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Shekou International Fellowship

So the past few weeks I have been feeling really guilty about missing church. I have gotten to where I spend most weekends in Longhua with Heidi and our new Chinese friends. So I have to wake up by 6am to catch the bus to get to shekou in time for church. But last Sunday I finally woke up at 6am and made the trip back. I was so glad I did. The Church is called a Fellowship because it is not recognized by the Chinese government so it cannot be called a church. It is more like an underground church that is purely word of mouth. We meet at the gym of an international school and the church is run completely by volunteer lay leaders who take turns giving the message each Sunday. So the church has grown so much that every time I go they literally run out of chairs and it is standing room only in the back. The church elders have been told that it is too many people for the gym and the school does not want us there long term. When they announced this on Sunday he said, “What a great problem to have too many people want to hear the word of God!” So they are taking getting kicked out as an opportunity to split the church and set up 2 new churches in larger venues.
I got there pretty earl so I had the chance to met some of the people around me, a couple had come from my friend’s work. She had never heard about God or religion but she was curious so decided to come at my friend’s invitation. When the service started they asked the first time visitors to stand up and introduce themselves and there were many Chinese people who seemed to have the same story. They had never been to a church before but where invited and touched by the warm welcome. The worship leader is a very talented musician and lead in some praise and worship songs. Everyone was on their feet and really getting into the music. Then she announces the next song and starts to cry saying, “we want to give your our whole heart and live only for you God.”
And then we sang: “Lord I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for You alone
Every breath that I take
Every moment I'm awake
Lord have Your way in me”
As I started to sing I was just overwhelmed with the feeling that I could feel God moving and working around me. I thought about the couple beside me singing at the top of their lungs, this was their very first experience with of God. I couldn’t help but think how different my life might be if I had never been to church or wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I am so grateful for my relationship with God and I am so excited about the newness and the excitement of the people around me must have felt. I cried. I cried so hard I had to stop singing. I can’t imagine how beautiful our singing sounds to God, if I was so moved to tears by the couple beside me.
I don’t think they saw me cry, and it doesn’t even matter if they did. But it was one of the best church experiences of my life. All the way in China. Where I am not allowed to talk about my religion at work. And we are not even allowed to call it a Church. People everywhere are searching for something, searching for meaning. I am just so glad I got to experience it. There are no words.

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