Just Three Weeks Before Departure!

Time is flying!  In just three short weeks we will be leaving for Beijing, China, on our great adventure!  God has been very gracious in assembling this extraordinary group of women who have grown in their love for each other as they prepared to serve our Lord in China.  Together we have laughed, prayed, encouraged, and learned many things about each other and China.

Our team consists not just of the five women who will travel to Beijing.  There are many other team members who served on this team through sharing their time and talents making beautiful gifts for us to take to China.  These gifts will be given to the sisters and brothers who come to listen to our talks.


Barbara and Marina making gifts

Loretta Miller one of wonderful EFCC knitters

Other non-traveling team members have generously donated to the expanses of the team traveling to China.
 

The detailed China visa applications have been submitted and airline tickets have been purchased.  There is still important training to accomplish and then … packing … which can be a challenge!

 

Practicing our talks will be an important priority in the coming weeks.  Some of our topics include:  Parenting with a Purpose, You are Not Alone, Finding Balance in Our Busy Lives, Submission, and God is With Us.

 

Please join us in praying:

·      Tune our hearts to hear God’s leading

·      May each of us fully depend on God

·      Focus to efficiently complete the many mission details

·      God to provide the remaining needed funds

·      May we adapt well to changes in schedules, foods, and time zones

Thank you for your interest and support of our mission.  May you be richly blessed!

Mary Waring for the Team

 

Long Meetings filled with Fun!

Gorgeous gifts for our Chinese sisters made by EFCC women

 Each of us is getting so excited about serving the Lord and our wonderful Chinese friends that our meetings keep stretching into the dinner hour J … the time passes so quickly. There is so much to share/learn/pray in anticipation of our trip that we stopped for a devotion of thanksgiving for answered prayers…thus far. We mentioned each of our requests by way of a catalog of faithfulness of our Lord. In brief; physical healings, focus and patience, direction in preparing our talks, job seeking, safety in travel, helping others in need, hand-made gifts for us to share (see some of them in pictures below.) Our Lord is answering every prayer we place before Him…I prayed to The Lord, and He answered me, freeing me from all my fears. Psalm 34:4

More beautiful gifts from our hands to our Chinese sisters

 We continue to be thankful to our prayer partners and financial supporters. You are such an important component of our team. We are so encouraged to know that you are now and will be praying for us throughout this mission. May God richly bless you.

Barbara Pillsbury

Barbara Pillsbury for the team.

Training Update

Our team met today for our 5^th training session and we had a BIG praise report!  Our support contributions are enough to go ahead and purchase our airline tickets and apply for our visas!  Both of these have been a concern as the airline tickets have been steadily gaining in cost and, we need to get our visas back before we leave.  Thank you dear friends and supporters for your contributions to make this mission possible!  You will be receiving thank you notes and prayer cards in the very near future.  We are overjoyed and so grateful for your faith in us and your support for this mission to our Chinese sisters and brothers.

In today’s training, we learned about the history preceding the Cultural Revolution and how certain events laid the groundwork for the Cultural Revolution to actually take place.  The cult of Mao and the extreme actions of the Red Guards were brought to life by reading portions from a book, Wild Swans by Jung Chang.  In chilling detail, she recorded her experiences as a young girl at the beginning of the Revolution1965 through 1976. Understanding this history will give us greater insight to the general cultural and a better understanding of the background the Chinese women come from.

Loraine and Leslie practicing talks

Leslie practiced her talk on Parenthood with Loraine acting as interpreter.  We all learned a lot about how we need to pace our talks so the Chinese interpreter will have time to interpret.  Also, we are getting more discernment about our choice of vocabulary and concepts so the interpreter will be able to accurately interpret the points we will be talking about.

Only eight weeks before we go!  We are so happy to be serving God on this mission and we are delighted to share our experiences with you.  Our prayers cover you with Thanksgiving and praise God for His goodness and bountiful blessings! 

In Jesus Love, Linda for the Team

Religion in China

There’s so much to learn and understand about the Chinese culture!  We’re learning about the religious aspects of China this week.  Did you know that approximately 80% of Chinese have no religion at all?!   Religion was banned completely as recently as 1976, and is still closely, and suspiciously, monitored by the government.  The remaining 20% are split between Buddhism, Muslim, Hinduism, and Christianity, with the vast majority of young believers in their 20s and 30s following Christianity. 

There are 3 major types of Christian churches in China.  First, the approved, government-registered church is the 3 Self church (which stands for self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation).  It started as a way for the government to control the protestant religions.  Second, is the unregistered, underground house churches.  They meet in secret and are in danger of harassment and imprisonment.  Third, is the Urban Professionals, who sometimes register with the government, but meet in smaller, house churches.   It is mostly made up of young, successful business professionals who have permission to work with foreign business partners.  This third group is largely who we will be working with.

Leslie Campos and Linda Martin

We are also learning about safety.  Most likely our rooms and cabs will be bugged and we may be monitored and followed.  We are not in a great amount of danger, but we could put those to whom we are ministering in danger.  We need to be on guard with what we do and say at all times.  Please pray that the Lord would set a guard on our tongues when we are there and that all we do would glorify Him!

We’re close to having enough support to secure our airline tickets, and, hopefully soon, our visas.  We leave in 8 weeks!  Yikes!! 

By His Grace, Leslie for the Team

Team Talks are Finished!

How time is quickly passing! All of the team’s talks are finished and this week our team will be meeting for the fifth time. We will begin practicing our talks by giving them in front of the team. This will help us sharpen our skills and refine our talks as we practice giving them to the group.
 

Last Friday the team meet at Mary's for a time of yummy food and fellowship followed by watching and discussing a traveling security video.  

Loraine Doud making gifts for China

Please keep the team in your prayers as we prepare for our time of departure in October.  Specifically please pray:

·       God will be pleased with our efforts

·       The hard working China team who guide us

·       All our preparation details be completed efficiently

·       Team unity will continue as beautifully as it started

Loraine for the team

 

 

Quickly Moving Forward!

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this:  He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn.”  Psalm 37:5-6

Our training is going along quickly and well.  The team is working beautifully together.    There is quite a bit of reading to do during this training and, fortunately, it is all very interesting and informative.  While we would not presume to completely understand the Chinese culture, we have some excellent materials that will help us to connect better with our Chinese sisters and brothers.

 

The talks are progressing and they promise to be excellent and helpful.  Some of the topics include “Parenting with a Purpose,” “The Lies We Believe,” “You Are Not Alone,” and “God Transforms Us Through Loss and Grief.”  Several other talks are being planned.

 

The team is busy raising funds for this mission.  The funding has been slow coming in but we are confident that our Lord will provide all that we need! 

 

Our beautiful prayer cards are ready to be dispersed.  The Chinese bookmarks and Scripture Blessings pamphlet are ready to pack to take to our friends in China.  EFCC’s Bill Fredrick has designed gorgeous materials for the Connecting with China ministry!

God has been faithful and close as we courageously step forward to serve Him in Beijing.  It is always a joy to see how God transforms each team member from the beginning of training and through the end of the mission. 

 

Serving our Lord in China is a life changing experience!

Mary Waring

  

Mary for the Team

 

 

 

 

Prayer and Scripture are Essential Training Tools!

“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”
Philippians 4:13 NLT

A couple of surprising aspects of being on a short term mission is there is no lag time in team preparation and unexpected lessons are learned!  For example, once the team is formed, the calendar is set for meetings and deadlines are set for topics, study preparations, personal preparations, team building, support letters and travel.  The next four months are packed with responsibilities, studies, writing, team building and prayer, prayer, prayer!

After our second meeting, I calendared my commitments for blogging, teaching on One World Two Minds, the Cultural Revolution and my talk for the Chinese Women.  The next morning I woke up at 4am with great anxiety about not being adequate for the tasks ahead and desperate feelings of being overwhelmed.  God revealed to me that this was not from Him and I was under attack by Satan to slow me down and prevent me from doing effective work for Him.  He then reminded me of Philippians 4:13 and my true responsibility was to rely on Him for the infilling of all that I am committed to teach and write about!  Whew! This was an intense lesson which God turned into a rich blessing.  Now, when a whisper of inadequacy comes, I turn in prayer to Philippians 4:13 as my truth and am able to dismiss the lie.  Praise God!

Another lesson I am learning is about the blessings involved in asking and receiving support for our mission.  I am gaining a deeper understanding that there are many of you who care about the Chinese women and since you can’t go in person, you truly want to support us in prayer and when possible with financial support.  You want to be a blessing by being our team “on the ground” here at home.  You are important in making this mission a reality that glorifies God!  Thank you and it is my joy and the team’s joy to be able to share our mission with you.

God bless you richly,

Linda for the team