Bible Study In China
English
Bible studies in China draw (young) Chinese who come to learn English
for free from native English speakers and end up hearing the Gospel. None of the Three Self churches in the city had an English Bible
study, so Kristin and I visited some of them to propose starting one.
All of the pastors we met with declined but one of them said that while the local government forbids foreigners teaching a Bible study at his church, it could be taught unofficially at the home of one of his staff members. He also accepted Kristin's offer to teach English to his Sunday school children, and a Chinese member of his church who spoke excellent English volunteered to interpret at both of them.
So we held a Bible study at the home of his staff member on Friday evenings, and Kristin taught children at his church on Sunday mornings. She did teach English and children's songs as they expected, but her PowerPoint slides always integrated the Gospel message. Nobody at the Bible study or the Three Self church knew the spiritual battle that she was waging, as she held in everything and showed no sign of it when teaching the children or at the Bible study.
Kristin also had her Gospel tracts translated into Chinese, photocopied them, and we handed them out on the streets, but had to be much more careful than we had been in southeast Asia, where we could stand at the entrance of busy markets and hand out a thousand tracts in one session as the locals swarmed us, thinking that foreigners were handing out coupons for something free, which salvation in Christ of course is.
In China, we wore hats and handed them folded and upside down to a few people in bustling crowds at night and then quickly walked away and around a corner or two so that by the time they unfolded it, rotated it 180 degrees and read its content, we would be out of sight. This was before China became blanketed with facial-recognition CCTV cameras, but we still had to be cautious.
When classes started at the Chinese university, I became very busy. After lecturing during the day, I often took Kristin out for dinner as she had been stuck inside the apartment all day. We then handed out some Gospel tracts, cast out demons on the freeway overpass, and returned home at 1-2 AM, when Kristin went to bed and I began preparing for the next day's lectures.