Still thinking about the Women in China

I can’t stop thinking about THESE WOMEN in China!

My heart breaks for them and my mind cannot even begin to imagine the horror of their experience. These are my brothers and sisters. I don’t know them, yet we are joined by one Father, God. It grieves me to think of them having to endure this. I just keep thinking, “what in the world can I do?” I am not a powerful politician, or advocate for the religiously oppressed. I am not a pastor, or someone that runs a charity.

Right now in my quiet times (the time I spend during the day reading out of the Bible and praying,) I am reading through Pual’s letters to the Corinthians. I just finished the first letter (1st Corinthians) and am at the beginning of the 2nd letter, (2nd Corinthians). As I have been studying, I have been reading the passage, then going back and re-reading it and writing down what the passage tells me about Jesus. Then, I read over that list, and again read the passage asking myself what my response should be, or put otherwise, “What is my responsibility?”.

1ST CORINTHIANS 1:3-11 READS:

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

These women are undergoing religious oppression. This is a foreign concept to most of us living in the states. But to these women oppression is concrete reality. They chose to carry their babies to term out of obedience to God and as a result their government forced late term and even full term abortions. They were forced to deliver their babies either dead or almost dead. They are sharing in the sufferings of Christ because they are undergoing much pain for following him. I take comfort that as it says in verse six, as they share in His sufferings they will also share in his comfort.

I also want to point out how Paul talks of being delivered from “such a deadly peril”. He stated, “He will deliver us, on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayer. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

What I am asking you to do if you pray, is PRAY DAILY and more for these women. Pray for the “God of all comfort” to comfort those who mourn, (as promised in this passage and in Matthew 5:4) and pray for their miraculous deliverance, both for those who have gone through this and those set to go through it. Pray that no more babies would be sacrificed at the hands of the Chinese government. That God would deliver and continue to deliver these women, these families. And pray out of urgency and passion with belief that we serve a God that is capable of all things. He hears our prayers for the deliverance of those who are oppressed.

That is all I know how to do right now. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. But verse 10 and 11 make it clear that these prayers do help.

Also PLEASE spread the word. Save Darfur, (a worthy cause,) and The One Campaign, (another worthy cause,) have both gained incredible awareness through grass roots marketing tools that in turn have captured the attention of politicians and governments. We have to keep talking about these women that their sacrifice would not have been in vein but to save others from enduring the same fate.

An incredible charity devoted to Asia that you should check out if you have not before is Asia’s Hope.

Cuba & Cambodia.

My brother who is pastor at the Central Vinyard is currently over in Cambodia with my cousin Jordan. His church is very active in a ministry called Asia’s Hope. They have several ophanages over there saving many children out of sex slavery, poverty, abuse, etc. Their blogs are pretty eye opening. Please read the links below and pray for them when you think of it.

Jeff’s Blog (my brother).
Jordan’s Blog (my cousin).

Also one of the spearheads of Asia’s hope, John McCollum is over there. He is an incredible writer and is most familiar with the area and what is going on over there. His Asia’s Hope blog can be found here.

Next Tuesday Jeff (this time my husband Jeff) is leaving with his father, mother and his sister’s husband to Cuba.

Yes… Cuba.

Several years ago Cuba started allowing a limited amount of people to come in to build protestant churches. My Father-in-Law headed up a ministry for years through the ‘AG’ called MAPS where he went over to Cuba (among other places) to oversee the building of churches. For those over there that had come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior this was (and still is) a dream come true. A building to meet freely in!

For years Jeff and Tim (brother-in-law) have talked about going over there with their father, and now it is finally happening! They have been hoping to get there before Fidel Castro passed away since what exactly will be allowed after that remains in question.

During my father-in-law’s many trips to Cuba he has really fallen in love with the people (not Castro of course!) These people live like you have gone back in time. Communist/Socialist (it says both in their constituation), government has made them incredibly deprived - Need I say for the gazzilionth time-”another reason I am adamently against big governement and socialism”- or are you all sick of that? They are physically and spritiually hungry. Jeff leaves on Tuesday for 8 days (while i will be taking off to hang in Nashville!). Please keep him and his family in your prayers… He isn’t really a blogger so I will have to update you here if I am able to hear from him at all (communication from there is very difficult!).