五旬節的分享

今年我們教會的五旬節主日沒有安排牧師講道，崇拜委員會邀請了幾位不同族裔和經歷的弟兄姊妹分享自己見證。真是難得，我頭一次聽見一位越南小夥子講他的成長，一位非洲婦女談她移民，頓時感到距離拉近了。下面是我的分享：

I come from a church tradition that does not celebrate Pentecost. Most Chinese churches don’t do anything special about Advent, or Lent, or Holy week etc. So it is very interesting for me to participate all these.

Last week during worship we sang a Pentecostal song here. I am very familiar with the tune, but in Chinese churches we sing total different lyrics, we sing about the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus: 耶穌大愛深不可測，廣不可量寬無邊！滾滾尤如遼闊海洋，如眾水將我身淹！在上遮蓋，四周環繞，在主愛中得安祥；引導前行走向天家，安息在榮耀天上！It is about Jesus’ love is like an ocean, you are in this ocean that His love all surrounds you. I never knew this is a Pentecostal song! So I wrote a blog about this, because I’d like my Chinese friends know the song’s Pentecostal contents: Come, O Spirit, dwell among us, come with power… I like it.

Now I’d like to share how I became a Christian. In China, under the education of communist Party, everybody grow up believe there is no God, there is no Savior. So it is not popular to have a religion. My mom was a Christian; she had a small Bible that she read it from time to time. I was curious, so I also flipped through it, read some of the interesting parts.

In 1985 Chinese government sent 20K young people to Canadian universities, to study new technology and science. It was a government paid program, for one year. I was lucky to be selected because my English was better than my peers. So I get to apply, one professor accepted me to be his research assistant, then I entered a master program in Electrical Engineering to learn computer technologies; then 1989 back in my country we had this Beijing ‘s Tiananmen Square event, no one would like to go back home, then we get to apply for immigration to Canada…

When I arrived University of Calgary, there are Chinese Christians on the campus. They gave out Bibles, invited international students to their churches and fellowships; we listened testimonies and sermons, people tried to tell us what’s so good about becoming a Christian. The most important reason I remember, was that “God is good; being children of God is wonderful. I remember one particular girl Dabie, she became a good friend of mine. She said you have to experience it yourself, for it’s hard to describe, it’s something you never knew before.” So one day I decided to receive the Lord, see if this God is real, or if it is just people’s imagination.

From the very next day I felt a big difference, He listened to my prayers in surprising ways many times. There is no way I could deny His existence. He began to show me and teach me a lot of things, and almost immediately gave me all kinds of opportunities to help other Chinese students around, and I just know, with God my world just changed, life is so meaningful with God. Pretty soon I began to tell others about Christ, those were amazing days.

I had persuaded many Chinese people to try Christian faith, to come and see for themselves. I would chatted with a person, found out what the needs were, then told each one of them, “Jesus can help with your problems, you will have to try to pray and see what happens.” I remember prayed very hard for those people, prayed for various problems to go away, there was a small group of church leaders prayed with me. I realized I have to formally join a church for more resource; I have to learn a lot more things to be more helpful. Ever since I became a Christian, every year I learn different things, for me Christian life has been very exciting. I always wonder why it is not everybody that experience and feel the same; I wish everybody can feel the love of our heavenly Father. This is the one subject I am still working on.

By the way my husband is not a believer, his attitude is like “you believe yours, don’t push me”. But I have two daughters, both decided to be baptized during their teenage years. One of them still keep her faith very strong after the college.

Now Foothill Presbyterian Church is the first English church I ever formally joined. Many hymns we sing are the same, but here we have a very different culture. What I like this church most, is the theological openness. I believe our God is open and welcoming everybody. Compare Bible study groups, in our women’s Bible study here, we speak our minds and questions, no one is here to provide standard answers, or say “because you are a believer, you shouldn’t ask this or that”. For me this is very important, not every church has provided that.

I also learn the news about PCUSA voted to drop a song from a new hymn book. The song sings “on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied”. The author refused to change the phrase “the wrath of God was satisfied” to be “the love of God was magnified”. Yes, I fully support PCUSA's position. I mean “the wrath of God” and “the love of God” just paints a total different picture of God. The God we worship is a loving God, not an angry God.

I’d say Foothill has a very different culture. I enjoy and appreciate all the church traditions here. But I wish I could meditate through every prayers printed on the Sunday bulletin. They are very meaningful prayers, that I always feel I read through them too fast, because English is my second language. Another big difference is the way you fellowship. I think it is because western society is pretty much an individualized society; people analyze and understand everything as individual and personal. So I guess it is polite not to ask too much personal information from a stranger.

But for Chinese churches, this is how we make connections to people, at least that is me: If I would like to show my welcome to someone new, I would approach that person and introduce myself, then ask “how did you find our church”, “what do you work or study”, or “how do you like your job”, “who else is in your family and how are they”, “what do you think of today’s message” and “would you be able to come back”? This kind of conversation I would say is uniquely belonged to church fellowship. We probably don’t expect them in general social settings.

If a Christian asks me these things, I would consider this person as caring, I wouldn’t mind giving away my phone number to keep in touch. I may even let this person visit my home. This is typical with Chinese, and Chinese typically do not stick out our neck. For example typically we don’t volunteer ourselves to be in a position. May be Chinese culture should be mixed with western culture.

Thanks to worship committee who let me share, especially Sister Clarissa(一位黑人婦女). She was the one who personally invited me to our church's summer simple supper fellowship. she even joined my prayer once, she doesn’t mind we prayed in Chinese! That was wonderful...