Unlike most other teachers who come to visit from the west, I enter the school and live with them and I don’t come out until my time is up. I sleep on a piece of plywood like they do, eat their food and live as close to the way they live as possible. As a result they have become like sons and daughters, or grandsons and granddaughters to me and I have been accepted as father and grandfather to them. In China, this is a great honor and is needed for me to have the kind of ministry I want to have with them.
I divided each of the four days up into three teaching segments. Three hours each morning are devoted to a specific topic consisting of twelve hours of instruction. Another topic is covered in the four three hour afternoon sessions. The hour in the evening is devoted to teaching English by learning to read verses written on the board in English. This is a fun time to learn how to place the tongue to pronounce certain English words. It is amazing how fast they learn and how slow this old man learns their Chinese words. But I guess that keeps me humble.
On this trip, the topic for the morning sessions was an adaptation of Bruce Wilkinson’s work on “The Secrets of the Vine”. He describes four levels of fruit bearing and how God the Father encourages us to move from one level to another. Our focus in the first morning session is about fruit. What is it and who can produce it? We learned that only those in Christ can bear fruit because He is its source of life that is needed for the fruit. We also learn that we were created by God for the purpose of bearing fruit to His glory and have been commanded to do so.
We begin physical and spiritual life as children and in both cases discipline is required to guide our growth toward becoming effective young men and women. As God’s children our Father desire is that we turn away from our former sinful life and live a life of obedience. This change is encouraged by His wise application of discipline. Our focus during the second morning is to study this process of discipline and see how God the Father uses it in our lives to encourage us to grow and bear fruit. If only more Christians understood this discipline process they would understand how some of the pain and suffering they experience in life was at the hand of a loving God trying to raise his children.
As the child matures toward becoming a young person in both the physical and spiritual realm the process of discipline is gradually replaced with a process called pruning. Obedience is learned through discipline, but focusing that life toward the work that God created us for is accomplished by the process of pruning. Pruning cuts away those activities in life that draw our energy away from the central focus of God’s design for us. A life that becomes more focused, according to the will of God, is a life that will be exciting and full and you will find your desire for God becoming irresistible and one that will produce more fruit. This pruning process is the focus of the third morning.
As young people mature into adults, discipline and pruning, by their physical and spiritual fathers, is replaced by the desires and motivation of the person to abide in Christ. The focus on the fourth day was to learn about this abiding process, a process that not many Christians believe they embrace as they should. Paul describes the Christian experience as a race we run. It is not a jog in the park but rather a demanding and grueling, sometimes agonizing race. It is a race that takes great effort to finish strong. As we grow older as Christians, we should be developing greater endurance so that our best work will be our final work. But often those who run get tired and turn off the path and then watch others run by. The Lord wants us to abide in Him, to draw life from Him and with His strength run with endurance to the end and bear much fruit to His glory. I think of Jesus and how his best work was his final work, as ours should be. The key for us is to continue to abide more deeply in Him.
I didn't mean to turn this into a sermon, but this study and its presentation to the students meant a lot to them and to me. The fruit bearing process and how God stimulates it in our lives is a lifelong process and one that we should encourage with time spent with Him and his word.
On this trip the four afternoons in each school were spent in a verse by verse study of the last half of the book of James. I covered the first half on my first trip. This is such a practical book, one we should all know and be living.
The evening sessions were times of fun using the Scriptures as a means of learning how to speak English words.
The future for this kind of ministry is uncertain. The schools could be raided at any time and the work brought to an end. But that is a risk that has to be taken when the authority of the government and the authority of the Bible are in conflict. In the future we may experience this conflict to where as a Christian we will be forced like they are to make a choice. My work in China makes this very clear to me and stimulates me to invest my life more deeply in Him and in His service.
While serving at the first school a very personal and touching experience happened to me that supports my reasons to live like they do while I am there. The event happened on the second evening after we had learned the letters of the English alphabet and had learned how to sing them with the alphabet song we all learned as kids. This song became an emotional experience and one of great meaning for them. After the session I went to my place of sleep to be joined shortly by the wife of the husband/wife teaching team of the school and her sister who was a student in the school. They had two wash pans with them and explained that one was for me to wash my face and the other was for my feet. They waited for me to wash my face and then they asked me to sit on my bed because they were my servants and they were going to honor me by washing my feet. The next evening the event was repeated by her husband and one of the male students. The teachers of the school had accepted me as their teacher by humbling themselves before me. This was truly a humbling experience for me and one I will never forget.
The foot washing also occurred in the second school, but there was another very significant experience that involved food. It occurred at lunch on the second day. As I sat at the head of the table with the schools teachers on my right and my interpreter on my left, a student brought a dish containing two whole, cooked, six inch fish with their eyes looking directly at me. They set them down in front of me and said, “Teacher, these are for you.” This was the one day they gave me a plate in addition to my usual bowl of rice and soup. On my plate they placed some vegetables and sat back to see what I would do. Without hesitation I made room on the plate for one of the fish and placed it there and with my chopsticks started picking off pieces of fish to eat along with my vegetables and rice. I finished one side of the fish and flipped it over and as I started the second side I offered the second fish to those who sat at the head table with me. They accepted and we cleaned up those two fish. As we did the students moved up closer to us and started to talk, laugh and look at me. I turned to my interpreter and asked, “Are they talking about me?” She said, “Yes teacher.” I asked her, “What are they saying about me?” She said, “You are different than the other teachers because you live with us and eat our food and seem to enjoy it. We want to accept you as one of us.” What an honor that was. It was sure worth any discomfort I experienced as I lived with them.
I would like to close this section with two pictures that flood my mind with memories.
The above picture shows a typical meal. Always a bowl of rice and usually a watery or thin soup. We do not drink during a meal as the soup provides the liquid. We do not put the vegetables on a plate to eat from. We may put some on our rice and eat with the rice or each bite is reached for and taken from the community dish. This is a great way to eat. You share the food and have great conversation. You eat until you are satisfied, not stuffed.
This was the class in the second school. Young people from the age of sixteen and up to mid-twenties. They were chosen by the leadership of their church to enter into full time ministry. They have accepted and are in training. Life for these young people is so uncertain. Today they are here, but tomorrow it may be confinement some place. They really need our prayers as they live here in isolation from the outside for over two years.
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