Proclaim in Asia

Our Proclaim team has just returned from three weeks in China where they were overwhelmed with the opportunities and open doors. The amazing thing was the openness of the people -- in the market place, in restaurants, on public transportation, in schools . . . There is freedom to share your faith and people are open to hear these challenging ideas and to interact. Proclaiming can't be done in the public way that has been our main Proclaim model, but just as we have adapted our approach in other less open cultures, we are seeing many innovative ways to have an impact there.

Our whole Tuesday morning Jacksonville staff meeting last week was spent learning about the intriguing ways we can work with believers there, and hearing how things have already been set in motion on this tour -- still using the arts to teach and communicate. God is so endlessly creative! The group went with only a vague idea of what they would be doing once they arrived. But God had put together a team that was ready to connect and build bridges through their gifts and passions.

Rino, our team leader in Proclaim!-Peru, was in demand as students at a music school saw mime in action for the first time and couldn't get enough of the basics he taught them in mime and movement. John and Diana gave voice lessons non-stop. Charles, a Proclaim-Jacksonville board member with an engineering background, connected in a special way with an unbeliever who traveled with the team as a translator and is  studying in that same field. 

Plans are already developing and tentative dates are forming for various projects that are coming out of the areas of exposure on this trip. A bit ironically, at the very time we were talking about these exciting new possibilities, our fellow citizens were in the process of setting a course for our country that could have a profound impact on how we continue to do ministry. That makes it all the more exciting as we have no basis for hope on a human level of success in expanding our ministries to include something this far reaching. God's provision and opening of doors will be undeniable and miraculous.