November 9, 2005

• This morning at BSF the main leader (I don't know the terminology) was
  telling a story about a missionary to China she heard about recently:

  Seems this man and a couple of other missionaries (this was a while
  ago) had been deep in China in an area with no Christian presence at
  all.  They had packets made up of New Testaments and
  pamphlets....you know the sort of thing, probably.  Well, while in
  a village the authorities came and managed to snag one of the group,
  placing him under house arrest.  The others learned they were
  being searched for, so got on their motorbikes and tried to get as far
  from the village as they could (BTW, the missionary captured was
  released unharmed).  Knowing their possession of unauthorized
  Christian material would land them in serious hot water were they
  caught, they began tossing the packets out into the rice paddies along
  the road, as well as around the perimeter of a village they skirted.

  They successfully eluded the Chinese police, but were disheartened at
  the loss of the opportunity to witness to those lost people, not to
  mention the loss of valuable materials.  Why, they wondered, had
  the LORD seen fit to put them into that region so briefly?  What a
  waste!

  Years later, the missionary was at some meeting or other (hey, it was
  this morning I heard this, so the details have faded) and there was a
  Chinese man from the region he had been in.  Upon learning he was
  Christian he was amazed and pleased, so went to talk to him. 
  "How," he inquired, "did you learn about Christ?"

  "Well," the other man replied, "it was the strangest thing, but several
  years ago these packets containing Scripture suddenly started popping
  up around our village.  We never could figure out where they came
  from, but we kept finding them in the rice paddies and oh, all
  over.  I read about Jesus and that's how I came to be saved."

  You may imagine how stunned the missionary was!  That experience,
  which he'd been so sure had been so much wasted effort, had born fruit
  after all.  And not just one piece of fruit....!

  According to the Chinese man, his entire village of 1,800 people were now Christian. 

  • 10:04 pm
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