed that the Lord would lead us to believers in this little city. No sooner had we checked into the hotel across the street from the train station, did we discover that the owner's wife and friend were Christians! The next day, Ed met another young Jehovah's Witness lady (pray for God to open her eyes!) and a Bible-toting taxi driver who wouldn't let us pay the fare!

We spent almost all of the next day on another 10 hour train ride, where I ran into a Buddhist train worker who I first met on that same train more than 8 months ago. He went out of his way to thank me for the little scripture booklet i gave him last October. This time he got a Gospel of John!

Pray for God to open his eyes to see the glory of Christ!

4) I put out the following prayer request on Facebook just a few days ago:

Please join me in praying for a close (American) friend here who has an important decision to make today about whether or not to take an English teaching job in a very needy, dark, and difficult place!

I'm happy to report that he has signed the contract and is trusting that if the Lord provides a work visa there (still not a sure thing), then the Lord will sustain him in this new place. Our friend has already spent nearly 5 years teaching in this province, but this new city is smaller, more remote, colder, and has a much smaller Christian population (vast majority are Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese Muslims) than his previous city.

So pray for our friend as he embarks on what we hope will be another long-term journey of sharing Christ among unreached students and teachers!

5) Finally, I want to share a few urgent prayer requests with you:

• Our Peruvian friends are expecting their 2nd child and just found out that they must find a new apartment by month's end. Please pray for them as they complete 6 months on the field!

• A Mexican family who has worked alongside us for years is preparing to return to the field, and the husband is in need of employment as a Spanish teacher. Pray that God would open the doors and provide exactly what they need!

• We are still up in the air about our own long-term visas. I have three or four options before me, including the possibility of teaching part-time at one of three schools, or even becoming a part-time student. But nothing has been finalized, and my time is running short. Something has to happen by August 2nd. Please pray!

Well, lots of prayer requests this month, as it should be! The Lord wants us to rely on Him, not labor in our own strength or wisdom. So join us in prayer for China as we pray for the Church in America!

*I first met Edward Stagl over 12 years ago on “Base Jump Day” at the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. I was 17 years old and out witnessing with some friends, and Ed was standing with a big wooden cross, preaching and handing out tracts. We met, talked, and exchanged info and have kept in touch all these years. But last month was the first time we'd seen each other again since that day 12 years ago! Since then, Ed has carried a cross (usually with a sign and a Gospel message attached to the top) in 200 cities in Mexico (4 years!) and in many parts of Asia. This summer, he has even begun walking with a Chinese made cross on the streets of Beijing's suburbs. He's being accompanied by local Christians and so far they've had no encounters with police. He hopes to continue expanding his circuit in Beijing in the early fall leading up to Chinese National Day. Pray for him!