Asian Mission Report

This past week back in Singapore has been a time of getting back to routine. There were the regular small group studies, delivering a lecture at the university, and generally getting caught up after being away in Shanghai.

The small groups are going very well. There is a group meeting nearly every day of the week now. I am leading the teenage girls’ group on Saturday mornings and the ladies’ group on Wednesday evenings. I also attend the Thursday night Chinese class and the Friday night group. There is a boys’ group on Monday evenings, but for some reason I am not invited to that one. Hmmm.

All of the groups seem to have some positive things going on in them. I am very excited about the level of involvement in each group. Most of the groups have from 4-8 participants, and they seem to be the place where most of the life of the congregation is taking place at the moment. It is positive because the members are getting very involved, and many of the newer members seem to have gained a greater level of comfort than they previously felt. I am hoping we can continue to incorporate those new members into the small groups, and that this will facilitate their becoming more active in the life of the body here.

The men have recently begun a positive step in trying to involve all the guys in the worship services on Sunday mornings. They print out a month-long worship schedule on the final week of the month (for the upcoming month), and in a meeting with all the older boys and the men, they ask for volunteers to take on various roles in leading the corporate worship time. The upper primary and lower secondary school boys have been very excited about this, and have been quick to volunteer. The older men have been a little more shy about it, at this point, but I am hoping that the youthful enthusiasm we are seeing from the boys will be infectious, and that it will spread throughout the community. I am excited about the service tomorrow, as it will include some of the younger boys for the first time, and one of the new converts (an adult man). I think it will feel refreshing to the congregation.

My teaching at the university is going well. I’ve been lecturing or tutoring one course per year for the past three years. I have been enjoying it a lot, especially the contact it allows me to have with the students. I have two more lectures this year, and then will be finished with my duties until next term.

It looks like my “back to routine” is pretty short-lived. I will be heading back to the US in October to participate in a missions workshop in Angleton. I am looking forward to the week’s activites, and am grateful to the congregation there for including me in the program.

I’ve just returned from a 17 day trip in Shanghai, and am back safely at home now.

The trip was a good one. The group of ladies who began to worship together in their homes last year in March is still meeting. Only one of the ladies is a Christian, but she is reaching out to the other two (her relatives), and it is going very well. While the three of them will say that they’ve made very little “progress” in their studies from the Bible, I think that is not really what I observe from them. They each have a better understanding when they read than they did this time last year. As one of them says, “Well, at least we don’t ask quite as many silly questions anymore.”

I’ve never actually found the questions they ask silly, though they can often be interesting. It is exciting, in fact, for me to see the difference it makes, them coming from a completely unbelieving background. So many of the things that I and those in the churches I work with at home (whether “home” is taken to mean the US or Singapore) take for granted aren’t necessarily a part of the thinking these ladies are more used to. But their understanding of the Bible and its central message that has developed over the past 18 months is certainly what I term “progress.”

A year and a half ago, when we started, for instance, one of the two unbelieving ladies had the impression, and very deeply ingrained, that Christianity is a misogynist religion. I think she might have been surprised when I told her that I didn’t feel I needed to defend myself or Christianity against that position, and could even agree that history would prove that “Christianity” has often indeed proven oppressive to women. On the other hand, I don’t think that this version of “Christianity” is at all something I involve myself in either, so it was somewhat irrelevant, to me. I asked only that she read the stories about Jesus, and let the message there shape her understanding of who he is — and not the history of the mistakes Christians (or “Christians” ) have made over the years.

She has found several instances in our studies which would prove that Jesus was, in fact, quite revolutionary in giving value to all people — and especially whatever groups of outcasts he met with (including women). I think this has had a profound impact on my friend’s openness to the messages that are to be found in the Bible.

I don’t mean to say that she (nor the other unbeliever who worships with us) is at the point of conversion yet. Perhaps nowhere near. But it is progress nonetheless. It is movement in a certain direction — the difference is the point from which she started.

It is a valuable lesson, though, for me. It is sometimes easy to get too “result oriented” in the work I do. But I think it is important to remember that whatever we do, the “results” are not in our own hands. It is the individual’s responsibility before God to choose what to do with the message. It is my responsibility to present the message faithfully.

I ask only for your continued prayers as I try to do so over here on this side of the world.