Dear All,

Praise the Lord that I can write this update to you 36,999 feet above sea level on rout to Newark from Hong Kong! Thank you so much for your prayers and support. My trip in China was mind and heart opening which helped me to formulate a whole new set of plans for the disciple making ministry in China.

I met with different groups of church leaders from house churches and Three-self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) Church in — and —. They are facing the same troubles from the government like anywhere else in China. Many house churches, large and small, are forced to close their doors. Even the TSPM churches were not spared from this nationwide government manufactured and enforced church reform. Traditional symbols of Christianity are down, symbols of communist party are up, surveillance cameras are installed in churches, sermons and lessons are regulated to follow government policy, many civil groups are not allowed to join the church, and children were not allowed to be near the church premises. Property owners were warned not to rent out their properties to suspicious church groups. The government regulation nest extends even to Internet communications and websites. A TSPM church worker who used to send Christian messages via WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, told me that he had been warned by the authority for sending too many religious messages. For fear of bringing any trouble to his friends, this church worker cancelled all his WeChat accounts. He had no idea that he was under surveillance.

Situations like these are not just happening to churches and its leaders. Military personnel, civil servants, white collar workers, blue collar workers, professionals and students were also required to declare their religion and denounce their association with churches. One Christian man in — asked me if he had done the right thing for telling his Christian wife to check “atheist” on the religion declaration form from the school where she taught. He said if she had checked “Christian”, the school would have given her a second form to denounce her Christian faith. Didn’t they know they already denounced their Christian faith when she checked the “atheist” box?

A group of TSPM church leaders came to ask me what they should do about the government prohibiting their churches from teaching children and requiring them to raise the Chinese flag and sing the revolutionary anthem within their church. They had been feeling the pressure and realized that they would not be free to preach the true Word of God if they complied with every government order. Instead, they would end up becoming the propaganda machines for the Chinese communist party.

These church leaders also understood that breaking into small groups will not be the answer. They had seen before how large churches broke up into small groups and dying out because they did not have enough strong leaders in faith and in the Word to lead all of these small groups. As for instance, a 3000 members house church in Beijing was forced to close down by the government. They then broke up into several hundred small groups meeting in homes, but before long, maybe only 30 or 40 members out of the 3000 remained in the Body. Some members went to worship with the TSPM church, and some just disappeared.

The communist party in China not only wants to reform Christian churches, it also wants to reform the Bible. Wherever we go, Christians are talking about this as if it was something that is going to occur soon. They worry that the government will take away the Bibles that we are using now and replace them with a communist version, and under the Chinese regime, this can be done very quickly. We had seen this before during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Five years after that, I still had to smuggle Bibles into China for the Christians.

How shall we overcome these challenges and continue to make disciples for our Lord Jesus Christ in China? All the groups that I talked to in China also asked this same question. Praise the Lord for when I was in China interacting with different groups of Christians, the Lord opened up my heart and mind to a new plan. This will take a lot of work on my old bones (I thought I am going to retire) and need a lot more human and material resources. Even though, I was not going to reveal the plan to the church leaders in China on this trip because first, this needed to be kept in secrecy for obvious reasons, and second, because I don’t want to confuse them while the plan is still in its infancy. It will take our C2C team 6 months to get the first phase done. I was planning to share, teach and organize our leaders to use it next Spring. However, my heart was broken seeing their desperation so I gave them a brief description of my plan. You should see their overwhelming reaction after they heard it. Their face lit up with hope and clapped their hands with joy, praising God! They know the Lord has not left them!

Please pray that they will remain in faith and see the presence of God daily in their spiritual battles! Pray for the C2C Team as we are taking on this new calling to produce and provide a new set of tools for our brothers and sisters in China to spread the Gospel and grow in Christ!

Thank you for extending the love of Jesus to many who are suffering both spiritually and physically for the sake of Christ!

Your co-workers and fellow soldiers in the Lord,

Wing and C2C Ministries team

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will cary it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. ” -Philippians 1:3-6