One Man's Story

            "Eric you need to join us for a Bible Study at church. You can
make some new friends and improve your English." Eric was interested in
making new friends and learning more English. So this excited him. What made him so special? He is a Communist from Red China. When we first met him, he did not even believe in a God. He worshipped the government  - The Emperor of China, like everyone was supposed to do in China.                                                                                             McClureMinistries@earthlink.net   

How it started:
            A Filipino man befriended a Chinese man at work, began bringing him to church and a friendship was born. A Bible study soon began. Starting with Creation, we crawled steadily for six months. By the time we reached man's first sin and God's killing a lamb, Eric began to understand that there was a real God. He put the pieces together and began to see and understand the results of sin in life all around him. He recognized the problems he saw in life were as a result of man's curse. By the time we covered Cain and Abel, he believed God was real. Then, we went to a familiar story - Noah. It was found in ancient Chinese and he had heard "stories" but did know that they were true. Now Eric began to get excited. His English was getting quite good by this time and he read this story to me in English. Then we horned on to the Tower of Babel where God really began to open his eyes. It was at this time that several other Chinese men and women joined our Bible study and another Christian Brother Ran began to help tech them as he had been watching me teach Eric. Now, after a short       review, Eric and I began to notice a few of the old Chinese characters were actually a combination of words which when put together, they formed a new word. One such combination was the Chinese word for "man" which came form the two words "Power" + "dirt". Wow! I asked him, "Can you see this?" God's Power +Dirt = man. That is exactly how man was created! 
                     

We found it so exciting to see the ancient Chinese characters tell the story of creation, the Fall and other events. These discoveries lead to a wonderful stamp of authenticity for the Bible's truth and the explanation of the origins of languages and religions (as if he needed it because God was already working mightily on his heart!). Looking at Abraham on the mountain when he was about to kill his son, Eric put the whole story of God's substitutional gift of salvation together. That night, 6 weeks ago, he realized that not only is there a God and that He loves us more than anything else in His creation, but that He died to pay for our sins.
            So, did Eric get saved that night? NO. But he was under much conviction. Taking the same thorough and cautious approach that he had taken from the first time he had heard about this "American man's God", he wanted to wait. But now that he understood what the Bible was all about, he needed to read everything to put the whole thing together. I assured him that to wait was foolish and I said, "God has now made the way of salvation very clear to you, if you wait and die without praying you will be lost for eternity."
            He left for home that night very sober and yet excited to have this new understanding. I could tell that the sense of urgency had been lingering over him all that week because upon his return he was more than ready to get saved! Praise the Lord! Six months of praying, teaching and patiently loving this Chinese communist and now he is a Christian Brother.
       

What has this lead to?     Later he told me that he wanted to learn everything so that he could become the teacher and go back to China to teach his wife, daughter and others about the wonderful God who loves us so much that He died for us! Last week he got baptized and the whole church was shouting! Everyone had been praying for Eric and many others finally understood what "Discipleship" was all about. Thank the Lord for the work God has given us here. Our hearts are filled with joy and excitement. There is a story like this that could be told with the birth of each new Christian.

Our Commitment!     As we help these Christians grow our hearts grow with them. The awesome privilege and responsibility to keep our testimony pure is so important as we live an example for these new Spiritual children! 2 Timothy 2:2 is our example, "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." This is real living!  Pray for us as we share God and teach others in these small, multicultural Palauan Islands that lead to the rest of the world!