“We need people to go and love these people.” Those were the words that got me to China after a long time of saying no. I had been asked repeatedly by a friend to come to China to share Jesus. My reasons for not going were valid in my mind…I don’t speak the language, I can’t stand Chinese food and how could God use me anyway? Sitting in a room watching the faces of the Hui appear and disappear in a power point presentation changed my life. No one said, “Come save them.” No one said, “Come learn the language and love everything about their culture (including the food).” They simply said, “We need people to go love these people.” That was easy…because Jesus loves them therefore I do too. So I said yes.
In 2006 after long plane rides and now on a long van ride through the mountains I sat staring at the landscape going past my window thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?” The landscape looked like the pictures in the back of my childhood Bible. The Bible pictures were in color but everything was brown and tan, the color of dirt. I was born and raised in the green hills of Tennessee. “Where do all of these Hui folks live?” I thought. As my feelings of inadequacy rolled over me wave after wave I said to God, “I just want to be your hands.” His clear reply was, “My hands took nails”. At that moment, I surrendered all.
The sandy/dusty hills gave way to lush green terraced fields. Villages and mosques appeared. Mosques everywhere. Bright shining in the sun, gold covered mosques. Elaborate and ornate, the mosques stood in great contrast to the structures that we saw people living in. Where were their doors? Where was their white paint to cover their home’s clay brick walls? Did they know that everything on earth would disappear, including the fancy mosques, and that everyone would stand before the One True G0d and be cast out from His presence unless they knew Jesus as their L0rd and Savior? Did they know that He stands at the door of their heart knocking and wants to come in and change their lives forever? One precious conversation at a time… some of them do now. They are the most hospitable people you will ever meet. They value time with you. They want to hear why you would come all the way to China. Will you go and share the Gospel with the Hui?