Information on International Pilgrimages with Youth

Monday, March 3

Our day began early with another lovely breakfast at the YMCA where we stayed two nights while in Shanghai. Our first event of the day was visiting the headquarters of the China Christian Council (CCC.) We drove a few minutes across downtown Shanghai to a plain building on a narrow but busy street. While the building was plain, we were ushered into a lovely, comfortable room where the CCC entertains its guests. We were greeted by Chen Mei Ling, an elegant woman who is the Executive Associate General Secretary of the CCC and the Overseas Relations Department. Ms. Chen was one of the most gracious and poised women I have ever met.  Several of her Chinese associates joined us including two pastors that work with youth and young people and the editor of a Christian magazine. Mei Ling shared with us some interesting facts about the Christian Church in China: In 1979 (at the end of the Cultural Revolution) there were only 700,000 Christians in China. Today there are 15,000,000. She also explained the concept of the Three Self Movement. That is, that the Church is China is self-supporting, self-propagating and self-administrated. Thanks to the three-self movement, Christianity is no longer a “foreign” religion and has gained acceptance and is now feeling “growing pains.”

After her opening statements we engaged in a thoughtful conversation about the challenges of doing ministry with young people. One Chinese pastor explained that young people are curious about Christianity, a once forbidden religion, and we explained that our greatest challenge is apathy towards a religion that is so familiar that people think they know it when in fact they have not yet grasped its power. As for similarities we realize that we both must struggle to gain the attention of young people in cultures of busy-ness and materialism. In the end our conversation ended in a familiar theme; that whether in China or the US, the future of the Church lies in the witness of the ordinary Christians who are acting on their faith.

We continued our conversation over a sumptuous lunch. When we arrived at the restaurant we were ushered into a private room with two large round tables set with an attention to detail. Our meal began with watermelon and cucumber juice and a number of cold appetizers: snails, pig’s ear, shrimp, chicken, some kind of crunchy fishy stuff. All food was placed on a large glass lazy susan at the center of the table. The wait staff brought an endless array of delicacies for us to eat: peking duck, tempura eggplant, barbeque meat wrapped in lightly fried dumplings, shrimp in some kind of milky sauce, a whole fish (with fins) in a sweet sauce, beef also in a sweet sauce, a very interesting version of apple pie, fried rice, soup that was poured into a bowl in the shape of a yin/yang symbol, at least five other things and a personal favorite: sweet cream cheese (slightly pink) wrapped in a lightly fried dough. For the most part, we LOVE the food here and fear we will never again enjoy Chinese food at home without wistfully remembering how good it is here.

Next we drove about 1 hour and 30 minutes to the East China Theological Seminary. This was our first chance to see beyond the center of Shanghai. I personally was fascinated by the changing landscape. Shanghai is a huge city (16 million.) Miles outside of the city center, high rise apartments and office buildings cover the landscape. After a long while high rises gave way to 6-10 story apartment blocks. Though the dwellings looked humble, I was impressed with the extent to which the highway and surrounding land was planted with tens of thousands of bushes and trees. Beautiful, but small parks dotted the landscape providing green spaces mid the dense housing. Over an hour outside the city we finally saw many very small farms. Some were as small as a quarter acre. The water table was very high and rivers were channeled into shallow ponds and mini canals. Beautiful new homes were being built alongside ramshackle huts and piles of building waste. Everywhere it seems homes and roads were being built.

When we reached the East China Seminary, we were warmly greeted by Ming Iong Xu, the Vice Principal of the seminary. Again we were ushered into a beautiful room for the receiving of guests. We were joined by a professor and a student. Our host explained that the fast-growing church has created a desperate need for well-trained pastors. We were surprised to learn that the seminary has no theology text books written from the Chinese perspective. It seems that creating educational resources for the Chinese church is greatly needed.

We engaged in an interesting conversation about our perceptions of the Chinese Church and their perceptions of the Church in America. We also discussed the issue of religious freedom. Our host impressed upon us that the Church is not persecuted and that it enjoys a good relationship with the government. He wished to dispel the myths that seem to be propagated by US media sources. We explained that we felt that was part of our mission – to tell the story of what is really happening within the Chinese Church. After our interesting conversation we toured the seminary campus which was a lovely complex of classrooms, dorms and meeting rooms.

Today was a day of talking, of learning from each other, of sharing our stories about doing ministry in two very different contexts. Our conversations have been warm and rewarding. So often in church we talk about our “brothers and sisters in Christ.”  Now we are feeling that connection in a new, more personal way.

We are now in the Shanghai airport waiting to board a plane that will take us to Wuyi Mountain. You will learn about our adventures there tomorrow.

God bless you all,

Respectfully submitted by Sheri Anderson

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