As a SENDER we need to follow missions news as a stock broker would follow the NASDAQ Market Ticker. There are several ways to just that. Most blogs offer an option to sign up by email. I like using Google Reader. Below is a post that you would not want to wait for the traditional monthly prayer letter to read.

Originally posted as The Police Meet Our Church
Reposted with permission

Yesterday a police officer came by the church building to check people’s residency cards. Just a routine thing that happens every once in a while for the police to keep tabs on what’s going on and who lives under their jurisdiction. I wasn’t there, but the three Chinese guys training for ministry were, as well as two of the most involved Chinese girls. No big deal at the house – checked the cards and took off.

Later on, the officer went to the daycare that we rent space from for Sunday morning services (about 50 yards away). He saw our chairs stacked against the wall, and then he got from the principal that we’re having services there. Asked him a bunch of questions, then told him to come in sometime to explain it more clearly.

This was a tense situation before us, because while we’ve had run-ins with the police before, this was the first time that they’ve understood that we are a Christian church. In the past they always assumed we were able to lead them to believe that we were just teaching English.

As I understand the situation as it currently stands, everything will probably be alright. The cops have pretty much shrugged at us! One of the officers even joked about coming to our services himself. The guys told him not to wear his uniform if he did!

The principal called us because he wants to keep getting our rent, so he doesn’t want us to get in trouble, so he wanted to know what he shouldn’t say around the police. Nice to have him on our side. Helps the police know that we’re not doing anything malicious.

For the record, what might a situation like this result in?

1. It’s possible, though very unlikely, that the guys would be arrested and imprisoned
2. The guys might be detained and questioned, then let off with a warning
3. They might be fined – though there’s no way to be sure how much
4. The church might be restricted from holding a meeting again
5. Maybe nothing happens – pretty amazing, as it is almost permission to continue!

So the church needs your prayers right now. Sometimes skepticism about the need for a high level of security in China makes people think that you don’t believe anything bad can happen to an underground church. Obviously that’s not true. What we want to insist on, though, is:

• the truly severe consequences of preaching the Gospel are relatively rare
• often the ministry of the church continues completely unimpeded by the authorities
• believers can land themselves in trouble by entangling themselves in political actions
• most of the ‘security measures’ do nothing to evade the kind of threat we’re facing now
• when we’ve been as wise as possible, and still encounter persecution in proclaiming the Gospel, Christ is worthy!

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For the last couple of years God has continually brought my mind and heart back to the people of India. It is amazing how little most of us think about the country of India when it is 1/6th of the world. We have so few missionaries there in comparison to the huge population.

This November the 8th- 18th I have the great opportunity to join a group of men on a survey trip to the country of India. Vision Baptist Church is looking for strategic partners for this area and looking to find out the truth about God’s work in this country. So little is said about India and what is said vary so much that it is hard to truly know what is going on in these needy country.

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Click on the icon below to listen to today’s interview with Mark Tolson.

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I pray God will give us more families like Mark and Natasha Tolson. You can learn more about them at www.projectchina.org

Love In China promo video from Love In China Communications on Vimeo.

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taken with permission from www.GospelinChina.wordpress.com

Imagine there’s three guys in front of you. Each one of them is given a hundred bucks. Then they are told that after an hour, something’s going to happen with their money. The first guy is told that after an hour, whatever money he has left will be taken away, no matter how much or how little. But the second guy is told something different. He is told that for every dollar he gives to someone in need, he will, when the hour is up, receive a thousand in return. The third hears something different yet. He is told that if, after an hour, he lacks so much as a cent, he’ll be beaten severely. And… action!

What’s going to happen? Of course, these three are all going to behave quite differently. One will go on a spending spree, another will guard his money with his life, while another will spend an hour searching frantically for an opportunity for benevolence. Why the difference? Their understanding about the future changes how they live in the present.

And so does ours. While we know that death will inevitably come to us all, it is our varied perceptions of the life to come that cause us to act in the different ways we do in this present life. If, for example, you believe that death is life’s final curtain, then the most logical thing you can possibly do is to ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’ Over against that is our faith in Christ, which says that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. There will be an eternity, to which this life and death itself serve as mere door and keeper.

Unfortunately, we (Christians and non-Christians alike) often find ourselves subscribing to some kind of bizarre hybrid of these two. I think that if someone was scrutinizing my life, trying to figure out what I believed about life after death, I think they would conclude that I believed in some kind of a Heaven (because I wasn’t on a spending spree or living in perpetual terror of death), but that I must have a very low opinion of this Heaven indeed (for I give it little thought and seem far more preoccupied with my various earthly treasures). Could they possibly guess that I agreed at all with the Bible’s depiction of the incomparable glory that will be Heaven?

We, the misers, the hoarders, the spenders, the wasters, and the indulgers – our lives express the warped view of heaven in our hearts. We either gaze into a mirror too dark, or we do not look into the mirror at all.

What does heaven mean for a missionary? It means that no earthly thing you or your family ever give up can really be loss. It is eternal glory disguised as temporal heartache. It means that fear of danger can crumble before apostolic boldness. Immortal souls can live in peril for the mortal. And it means that we are moving steadily towards eternal union with the One that we preach. It is love for him and anticipation of his presence that can make each day a joy.

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Here is a brief overview of the Killing Fields..

The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Vietnam War.

At least 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge^[1] (while estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a population of around 7 million).^[2] In 1979, Vietnam invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime, which was officially called Democratic Kampuchea.

Could I encourage all the youth pastors out there to teach these type of things to your young people? They are not learning about this in school. If you do not believe me just ask them. We need to be students and teachers of the current events of the worlds. It may just be that God would call one of your young people to Cambodia and your teaching on the Killing Fields might open their eyes to this.

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Official Name: Republic of India

Geography: Area: 3.29 million sq. km. (1.27 million sq. mi.); about one-third the size of the U.S.

Capital City:
New Delhi (pop. 12.8 million)

Other major cities:
Mumbai, formerly Bombay (16.4 million)
Kolkata, formerly Calcutta (13.2 million)
Chennai, formerly Madras (6.4 million)
Bangalore (5.7 million)
Hyderabad (5.5 million)
Ahmedabad (5 million)
Pune (4 million)

source: 2001 census

Flag:
The national flag, adopted in 1947, is a horizontal tricolor in equal proportion of deep saffron on the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom. In the center of the white stripe is a blue wheel representing a wheel (chakra)– a Buddhist symbol dating back to 200th century BC. The spokes intend to show that there is life in movement and death in stagnation. The saffron stands for courage, sacrifice and the spirit of renunciation; the white, for purity and truth; the green for faith and fertility. The flag symbolizes freedom.

Monetary Unit:
The Indian Rupee is the official currency of India. Rupee is also the name used in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The origin of the word “rupee” is found in the Sanskrit word rÅ«p or rÅ«pā, which means “silver” in many Indo-Aryan languages such as Urdu.
On last update (March 7, 2006), the rate was
1 USD = Rs. 44.26
1 euro = Rs. 53.1119
1 CNY = Rs. 5.50629

Terrain: Varies from Himalayas to flat river valleys.

Climate: Alpine to temperate to subtropical monsoon.

Population (2004): 1.1 billion; urban 27.8%.

Annual growth rate: 1.4%.

Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid 2%, others.

Religions: Hindu 82.41%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5%.

Languages: Hindi, English and 16 other official languages.

Education: Years compulsory–9 (to age 14). Literacy–65.38%.

Health: Infant mortality rate–61/1,000. Life expectancy–63 years.

Workforce (est.): 416 million. Agriculture–63%; industry and commerce–22%; services and government–11%; transport and communications–4%.

Government: India is a Federal republic that gained independence on August 15, 1947.

People

• Although India occupies only 2.4% of the world’s land area, it supports over 15% of the world’s population. Only China has a larger population.
• Almost 33% of Indians are younger than 15 years of age.
• About 70% of the people live in more than 550,000 villages, and the remainder in more than 200 towns and cities.
• Over thousands of years of its history, India has been invaded from the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, Arabia, Afghanistan and the West; Indian people and culture have absorbed and changed these influences to produce a remarkable racial and cultural synthesis.

Society and Language

• Religion, caste and language are major determinants of social and political organization in India today.
• Although 82% of the people are Hindu, India also is the home of more than 126 million Muslims–one of the world’s largest Muslim populations.
• The population also includes Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis.
• The caste system reflects Indian occupational and socially defined hierarchies. Ancient Sanskrit sources refer to four social categories, priests (Brahmin), warriors (kshatriya), traders (vaishya) and farmers (shudra).
• Although these categories are understood throughout India, they describe reality only in the most general terms. They omit, for example, the tribes and low castes once known as “untouchables.” In reality, society in India is divided into thousands of jatis–local, endogamous groups based on occupation–and organized hierarchically according to complex ideas of purity and pollution.
• Despite economic modernization and laws countering discrimination against the lower end of the class structure and outlawing “untouchability,” the caste system remains an important source of social identification and a potent factor in the political life of the country.
• Nevertheless, the government has made strong efforts to minimize the importance of caste through active affirmative action and social policies.

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Today as we talked he told me about so many Chinese college students he is working with. I thought back to the days that Pastor Austin would tell us about some of the young men and women he started with in the ministry. Many of them are pastors now! Many of them have gone a.w.o.l. Jake and I both want to record the names of the young people we are working with so we will never forget them.

I am almost certain none of my students know of this blog or read it. This is my blog for persoanl growth and maybe some of it will be encouraging to other youth workers.  However, I will leave off last names. They are not perfect by no means, but I do not want to record the struggles they have on this blog. I want help in the future remember them for who are they are – which is positive. I will list the girls someother time.

Adam – Jr. high student whose father is from Morocco. He is very charismatic and shows evident desires to serve God in the ministry.

Seth – Loaded with so much potential it is scary. Last Thursday night I said I pray that God would send people to Argentina from this room. He told me to go and he would take my place. I believe there may be a day when this is possible.

Kenny – Last June in one week he had a preview of what life would be like if you gave it all to God. He ask where do I sign up and has been with us ever since. He is running full speed we just have to direct him to where he needs to go.

Santiago – “The Pastor” He is possible the most compassionate loving young man I have ever met. Ever time I turn around he is hunging some older person in our church. Part of it is becuase of the latin culture he is raised in and a good deal of it is something I believe God has placed in him to be used in ministry.

Justin – He is a very intelligent young man. He helps control the environment. I am amazed at the maturity he shows for his age.

Hadden – Recently accepted Christ. He is my neighbor and has a heart to do right despite tough circumstances.

Spencer – Not in our youth group, but looks to me for advice. He has a desire to serve the King and is currently asking questions and facing challenges that will determine to what extent God will use his life.

Juan Carlo, Steve, Taylor, Ray, Cody, A.J., Kyle – All our young men that we hope to get to know better. They all are gifted in many different ways and have great potential to bring Him glory.

I pray for more young men that can be trained to serve God with their lives and I thank God for those that He has given us so far. I pray that those we lead will become leaders in their on right.

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