New Friends in Beijing

In our Friday night group studying Luke, we just finished Luke 2: “And it came to pass”.  One of the study questions was who was the “angel” who first shared Jesus with you? For our three students, one was her mother and the other two were their grandparents. One student just wandered in to our study from a general English corner announcement. The only one to come. He is a Ph.D. student in computer programming. The second one is a student of Rick’s who for some reason he felt led to invite. She is a Ph.D. student in Chemistry. The newest arrival is the young lady who stopped and offered to help me buy my Kindle last week. She works; I don’t know doing what yet. The main impetus for them to devote an hour on Friday night is to improve their English, but they very eagerly share their spiritual hunger.  Next Friday rather than doing a study, we are going to the State approved Three Self Chinese church for a bilingual Christmas program. It is always very tastefully done and a real testimony. I pray for harvest.

Our newest friend sat by us this morning in church. At the point in the service when we introduce ourselves to the person next to us, he turned to me and rather hesitantly said he was a student here from France. He wanted to talk more, but I did not engage further. However, as I listened to the sermon and watched him not partake in communion, I felt that I was to wait after service and if the door was open I was to invite him to come to lunch with us. He definitely accepted our invitation. We took him to one of our favorite “Italian” restaurants not far from church. His father is French. His mother is from Taiwan. He was raised in Shanghai and France. He graduated from a French HS in Shanghai, and decided to leave his retired parents with his twin brother in France and come to China for his engineering degree, mainly so he would not lose his Chinese. He enjoyed the church service. He said one reason he came was because he realized he had not heard any English for a while. We lead an interesting life.