I spent the afternoon Bible study talking with "G" and another man. "G" is originally from Malaysia. Her Chinese is fairly easy to follow. I enjoyed listening to their conversation. No sign of the Angolan brothers from last week. One woman asked about Dad and whether he'd gone home yet. Several folks have asked about Dad since he left. He seems to have made quite an impression.
"G" shared about fellowship life. Some verses she went over ---
On my usual ride with "J" back home from the three-self church, I mentioned GICF. He became quietly agitated when hearing about it. I asked him why. He said he feels having a church only for internationals here is humiliating to the locals. It'd be like a church in America or Australia only for non-Americans or non-Australians, which made sense. He feels the rules of checking passports and letting only internationals in are lies. "J" says that the church should just not check passports; he believes the local authority won't do anything. He backs this by the Christmas program that was recently held at a public venue, put on by the international fellowship, where Chinese were allowed to attend unchecked. He feels offended by what he considers to be a perpetual colonial mentality, continuing from when other places were off-limits to the nationals before the 1900's.
He also thinks the church should be more loving. He talked about how foreigners talked with him about Christ before he was a believer. He became friends with one, but later met another foreigner who had denominational differences. Once the 1st friend found out about his interactions with the 2nd one, the 1st friend and his friends cut off ties with "J". Needless to say, "J" felt very hurt and confused by this. I said little, listening to him. He was pretty upset by it.
"J" also expressed dismay at what he felt when foreign Christians believed they were exercising great, brave faith for daring to come to China. He thinks a lot of it is just sensationalistic hype that's not based in reality, but more motivated to bolster one's image and possibly fatten one's donations. I told him that I had long felt some western Christians exploit this country's history with religion and project that onto today's China, even though it has no relevancy and China has long abandoned the old ways. It pays (literally) for foreigners being here to have others believe China is that way than it really is. Right now, I’m reading a website (http://www.fzhxjt.com.cn) of the Fuzhou fellowship we were a part of in April. It has, among many things, the entire Bible in English and Chinese in it. And there are links to many other China Christian websites from it as well. So much for religious "downtrodding".
On another bus, I noticed the woman sitting next to me reading a Bible (we weren't able to sit next to each other). I asked her if she was a sister. She said yes. She ("H") and her husband live in Australia and are visiting her parents out here. Ironically, "H's" dad is a faculty member of our university and "J" knew him. It was a pleasant encounter, made all the more amazing by its randomness. "J" and "H" walked back home together, having lots to talk about, I'm sure.
When i got home, L. and I talked about "J's" perspective of the international fellowship and what is permitted by local authorities. L felt quite strongly about this since she's had the "international" experience in the States as well. Her argument was that nationals in their own countries really have no idea what internationals have to go through to be in their country. Being an international in the U.S. she had to deal with the side of imm. that most nationals know nothing about, but are bent on giving her "advice" since they, of course, "know" their own country. It's the same with any country, she argued. Locals here don't know how much we have to pay for visas here, or the fact that we cannot just live anywhere, there are areas that are allocated to "foreigners", or that some of us have to leave the country once a month to keep our visa valid or get another visa...It was a rather lively discussion and I could see her point.
I later went to GICF's website and discovered all sorts of pages on the rules they follow to be allowed to congregate, as set forth by the Chinese gov't. It's pretty comprehensive and they're pretty open about it. I hope "J" will look at it sometime, if only to have a better understanding of the limitations GICF does have in having nationals at their gatherings. There may be some things that foreigners do that rub Chinese nationals the wrong, condescending way, but GICF's policy of restricting nationals to their meetings shouldn't be considered one.
