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Archive for Yueyang
Economic Crisis Hitting the Heart of China
Posted by: | CommentsHunan for years has sent waves of migrant workers to the cities in search of a better life and an escape from tough farm labor.
But now there are as many as two million Hunanese searching for work, the majority laid off from seaboard factories as the impact of the global economic crisis creeps into China’s rural heartland.
Hunan province once sent a million new farmers a year to work in China’s booming cities. Now the financial crisis means it is scrabbling to keep two million unemployed off the streets, a senior official said.
Beijing fears joblessness could lead to destabilizing unrest and has ordered local governments to throw their energy into keeping their citizens in some kind of employment.
Please pray for the people of Yueyang, many of whom are feeling the effects of the global economic slowdown in much more tangible ways than those of us living in more ‘affluent’ countries. Pray that food and housing needs are met and that this crisis would create a new openness to hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Good Intentions
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes 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!