December 2006 Newsletter

As most of you know, we spent the summer in America ministering, visiting family and resting. We returned to Taiwan at the end of September and now have resumed all our former activities.

Over the summer, we were privileged to visit churches in Buffalo, Fredonia, Binghamton, Long Island and Pittsburgh. It was wonderful to reconnect with our old friends and see the wonderful things God is doing in America. We thank God that he also opened the door for us to hold a series of special meetings at Chinese-American churches where we were able to preach and lead worship, and Barth performed Christian and Chinese traditional music on the saxophone.

We also showed a video that provides a first hand look at our work in Toufen and the challenges of preaching the gospel to a people who are bound by the practice of ancestor worship. The America congregations found the video helpful in understanding why ancestor worship maintains such a strong grip upon many of their Chinese friends and acquaintances. The Chinese-American congregations found the video challenging. In fact, in several Chinese-American churches, an intense time of discussion ensued after the video was shown. Since the concept of ancestor worship and respect for ancestors is so closely linked in Chinese thinking, the topic of whether or not to practice some form of ancestor worship is a controversial issue, even among Chinese Christians. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to see the video, we would be happy to send you a copy. Just email us your address with a request for the video.

With the large number of recent Chinese immigrants to America, the work of the Chinese churches can not be underestimated. Chinese family members exert tremendous pressure upon their young people to conform to centuries old family religious practices, including ancestor worship and idolatry. Newcomers to America feel more freedom to chose their own faith than they did in their home countries. Chinese churches in America provide a comfortable atmosphere for these newcomers in terms of culture and language. As a result, Chinese churches in America have been extremely effective in sharing the good news of Jesus with new immigrants.

We ask for prayer for the Chinese churches in America, that God would grant to them wisdom and special grace to continue their important work of preaching the gospel to the Chinese speaking population in America.

Upon our return, we were happy to learn that the church in Toufen and the youth ministry continued to do well. Two people were baptized, one from our youth group named Yanru and a middle aged man, Brother Wen. We believe that God answered our prayers in raising up workers to oversee the work while we were away.

We did discover however that our co-workers were exhausted because of our absence, and they were delighted that we were able to pick up the burden of the ministry when we returned. This, of course, illustrates to an ongoing problem we face, the shortage of Christian workers. In our community of 100,000 mostly Hakka Chinese, to our knowledge none of the Christian full time workers here is Hakkanese! As Jesus said in Matthew 9:37-38 "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." (NKJ) Please join us in praying for this great need.

We are looking forward to a gospel team coming to Toufen this summer. Although still in the planning stages, this team would consist of a group of Chinese-American college students and their pastor. They would work primarily with the youth and hold evangelistic meetings. Please pray that God will guide us in planning this special outreach.

Barth is presently organizing a five day seminar for worship leaders to be held this summer at the Ming Dao Seminary in Chunan. Students will receive training in voice, piano and drums. There will be teaching sessions in the morning, training in the afternoon and at night we will have a glorious time of worship together. The seminar will be held in Chinese. Want to come? Sign up now before all the places are taken!

We pray that you will all have a wonderful Christmas. Once again, it was so wonderful to see you all again! God bless you.

Barth and Janine