An Unexpected Mission

From A Bibles for China Team Member

“Let’s keep the main thing the main thing.” That is what Bibles for China does. We keep the gospel in front at all times and strive to get it into the hands of those believers in China who thirst for it daily. When Bibles for China teams are in China their primary assignment is to verify the delivery of Bibles to individual believers in rural churches, celebrating with the believers who receive the Bibles. However sometimes God throws us an unexpected curveball and the blessings are rich. That is what happened to one of our teams.

This team was special. We had a wonderful interpreter who had taken a western name. In several conversations with us, she shared that she knew of God from other westerners she had interpreted for…but she did not know about Jesus.  She especially had not heard that it was possible to have a relationship with Him. What an open door God provided. Since the team was privileged to to observe the distribution of Bibles, they saw the opportunity God had presented and decided to give her a Bible. As the team members had built relationship with her over a period of several days, it became obvious that she was reading her Bible and had a lot of questions about it, about God and about Jesus. God gave the team a gift as they shared the Gospel message and God’s provision for salvation with her.

Somewhere during the trip, the team noticed a difference in her.  It was obvious her emotions were moved and she told one team member that she felt like God’s spirit was in her. At one meal, where the local church fed the team fried locus as part of the meal, She said “The Bible says John the Baptist ate his locusts with honey.” She was not only reading her Bible but the stories were becoming real to her and she was seeing applications from situations that happen in everyday life. It was becoming part of her. Only God can know the true state of her heart but her actions demonstrated evidence of a changing life. The team members committed to continue to pray for her, for her husband and her child. One of the team members said, “I would love to tell the person that donated the money for that Bible what an impact it had on our interpreter’s life. I think it would melt their heart to know that they helped to change where she will spend eternity.”