We woke up early on Saturday and caught a taxi ride to the train station. (Similar to the MARTA system in Atlanta.) From there we went north in the city and met Peter. Peter is a Chinese national pastor. He had rented four cars for us to take into the village to visit a house church.
When we arrived we were blown away. You see this looked nothing like a church building. When the cars stopped village people started pouring out of the building to greet us. They were singing a welcome song to greet all of us that were coming to be blessed by their church. There was such joy on their faces. No question about it they knew who Jesus was and they loved Him. There were empty wire spools that they were using as chairs. They probably were no more that 12 inches off of the ground and the top that they sat on could not be more than twelve inches.
After they finished their song they insisted that we sit down on some old furniture and chairs that they had placed around the room. When we were seated they began to sing again. The lady that was leading the music was beating a Chinese drum and there was a man playing a small set of cymbals. It thought the lady would beat a hole in the drum because she was playing it so hard. (Apparently she was the leader at this church. Peter goes out and will preach for them I believe once a month. This is in addition to his other ministries. Peter tells me that the old women lead the church because they are afraid of NOTHING. After meeting them I can believe that.)
Peter asked me to give greetings to the church and I did so. Every phrase that I spoke they said, “AMEN”! Chris spoke after I did and then the people sang for us again. I loved it that the lady leading this time had a megaphone and she was singing through it. (Remember the room wasn’t very large. All together there was probably 65- 80 in the room including us.) She was just a singing away and came over to our group and was like three feet from them blaring out her praise to God right in their face. I chuckled!
We didn’t stay very long because our friends Chris and Annie that live in Dalian had other things planned for us on that day. The people followed us out to the cars singing and clapping and thanking us for coming.
Peter stayed around and preached for the people. I understand that they sang for one hour and that he preached for three hours. The people are just longing to hear God’s word. This is a date that is etched in our minds forever. Remember the people of China that they stay strong in the faith. Peter told us that November 1st the arrested the pastor’s at the largest house church in both Beijing and Shanghai. I believe that he would count it an honor to be arrested for the cause. Amazing dedication.
We have it easy in the states. Father please to let me life go back to ordinary status. I don’t want to ever be the same again.
