Kelsey got baptized last weekend. I got to baptize her. It was an amazing night as 4 of our close friends got baptized in water. It was truly truly one of the most awe inspiring moments I have ever been a part of. Before I dunked her in a small inflatable pool of water, I asked her, “Do you believe in Jesus? That He is the Son of God and that He died for you, that He rose again and is with you now?” She replied with tears streaming down her face, “Of course. He is the love of my life. I will serve him all of my days. I love Him so much.” By this time, both of us were crying and at that, she went in the water and came up, washed anew.

Kelsey is leading her first Bible study with friends on Sunday. God is doing a great work here that is unexplainable and so real. Our team has witnessed 8 friends, some from this year and some from last year, choose to believe in Jesus and give their hearts to him. How awesome! God is so faithful to lead us to those that are hungry.

Updates:

-Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a feast and it was great. I made my mom’s famous sweet potato dish! I played football and caught my first ball!!

-Our team has started writing a discipleship curriculum and teaching a class to coincide. We are aiming at having it translated as well. We need your prayers for this to go smoothly and that nothing would prevent us from completing it or keep the students from attending.

-Christmas season is upon us!!! We will be having many events. Keep us in mind as we share the true meaning of Christmas with our friends.

-I’m thinking about you all at home. You are always in my prayers!

Lots of love,

eva

Pei Pei was one of our first friends to come into the family before Christmas and since then has seemed to flounder in her belief. Although she said she believed in Jesus, we noticed that she hadn’t really chosen to put God first in her life and the things of the world around her were dictating her life rather than a desire to let God dictate it and bring her into real peace, joy, destiny. Through our prayer time and listening to God’s voice for her, we knew that there was something going on and this night we were going to talk to her about it. She has become a wonderful friend and trusts us enough to share her deep thoughts with us. As we began to talk to her, she began to admit strong feelings of guilt and even hatred towards herself that she has not been able to defeat. She confessed to us that when she was with us she felt God near to her but when she was going about her day she would totally forget God and feel far away from Him. After dinner Allison felt that God told her to go and buy a necklace for her to remind her about Him. So we went to a shop nearby a bought a silver cross for her to wear.

The following Sunday, she came to our fellowship party with a new look and excitement in her eyes. She said that in the past 4 days her life had changed. She felt God near her always and always talking to her. What a miracle! She has a new hunger to read His Word. Her roommate even joked with her and told her she was crazy. She has started meeting with our friend Catherine once a week to study it more. As we were having a conversation about her growth, the last thing she said to me was “I’ll show you how steady I walk.” How amazing! I am finding that as we ask God to identify the issues that our holding our friends back from coming to a higher level of faith, He is showing us and giving us the ability to call it out of our friends in love and help them overcome it. What an awesome testimony of the love of Jesus!

After about a half hour of jeering and cheering, solving riddles and pleading with the brides grandmother(!), the groom was finally let in!

This was only the beginning of the wedding festivities of the day. I have never seen a wedding like this before. It was so fun and amazing! It was a weekend full of parties and toasts and wars. Toasts for the new bride and groom, for the family, for the extended family, for the dog and cat, for the strange foreigners that were invited…I’ve never toasted so much in my life. Just when you think it’s safe to sit down here comes some more people to toast!

This crazy scene was part of a wedding that I attended back in November. What a great example of Chinese culture! We should do these wars in America.

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated everyone so I have lots of things to share, but I’ll try to be as concise as possible.

In January, we spent two glorious weeks in Thailand reuniting with the workers in the other cities. We were nestled in a secluded retreat center in the middle of the mountains. We heard many testimonies of how God was moving all over Asia, we got some good teachings and strategy on how to move forward for the remainder of the year, I got to play piano for the worship team and got a chance to soak up the sun and relax by the pool. We even had a fun day trip to see the elephants! That was the coolest.

When we returned to GZ , we started an intense 2 week winter session made up of 3 categories: Prayer, Starting a Fellowship, and Financial Management. Since our Chinese friends were all gone for winter vacation, there was a 3 week time period that we were free, so this year we used this time to gather as a city and really focus on these key areas that will help launch the next 3 months. The city prayer time was really a powerful gathering and demonstration of the voice of God over our efforts and His heart for what we are doing. For 3 days we prayed for our friends, the city, the country, the different fellowships that we will be starting and our friends and family back at home. 3 days of prayer may sound boring and difficult, but we used music and other forms of worship to really engage and come before God with our thanksgiving and requests. These days really helped to lay the groundwork in the Spirit for what the enemy does not want us to accomplish, which is to bring believers together in unity. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The financial management course was excellent and I learned so much about how to make the most of what I make and am given. We read a book by Dave Ramsey called, “The Total Money Makeover.” If you haven’t read it I recommend it! It will open your eyes to making wise financial decisions.

So March is off with a bang! Friends are back and we are in full swing. We have started more focused individual discipleship with those that have wanted to go deeper. We have joined the guys group for our Sunday night Bible studies and are now doing a study called “the 7 signs of Jesus” which is a discussion style look into who Jesus was and why He did what He did. It’s really powerful and I feel like I’m getting saved all over again! Haha. Additionally, in two weeks we will be gathering our friends together for a day of teaching, fellowship and water baptisms. What a celebration it will be! Please pray for our friends that will be baptizing and also our team as we prepare and figure out the best location. We think we might be renting a hotel room and using the tub!

As you recall perhaps, on my last blog I shared about Catherine. She’s the friend that comes to our book study but believes in new age things –whenever she talks it’s always about energy and the universe, but after this conversation that has changed. We have been praying for this girl for a long time and I thank you for all your prayers as well!

Well, when we met she shared with me that all night she had been struggling with the reality of Jesus as being the only true way to peace and direction. The night before at the Christmas party I had the opportunity to share with our friends about the true meaning of Christmas and how it was 6 years ago that my life changed once I invited God to reveal himself to me and chose to believe. Some of the things about my life that I shared she said she could relate to. She felt that she has always had a wall around her heart. She had too much pride inside of her. She had hurts in her heart that she had been able to heal. She sat there with joy in her eyes, something I had never seen before, as she told me that now she knows that because of the death and sacrifice of Jesus that she now can be free and believe in Him to heal her and bring down those walls around her heart. She said that in the morning, she had changed the picture on her desktop to a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. She didn’t know why but she started to cry as stared at the picture, but she knew at that moment she believed.

So this is where the story gets even cooler. A few weeks before we had about 30 girls over our apartment to make Christmas cookies, which if you remember the description of my apartment, you would probably think that’s an absolutely insane thing to do.

Well it was, but it was great and we had a blast! Anyway, that night we took a lot of pictures. Catherine was there and as we were reviewing the pics noticed that her face looked terrible. She really looked demon possessed. Actually her face had always looked that way but I think just seeing it in the pictures made it more apparent. Her eyes especially looked very dark and depressed. We knew that there were probably things that she had opened herself up to or just ways that the devil had a hold of her, but we never dared to say anything to her, we just prayed.

Well, on that day in the park, she began confessing to me all these sins that she had and how she wanted to Jesus to heal them, then to my huge surprise she said…”I even feel like I have devils inside of me.” Wow. I almost fell off of my seat. The exact thing that we were praying was happening – that she would be free of all that. She wanted to be free, she could identify what it was that was keeping her from having a relationship with God and she wanted to do whatever it took to get there. So Cool! The Love of the Father is so cool! We spent the rest of our time praying together for the specific things that she mentioned and you could say “casting out the devils.” And since then, I am happy to report that you can totally see the change in her face. You can literally see the Light of Jesus. It’s actually the most amazing thing I have ever been a part of and it’s all for the Glory of Him who created us.

Believers in Jesus and non-believers come and love every minute here. One girl named Catherine has been coming since the beginning. She’s actually not a student but just graduated and lives very near the campus. Clive met her at an English corner and found that she was very into “New Age” spiritually –astrology and the like. She had many questions about Jesus, but seemed really confused on what was the truth. It was evident to them that the Father led her to us. I love when He does that!

Since I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve found her to be one of the most inquisitive and insightful people I’ve ever met. She’s amazing! She is so hungry to know about our Father and slowly the misconceptions that she had in the beginning are turning around. Every week at our Sunday Bible studies, the eyes of her understanding are open more and more. In most recent times she has been explaining the passages to us with incredible understanding and clarity.

At the end of this particular night as I made peanut butter and jelly on crackers for all to try, I asked her what she thought about Jesus compared to the other new age stuff. To my surprise actually, she said that she thinks she believes in Jesus. The one thing that caught her attention so much is that He is humble. She could not find that quality in any other religion or belief she had studied. She said that it was really incredible and her heart was moved by it.

That led into an awesome time of sharing her heart and some things that she was seeking the Father’s direction on. We prayed together and it was a powerful time. I know that the Father was touching her heart, but she still was not ready to fully believe and fully receive Him. So she left it saying that she would go home and pray and think about all we talked about.

I’m meeting with her on Friday for lunch to see how she’s doing. Please pray that she would open up her heart to the Lord fully and that the things of old would pass away and the new would come.

It was only last week that we discovered where our mailbox was and sadly discovered that none of our keys fit. So I decided to make this one of my projects one day. We were expecting some bills and felt like we had waited long enough. So with my key in hand and no knowledge of the language I proceeded to point and grunt, as most Americans do here, to get to a point of understanding. First I pointed and grunted to a lady that helped me figure out I did not have the right key. Second I called my friend who speaks Chinese and had her speak to the gate guard, at which I pointed and grunted to take the phone from me. He thought I was telling him the phone was broken! Once he communicated to us that he doesn’t have the key. He proceeded to take a screwdriver and slide each piece of mail through a tiny slot.

There happened to be A LOT of mail! Some of it had mold on it. I thought, “Wow, this is interesting. How is it possible?” Turns out that the past one or two tenants before us didn’t have the key either, the mail was as far back as 2006! Not sure how they paid their electric bill. Hmmm… But I pointed and grunted in amazement and thanked him for his help the best I could.

Turns out no one has a key. Not the landlord, not the gate guard. So we will resort to the next best thing….a screwdriver. Can I get that on a key chain?

So this is apparently how they do things in Asia. Nothing has been done without much effort. For everything, from getting water, to getting our internet hooked up, to ordering food, it has been an adventure from the beginning. And American’s like me that don’t know the language yet, are found pointing and grunting throughout the city all for the sake of survival. Ha ha! In everything, even the smallest thing, I’m totally learning how to rely on my Heavenly Father who gives me all things and knows all I need.

Over the past few weeks of getting to know these two, I have seen real hunger for the truth of God. Well these two have been searching and God was responding in a big way. Every time I would get together with these two, I would share about Jesus and God’s love for them. Each time their understanding would grow and you could see the eyes of their spirit open. From answering prayers to gaining understanding to giving purpose to healing hearts to trusting in something bigger than themselves, God was revealing Himself to them in many ways.

On that Saturday, they both sat in my living room (along with Clive, Chicka and I), with eyes closed, heads bowed and everyone holding hands -they chose Him, they chose to believe, they chose to respond back to His love for them. They both prayed the most simplest prayer, but it was more than enough. God knows there’s hearts and all they had to do was open them up to Him. A few weeks ago Jack believed in nothing. He had nothing to believe in, because no one ever told him about Jesus. After we prayed we asked him what he was feeling. He said, “I know I am a sinner. We are all sinners. And now I know that God is with me. I feel God is with me.” Because of his choice to believe he now knows God is with him. Not only was that day such a happy one for them, but it was also the most beautiful experience of my own life.

I ask that this would happen to all my friends and I also ask that those that find Him would continue to grow in wisdom and revelation. Since writing this blog, another one of our good friends, Angela, has also given her heart to Jesus. In fact just a few hours ago! It’s really been an amazing time. Much faster than I ever thought. The harvest is really ripe here. I’m sure we’re reaping what has been sown in much prayer.

I know that your prayers have contributed to it also. Thank you thank you for asking. It is the power of your talking, even from many years past that has opened the way for these ones. Thank you. Please continue to join me in lifting up these friends and even those who I haven’t met yet.

I think it may be difficult to believe that a young woman of my intelligence and caliber would say such a poem to my grilled cheese sandwich, but there I was standing over the pan with excitement oozing out to every pore. Savoring every bite –anticipating the next and dreading the last. As you might guess, cheese is a rare find in Asia. In GZ it is more accessible that other areas but it comes with a high cost. So this was a very special treat for me and definitely worth a poem in my mind.

It’s hard to imagine that I’m talking to cheese but the fact of the matter is that there are many things that I am realizing I took for granted living in America. We are really blessed with delicious things and with the abundance of it. We really need to be thankful every day for things like toilets that you can sit on, garbage men, spaghetti sauce, milk that is not contaminated, the Food & Drug Administration, water that you can drink from the tap, a good sewage system, bath tubs, even the amount of clothes and shoes we own. Life can pass us by so quickly. Let’s take a moment to be thankful for the things that are not only basic needs but also unnecessary wants.

Thanks for everyone’s birthday wishes! It was soooo wonderful to hear from some of you! I miss you all so much! I had a fun and memorable birthday in Asia which included a lots of confetti, lasagna and a boat ride on the Pearl River at night! The lasagna was especially amazing because it is a rare find and very expensive as well. What an amazing treat to be thankful for!

Please continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers! We are having a great time making friends and ministring to them. We are already seeing hearts turn to Jesus. We have two new family members as of last week- on my birthday actually! My roommates had the privilege of praying with our friends Zoe and Rubi. They both had a revelation of God and have committed their lives to Him. He is so good. We will be discipling them and helping them grow.

I met Gu last Thursday at University Island. My teammate Tank and I decided to spend the day there to meet new friends since my partner, Chicka, was sick and his partner, Clive, was back in America for the week.  We asked Dad that he would give us divine friendships that day and we were amazed as the day unfolded. Right as we got there we met our new good friend Jack. He simply came up to us to welcome us. He happened to have the afternoon free, so he showed us all around, introduced us to all his friends and had dinner with us. It was only at dinner that I met Gu and it was only our 20 minute conversation to the subway where I opened up to her and shared about God in my life. She had felt that she had doubts in her heart about the truth and was wondering about it in the recent months. We talked about many things in 20 minutes. The Holy Spirit was definitely with me as I stumbled over my words, but that conversation was, for the both of us, one of the most amazing moments in our lives.

In a city of 16 million, I was led to this one girl. In a city of 16 million with all the possibilities of where we could go and what we could do, we ended up there on that day on that afternoon. In a city of 16 million, God knew this girl's heart. He knew she was hungry for truth and ready to open her heart to Him. It was so easy to be her friend and be genuine with her. I cannot wait to see her again. I cannot wait for God to reveal himself to her in a greater way.

Thank you so much for your prayers. They made this day possible — and much much more.  It's only has been a few weeks since we've been here and already we've met friends that are asking questions and are hungry to know about Christ. Prov. 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” As His children we are called to be kings and queens in his kingdom. It is my prayer that these queens will search out the things of God with all their heart and that as they do they will be filled with His glory, love and power.

Please pray for our new friends: Gu, Miao, Shao Shu, Shannon, Susie, Emma, Selena, Caroline, Angela

Well, we're settled into our place! It's great. A small apartment with 3 bedrooms on the 6^th floor – no elevator! Right in the middle of the garment district of the city. We are surrounded by fabric! We're are right across the street from the main gate of the south campus, which makes it so easy to meet our friends!