Written by: Paul Yua
“…if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ” (Romans 8:31,32)
Chilliwack Chinese Alliance Church (CCAC) encountered an unprecedented challenge in January 2012. A self-claimed “missionary” and her family started attended CCAC meetings and we later discovered that she is a false teacher who had caused a lot of disturbances in other churches in the Lower Mainland. After being exposed, she left our church and snatched most of our members to congregate in a different location. Left with only a few people every Sunday, we cried out to God for His mercy and guidance. Words cannot describe the pain in our hearts to see the church that God had planted almost ten years ago coming to a possible end and to watch the people whom He brought to Himself drift from their faith. We sincerely thank those who prayed fervently for our church and supported us financially while we were going through our darkest moments. We also appreciate the various fellowships of Richmond Chinese Alliance Church that continually come to encourage us to press on and never give up.
Indeed our gracious heavenly Father did not abandon us. When we were deeply discouraged God returned and revived us with His call. In fact, He is so faithful and loving that within a few months He opened the door for many new opportunities. Paul was invited by the Chilliwack High Road Academy to lead Bible-study to four Chinese International students bi-weekly. This opens the door to bring them to Christ. There was also a sudden influx of new business immigrants from Mainland China to Chilliwack. This was mainly the result of the affordability with business investment and real estate compared to the major cities. Most of them were wealthy and educated young families, but due to lack of English skills, they faced a lot of difficulty adjusting to life in Chilliwack.
“Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Matthew 9:38)
God owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested, we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord’s time in over-energized activities and programs, or focus too much on internal conflicts and problems.
The new immigrants knew about our church through different channels, such as the church website, church directory in local newspapers, the Chilliwack Community Services, word of mouth, and so on. We try our best to help them get settled, and at the same time invite them to participate in our weekly ALPHA program. The love shown by our church family makes them feel at home and they look forward to attending every week.
The majority of them were Atheists; never heard about Jesus and His Gospel when they were in China. At first they could not believe that there is an Almighty God who created heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ who died on the cross to redeem our sin. However, the Holy Spirit opened their hearts and minds to understand God’s Word from the ALPHA study and moved them to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. They also started attending Sunday worship and Sunday school. Now our Sunday service attendance has grown from less than 10 people to almost 50. For the past year and a half we have had more than 20 new believers and 18 of them are already baptized! We are praying and preparing for another baptismal service in the near future. All glory to God for nothing is impossible with Him!
(from CPD newsletter)