RCMI e-newsletter Dec 2017

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

A team on a journey to the West China

During the August summer, 10 passionate brothers and sisters in Christ left Hong Kong to Peace City, a small autonomous minority town located in Guangxi. After a bumpy day of traveling in a minivan, train, and bus, we finally arrived at Zhuang village.

Although it was after dusk and night fell, it didn’t conceal the excitement and joy the team felt; and after greeting the local leaders, we settled down for the night and prepared for the next day's activities.

The region we visited consisted of mainly the Zhuang and Yao clan, and there weren't many local churches around as most of the ongoing congregations were established by the same church. A growing phenomenon as known as “empty nesters” and “stay-behind children” is happening in China currently, where the younger generation has left to work in the city, and leave the elderly and children in the village. The region we visited is no different.

Communication with the villagers was an obstacle, since most of the elderly were illiterate, and spoke only the local dialect. However, our team overcame it by showing love through actions, we gifted them with daily necessities, cooked and cleaned for them and communicated using sign language. I truly believe our actions brought warmth to the quiet and lonely village.

The local leaders also shared that in the recent years their church was faced with issues such as ageing and insufficient man power to serve, which led to challenges in discipleship and the teaching of the Word.

On our second day, we visited the “stay-behind children”, who were the main purpose of our trip. A few years back, the local church started a ministry called The Seed of Love in which tuition centers were established in 3 different towns; which aimed to provide tuition and homework guidance for local students. A school was also built to provide education from kindergarten all the way up to primary school, which gave the minority children who stayed behind a learning opportunity.

Here is some background on The Seed of Love. It offers student grants and provides living expenses to students with financial problems, seeing this need amongst students graduating from primary to high school. And the ministry’s income comes mainly from tuition fees and donations from various organizations.

To be honest, the income received is insufficient to support the students’ daily expenses nor the school’s expenditures. And due to political reasons, The Seed of Love is required to be an independent entity and cannot rely on any church funding; hence financial shortage is one of the core pressures faced currently. But at the same time, stay-behind children are also increasing in number, which reflects a lack of manpower to serve.

Our team planned a three-day camp for these children. We ate, played and learned together. We saw that the children were very eager to participate in Bible games, which resulted in an active engagement and interaction between our team and the children. Although everyone was exhausted from the camp, we had so much fun!

On our last day, the local church showed appreciation and bid us farewell by preparing a feast for us. More than 20 dishes were served! Our short trip ended in floods of laughter, whilst goodbyes were bid through singing.

Our prayer

May our graceful and merciful God help the local church and The Seed of Love - to be their source of provision financially and to provide them with sufficient manpower. We pray that the seed of the gospel and the love of God be poured over them, especially into the lives of these lonely children. And may they never deviate from You. Amen.

Our support

The RCMI would send an offering to support “ The Seed of Love” for running the Christmas and Chinese New Year program:- food and stationery for children (US$10 for each)