“He was often drunk and he hit me. I was so glad when I became a teenager so that I could hit him back!”

-Chinese student Sing Sing

We were talking about forgiveness, as part of the Love Dare book, in our English communication class. We had NO Idea where Sing Sing (from China) was going.

It’s not a Christian class. We have four non Christian Koreans, two Christian Chinese and another couple of people. We had been teaching patience, kindness, thinking the best, and now the topic of forgiveness.

“I hated him so much” She continued. “He was always drunk. But later I became a Christian and I forgave him. So I made him a meal and I took it to him. He said ‘Why did you make me a meal? I hate your food, you are a terrible cook!’ So then I went home and cried and cried, I cried for days.”

“But then later he became a Christian, and he changed!” He had seen her change with forgiveness, and he wanted to change too!

What a testimony for our Korean students! We are continuing building bridges to share the gospel with them!

“Mary Kay, can I ask a few questions from last week?” 

I love when our students ask questions as I know they are really processing what they are learning.

“What is sin?”   In Japan we think of it as terrible crimes but I remember that when you did zoom Bible school for my daughters (so often the parents are listening as well!!) that you did a sin jar lesson and said sin includes things like lying, selfishness, and pride. 

I explained that in every other religion, people need to do things to gain approval but in Christianity, Jesus has done it all for us and He gives us the acceptance before God.  Then she continued:

I remember that when I lived in Blacksburg how Jay (a co-worker) posted about his grandmother dying and it was wonderful that she was now with Jesus and in heaven.  But I don’t see death like that and

I am fearful of dying.

Together, we had just finished reading the resurrection story with Jesus telling His disciples that He was the way the truth and the life. 

Another co-worker had gifted this book to her and I have had the privilege of reading it with her on zoom in Japan.  It is just the right level for understanding the whole Bible. 

Previously my Japanese friend had made me an amazing little box, that had to have taken hours to do, as a farewell and memory gift.  I asked her how she would have felt if when she brought it to me, I would have refused to have accepted it.  I wanted her to understand that God has given her amazing gift in Jesus. 

Pray that Kimiko will accept it!

Ning, my Chinese friend, explained how he was taught to be an atheist in Communist China. His faith was in science. But in America he discovered the the Christian faith is so popular.

But I (Fred) didn’t think he had any interest. After one year of English study with him, I was still throwing out bait. No bites. Finally I asked about his relatives.

“My grandmother is a Christian and she is praying that I will become a Christian.” Last semester Ning had even gone to some Chinese Bible studies that he had never shared about, although he knew I am a  Christian.  Once I heard that, I remembered what I had learned about Chinese culture.

“So tell me” I asked, “what questions do you have about God or Jesus or Christianity,  that you have, but were too shy to ask in the Chinese Bible study?” Chinese are often afraid to ask questions in class, especially when everyone else probably already knows the answer! Americans are too!

“How can a person believe in God?”

he responded. He didn’t know how a person could become a Christian!

We had a long conversation about following Truth, and that faith should be based on what we know, not on our feelings or what politicians think or teach.

Now we are following Truth together! We are now reading “Letters from a Skeptic” by Boyd about a skeptic’s questions about God & Jesus and how an evangelical Christian, the son, answers them. We are removing the obstacles to his faith now, one boulder at a time.

Keep praying for Ning to follow the Truth and find Him! Pray that we will have the courage to open the doors before us!

Yue told us her story, she has been wrestling with the idea of God as we study “Letters From a Skeptic” with her. She had been told there is no God, but now she has doubts.

“I was downtown Blacksburg and thinking about it. So I told God that I wanted for him to give me a sign, while I was walking back to class. And then this woman came up to me. I didnt know who she was. I had never seen her before. And she asked me if I wanted to go to a Bible study! Why would she ask that? I didnt know her!

“I wonder if that was a sign from God.”

We agreed that God works that way. But we also referred her to the greatest sign, the resurrection. We will study that next.

But also there was the sign of the Star of Bethlehem! Our church just saw this video, about recent developments in Astronomy and computers that are able to reproduce the Bethlehem night sky, 2000 years ago! It shows the combinations of planets that could have been that sign that the wise men sought for 2022 years ago.

And wise people seek him still!

How God connects us to students is amazing!  Lucia came to our zoom conversation class but was in Italy!  Formerly she had been a student at VT.  Sadly her boyfriend died from covid.  She has been devastated as they were soon planning to be married.  We are now meeting weekly and are doing a book on grief from the Christian perspective.  I (Mary Kay) am learning lots about Italy and also the Lord is teaching me how to comfort and listen…

And listen some more. Sadly a young Chinese couple we know just lost their premature baby of 25 weeks, after 3 weeks of struggling after birth.  He looked like he was going to make it but then almost by surprise he stopped breathing.  Pray for moments of opportunity to love and to share His hope with this grieving, preChristian couple. Recently in our conversation class we discussed the topic of death and every single person in the class expressed that in their culture people are very afraid of dying. 

What a joy to share our hope with all of them of the life to come!

I was stunned by the question that my Chinese, non-Christian friend asked. We had been studying the Bible for months. Surely he knew me better than that; I wouldn’t kill any baby, especially not a baby Jesus!

Still reeling in dizziness from the question, I hesitated to answer. Why did he ask? We had just read about King Herod who had sent soldiers to kill all of the babies in Bethlehem. It wasn’t until later that I understood why he asked.

His father-in-law had worked for the Communist Party. His job was to find and escort pregnant women, who already had a baby, to the hospital or clinic in order to get an abortion of the second child, even against their wishes. Often he would know the young women or their families, so he would call them the night before to warn them that he was coming.

All very frightening, and similar to Herod’s soldiers.

His question was really this: if the government required you to assist in aborting babies, would I do it?

I didn’t get to that question, but I did reflect on his original question. I had paused; of course I would like to say “no,” that since God is first in my life I would never kill a baby as Herod tried. But as I thought about my wayward heart, I realized that if God was not first, then I would probably kill too. So I replied:

That’s the question we all have, and we all must answer it. For Herod to let Jesus live would mean for him to no longer be the king. For us to let Jesus live in our heart, we can no longer live as the king of our lives, we must bow to Jesus in every area of lives. That is not easy to do, no one wants to give up their authority, especially a king, and especially over their own life.

That’s the question for each of us, will we let the baby Jesus be the Lord of our life, or would we kill the baby so we can be Lord?

We are so glad that we have given up our lives. And that together with you, we can serve this Lord.

Merry Christmas, may we each hold this dear Jesus close to our hearts, until his Kingdom has come.

How do you get non-Christians interested in reading the Bible? How do you read the Bible with them!

Though unexpected, we jumped at the opportunity to share with this young international Christian couple. They were leaving Virginia Tech for a job, and they too had a vision for reaching internationals. We have mutual friends from Asia that we have been trying to reach. So we shared a few pointers, and stories, and then we gave them our books showing them how! Then they spent the next two days driving with time to read the books!

Our vision is to recruit and help others in the work of reaching the world at our door step. We have now set up a Zooming video conferencing group with a local church. We do culture chats once a month, with the hope of meeting in person some day soon. The internationals are willing but it has been hard to motivate the Christians! So help us pray to move the mountains!

PS Our books are online at Amazon here: A Walking Stick Guide to Genesis, Matthew and our bi-biography (Before We Forget). You can download them for only a dollar! Also our website has many stories of how people respond when we share.

We just went to Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson, with a group of internationals. But that is not what the students were most impressed with.

Our Japanese friend shared:

 One of the greatest things I had during this visit to the US was meeting God and his Son again.

She had grown up Catholic in Japan but it has not been very real to her.  Now she has been attending several Bible studies and her faith is becoming real.

When we go on trips we have great opportunities to speak more deeply.

When we traveled to Monticello over Spring Break, I (Mary Kay) ended up sitting in the far back seat with a student as another student had a tendency to get car sick and so she sat up with Fred who was driving.  (God can even use car sickness!) What a blessing as the student from Korea and I got to chat more privately.  She has been attending many Bible studies and she shared this comment:

I met lots of good people who have a faith and trust in God here.  I will keep reading the Bible and I am trying to understand God’s Word better.  I learned here what having a sincere belief is and having a faith mean.

She continued: “How do I find real Christians when I go back home to Korea?” as she said many people in Korea just go to church but it doesn’t impact their lives and they don’t read the Bible.

Please pray for her to find that community of strong believers.

I (Mary Kay) was to meet with Tsen but she was late in arriving as she and her husband had had a bad argument.  It was a time to listen but then I was able to share the theme of forgiveness with her.  Also we discussed various techniques of communication.  Several days later I followed up with a text and this is what she responded with…

We are getting pretty well. And we tried the speaker listener method. It worked! Thanks for your suggestion and help!

MK: I am so glad to hear that you did the speaker listener technique!

Yes. We tried. And we are more gentle today.

This is real love. Being more gentle with each other, even when we don’t feel like it. As part of our work with young couples, we introduce Christian truths in marriage counseling. We now are leading a Sunday marriage group, mostly non-Christians.

Some of our work is from the PREP program which we highly recommend, as it teaches communication techniques that changes behavior, while allowing us to introduce Christian principles to change thinking. Here is the Floor – Speaker Listener technique that we are teaching them.

You can look up “PREP Christian” or write to us for more information.

MAY we all be more GENTLE this Valentine Season!

We were reading a story about my brother-in-law who struggles with Parkinsons. At the end of the story, he shares that he is thankful most for salvation. I was reading with a non-Christian (Wei), during our weekly reading, who had expressed no religious interest for the last 4 months. He asked:

What is Salvation?

We pray for the opportunities, and we jump when the fish bites! I started a dialog about heaven and hell. Stopping me, he explained: “Oh yes, I have heard about heaven. Good people go to heaven and people who do bad things go to hell.”

Trying not to let him off the hook, I asked what it means to do good, or to be bad, and whose standards are we using? I got him to see that we all do bad things when we compare ourselves to Jesus’ standard in the Bible.

So who goes to heaven?

I looked for an analogy. “My son Joey goes to school here to. And he is having a party, but you cannot come, why not?” “Because I do not know him.” “That’s right. It doesn’t matter how rich or how smart his friends are, but it is important that you be his friend and know him. That’s how it is in heaven.

We all have done wrong, but the question is, do we know Jesus, do we know God?

We started reading Matthew, and Wei was surprised to read that Jesus was a real person, and that he was born 2019 years ago! But now Wei has a Bible app and he knows where to start reading.

Please pray that Wei will continue to pursue this new discovery, soon, as he returns to China next month!