Gospel

The coolest thing happened yesterday! I was sitting on a desk during one of our classes breaks, when Rose (my interpreter) came up to me and out of the clear blue said, “Sara, do you read the Bible?” I told her I did. She asked me if I brought the Bible with me. Shoot, I had left it at the other campus on accident. She said that she wanted to read the Bible. I told her I had an extra and that I would let her keep one if she wanted. I think tomorrow I will go to the Christian bookstore and get a Chinese/English Bible so that she will be able to understand it even more. She asked me if I really believed in God. As we were talking, the kids were wild, throwing paper airplanes and shouting, so I figured this probably wasn’t the place to bust out the gospel. I asked her if she wanted to talk about it in my room later. She said she would come at 8:30. Great! I still wasn’t convinced that she would come, because it seemed almost too easy. This is the first time that anyone has ever come up to me and asked me to share with them what I believe.
Sure enough, at 8:30 she came in. We started talking and she told me that for the past 3 years she has been searching for something. She said about once a month she goes out looking for something to believe in. She has been asking her friends for answers, but they don’t have any. She told me that she tries to fill her life with so much busyness that she has no time to think. It is when there is time to think that she feels empty. She told me that sometimes she just wants to sleep forever, but you can’t, so she goes to bars to drink. I asked her if that worked for her, and she said it does for a few days, but then she feels even worse.
She said she feels like there is no purpose in her life. She just gets up, goes to work, comes home, goes to sleep and does it all over again. She said that she needs some hope, something to believe in. It’s strange that she is so hungry for something, that last night she went to the store and bought a physics book to read. She said she just wants to read something, hoping that she will find the answer.
My roommate Natah was there at the beginning of the discussion, but then she was called away by one of the kids. That left me to share the gospel with Rose alone. I was a little scared. It’s scary to think that I am her first impression of Christianity. She had so many questions that I did not know how to answer. I tried my best, and hopefully God will use something that I said to impact her.
It’s frustrating because she kept saying, “Oh that’s wonderful…” but she didn’t seem to want it for herself. It’s like she was saying “oh that’s great for YOU.” It was a little bit hard for me to understand the way she feels. I think I understand what she meant, but it is hard to imagine that complete emptiness and purposelessness that she feels. If all of this came out of her so easily on the surface, just think what is beneath the surface!
Then today, Natah and I went the coffee shop on campus with one of the younger students. She was wearing a Buddah necklace, she we asked her if she was Buddist. That opened up a really cool conversation with her about what she believes, and what we believe. Her English is very poor, so it is really hard to communicate using words that she understands. She has an electronic dictionary, so at least one word in every sentence she looked up. It took a long time to talk. I left, but Natah is still there talking to her right now!
I was getting a little antsy, because I didn’t really see God at work in China until this week. I heard all of the cool stories about my teammates witnessing to people and sharing with them, but I really didn’t have any of my own. I was thinking, “Ok God, I’m ready. Am I doing something wrong here?” But apparently I wasn’t ready yet. I think my 4 day trip to Shenzhen opened my eyes to a lot of things. The 10 hours in the car gave me plenty of time to think about things. Maybe God needed me to go through all of that before I was ready for anything else. It’s amazing that within 2 days, we have been able to share with 2 people. God is at work! He was just working behind the scenes before.
Today, Rose came up to me and asked me what time church starts on Sunday. She will meet us there. She told me that last night she quit the communist party! When I asked why, she said she just didn’t think it was right anymore. So, now she is free to be a Christian, because if you are a communist you must be an atheist.