Shanghai: The Harvest

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…it is the smallest of all your seeds…” Matthew 13:31
A UCSD student
A Caucasian foreigner
A friendly basketball game
lunch with a college student
 “Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” Ecclesiastes 11:6

A UCSD student who cannot read or write chinese starts a partnership with a local church.
A caucasian foreigner who cannot speak chinese operates an orphanage.
A friendly basketball game turns into a conversation of christmas.
Lunch with a college student who is a member of the communist party

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
– Matthew 13:31-32
A UCSD student who cannot read or write chinese starts a partnership with a local church which has grown from 5-75 and preparing to send missionaries to a muslim area. The church is continuing to grow and 2 new leaders have stepped up into full-time ministry.
A caucasian foreigner, who cannot speak chinese, operates an orphanage for disabled females. Over the course of two years, these orphanages provide training, care, and emotional healing to girls who have weathered over 18 years of neglect and abuse. It is Christ’s love that has transformed these women from unbelievers to believers and given them a hope and a family that they didn’t once have.
Shanghai: The Harvest
A friendly basketball game turns into a conversation of christmas, church, and God. Fudan university is a collection of some of the brightest minds in China and many of them are seeking answers.
Lunch with a college student who is a member of the communist party, a party that persecutes the ekklesia. We discussed the political vs. moral dilemma in work with migrant children and the future landscape of China. It is these conversations that reminds me that providing bread and fish is not the reason we are here, but to point people to the man who can turn 2 loaves to feed thousands. Any charity group, run by the goverment or a religious organization, can provide the same services, but it is the supremacy of the one who provides that we must proclaim. It is the relationship that these people truly need.
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” – 1 Cor 3:6
We do not know in sowing how many times over the harvest will provide. At every turn, simple interactions and conversations will have lasting effects. Some will develop and others will not, but it is God who makes the seeds grow. It is amazing how down right simple missions can be. With God growing the harvest, no wonder Christ can say to his disciples with absolute certainty to his disciples that the harvest is plentiful!

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