Pray4Yueyang

Almost nobody in America has heard of Yueyang, but just about anyone who’s ever ordered take-out at a Chinese restaurant has heard of “General Tso’s Chicken.”  Well guess what, Zou ZongTang, aka General Tso is from Yueyang’s country side district known as “XiangYin.”

General Tso Tsung-t’ang (in Mandarin - Zuo Zongtang, 左宗棠), was a formidable 19th-century general who served with distinction during China’s most important (and the world’s largest) civil war, the 14 year long Taiping Rebellion, in which it is estimated 20 million people died.

His family — five generations later — is still in WenJiaLong (a rural village in Yueyang’s countryside.) They actually have a whole section of the village named after them “The Zuo Family Section.”

I’m sad to say though, there is no General Tso’s chicken in WenJiaLong or anywhere in Yueyang, but they still think fondly of his military exploits.

The Hunanese have a strong military tradition, and Tso is one of their best-known historical figures.  In America, General Tso, like Colonel Sanders, is known for chicken and not war. In China, however, he is known for war and not chicken.

Would you please take a moment to pray for the people of Yueyang, many of whom know war stories of General Tso and the bloody civil war he helped to fight, but have no idea of the blood that was shed on their behalf by Jesus Christ.

Make it a habit - every time you are in a Chinese restaurant and you see “General Tso’s Chicken” on the menu - say a prayer for Yueyang!

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese officials announced Monday that the country’s strict one-child policy will make some exceptions for certain families affected by the devastating earthquake two weeks ago.

Families with a child who was killed, severely injured or disabled in the quake can obtain a certificate to have another child, the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in the capital of hard-hit Sichuan province said.

Sometimes our best intentions can create more problems than they solve.

This relates to missions as well (or should I say “especially”!)

When in another culture, whether it’s for a week or a summer or for a few years, we don’t have the cultural insights that locals do, so it is imperative that we defer to their judgment in matters of security and cultural sensitivity.

If we are going to effectively communicate the gospel to the people of Yueyang, we must strive to remove Western cultural distinctives from the message and present the simple truth of the gospel. Quite often, we approach the task of spreading the gospel with the best of intentions, but when we don’t take care to avoid our tendencies for ethnocentrism, we sometimes do more harm than good!

More from this series of thought provoking videos. This reminds me of a question a friend of mine loves to ask - do you GO to church or ARE you church?

CHANGSHA, Hunan – Mao launched his revolution from Changsha, but from this provincial capital of 2 million the Olympics seem very distant. Beijing and other cities are frenziedly transforming themselves into showcase cities for the 2008 Olympics, but in China’s interior, where 60 percent of the population lives, the Olympics are just something you watch on television.

“I tried to write a letter at the end of last year to be a volunteer for the games but they said they prefer students from the universities in Beijing,” says 23-year-old Xiao Wei (not her real name) who hails from a farming community about an hour outside Changsha. She is the first of her clan to attend college but says volunteer positions at the Olympics only go to students of top universities, not from smaller schools like hers. “We know many big preparations are happening in Beijing through the TV and newspaper,” says Wei. “It is not a popular or common topic of conversation among the students because we cannot do anything for it and it just seems kind of far from us.”

Her classmate, Wu Yaqiang, 22, who also comes from a farming family in rural Hunan agrees. “As you know, a lot of students like me come from remote places so the Olympics seem like something we can only talk about but cannot take part in. The heart is willing but the flesh is weak.”

“It is something that only the people in cities around Beijing care about,” says Wu Lei, a 22-year-old university student in northern Hunan’s Zhangjiajie City. “People from Hunan and other far away places, we don’t really feel very excited about it and I don’t feel a personal connection to it.” His sentiments are common among young people here. It seems that instead of uniting the country behind a common goal, the Olympics have only widened the gap between interior China and its eastern seaboard. Most young people here never felt a connection with Beijing to begin with; now they have one more reason to feel left out of the picture.

Not everyone in Hunan feels so distanced from Beijing. Yang XiXi, 21, is a university sophomore from the remote city of Jishou in the far northwest corner of the province. She spent last summer in Beijing at an intensive private English school and is enrolled in a selective exchange program in Jishou that will let her spend her senior year in England. “Hunan is in the south of China but distance doesn’t mean anything,” says XiXi. “Take me for example: I am an English major so I think my ability to speak English and to listen and interpret will be useful for helping this great party. I’ll go to Beijing in 2008. I need this chance to do a favor for my motherland. Maybe in some ways she needs my help.”

Most of the young people interviewed seem acutely aware of the fact that their government has spent vast sums of money preparing for the games. It’s always the first thing mentioned when the topic of the Olympics comes up. They readily accept that holding the Olympic Games in Beijing will help the economy and enhance the international image of China. But there is also resentment towards Beijing and a fear that the games’ positive effects will be limited to that city and its neighbors. The fear is that the financial incentives for holding the Olympics will never trickle down to the inner provinces. “The bad thing is that the gaps between the rich and the poor, the big cities and small cities, will broaden,” says Wu Yaqiang. “As you know after all, the Olympics can only affect a very small part China. The rest will be left behind.”

“If foreigners only stay in Beijing and other mega-cities, they won’t know very much about China,” says Wu Lei. “They will only feel the air of the big city’s richness instead of the air of the backwater’s poverty. If they could go to the deep countryside they would find that there are still many, many problems in China.”

Most young people in Beijing or Shanghai are aware of what exists in the interior of their country but for many that awareness doesn’t go beyond what they see on TV. In places like Changsha people take pride in their tough lives. A punk rocker who just returned from a trip to Shanghai dismisses that city as full of “foreigners, yuppies and office ladies.” To him it’s “not really China.” Changsha, he says with a grin, in English, is “more hardcore.”

There is, however, a feeling that the truth, however ugly, can only help China. Chen Yu is a gifted 26-year-old graduate student from an upper middle class family in southern Hunan’s Shaoyang City. He agrees that Beijing has spent too much money on the upcoming games but hopes that above all, the world will be allowed to see China for what it truly is. “They will report, good or bad, but at least they will report the reality of China and let others know about my country,” says Yu. “I don’t need them to report only good things. Most foreigners know nothing about my country. 2008 will give them a chance to gain a stronger point of view.”

Wu Yaqiang is not as hopeful as Chen Yu. “Since most of the focus will be on the big, representative cities I bet foreign countries will think highly of China,” says Yaqiang. “A long-term price will be paid if China leaves them with a bad impression. As a Chinese, I feel responsible to participate in it but the doors are shut for me. We can only learn of its progress by means of the media.”

On a recent Saturday night, thousands of people stroll up and down the central shopping street of Changsha. One of the few stores licensed to sell Olympic paraphernalia is open. It shares a storefront with a boutique selling specialty chopsticks. The shop is dwarfed by the massive video arcade that glows next door, with oversized statues of Batman and Superman standing guard at its entrance. There are only three people in the Olympics store browsing through the overpriced pens and coffee mugs. The chopsticks have twice as many admirers.

The double ninth festival is held on the ninth day of the ninth month. This day is thought to be auspicious. Since this festival is held in autumn, it is a great time for outdoor activities. Many people will climb mountains and enjoy a meal outside. Because it is late in the year, this is usually the last outdoor outing of the year.

Since 9 is the highest odd digit, double nine has come to signify longevity. On this day, people will pay respects to the elderly. This day is also China’s official day for the elderly. The people will also visit the graves of their ancestors to clean the gravesite and offer sacrifices to help their ancestors in the afterlife.

This day has a third meaning too. It is the kite festival. Legend has it that there was a man named Han Shin who was very short. He constructed a kite made of wood that he rode in the air to spy on the enemy. Because of his ingenuity, his country won the battle. On this date, kites fill the sky from morning to night. Many people will have clever additions to their kite, to show it’s superiority.

Communication can be difficult, cross-cultural communication can be very difficult! This advertisement illustrates in a funny way some of the challenges well-intentioned people sometimes experience when trying to communicate cross-culturally.

I came across an article that speaks to future of Christianity, taking into account the dramatic changes taking place in China right now.

I suspect that even the most enthusiastic accounts err on the downside, and that Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East.

China, devoured by hunger so many times in its history, now feels a spiritual hunger beneath the neon exterior of its suddenly great cities. Four hundred million Chinese on the prosperous coast have moved from poverty to affluence in a single generation, and 10 million to 15 million new migrants come from the countryside each year, the greatest movement of people in history. Despite a government stance that hovers somewhere between discouragement and persecution, more than 100 million of them have embraced a faith that regards this life as mere preparation for the next world. Given the immense effort the Chinese have devoted to achieving a tolerable life in the present world, this may seem anomalous. On the contrary: it is the great migration of peoples that prepares the ground for Christianity, just as it did during the barbarian invasions of Europe during the Middle Ages.

The full article can be found here: Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia; By Spengler

We hope and pray that the Holy Spirit continues to move among the people of China. We pray that this movement will spread throughout all of Hunan Province and Yueyang City - giving every person in Yueyang an opportunity to hear and understand the gospel message and the freedom to follow Christ.

Will you pray with us that the Holy Spirit will be poured out in Yueyang in a mighty and awesome way?

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Some light-hearted news from China;

BEIJING, (Xinhua) — The State General Administration of Sports (SGAS) has planned to re-compose the group dances, which will be introduced into schools this September, to calm the parents who have been worried that the dances would encourage young love, a Shanghai-based newspaper reported.

Yin Guochen, a SGAS official in charge of the mass sports was quoted by the Oriental Morning Post as saying that the new dances would let students dance by themselves or in large groups.

“They don’t have to dance with specific partners, which will be more easily accepted by both students and their parents,” Yin said.

He said the new dances were expected to be introduced to campus by the end of this year.

He didn’t say whether the new dances would replace the original ones composed by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

The MOE announced early in June that the waltz, together with six other group dances, would be introduced to China’s primary and middle schools this September.

Parents with traditional values are alarmed at the prospect of boys and girls dancing hand in hand, believing the risk of their children falling in love and losing track of exam results would increase.

“Four students will be grouped together to perform the waltz and they will change partners regularly as soon as one song finishes. This way, the risk of young love will be lowered,” said Yang Guiren, an official in charge of art and physical education with the MOE.

Yin said the SGAS has also noticed the parents’ concerns and were discussing with the MOE about the recomposition of the dances.

“It will give more choices to the students and cultivate their interest in sport dance,” Yin said.

Parents of children in China are very focused on getting their children into the best schools and giving them the very best opportunities for their future. That is why the thought of “young love” infecting their children is so terrifying as it could ‘undo’ all that they have worked for for years. I’m not so convinced that dance lessons given during PE class is quite the threat that some of these parents feel it is - but the fear that this has triggered is real and valid.

Pray for parents in China. They face a daunting task of raising a child that can ‘compete’ in a China that is very different from the one they grew up in. Most of them are doing this without the help of a local church. Ask that entire households across Yueyang will come to follow Christ and that Christ will become the new passion for Yueyang families.