Time to Celebrate

Holiday celebrations may have wound down in the U.S. following Christmas and New Year's, but are just kicking into high gear in East Asia. As you read about the upcoming festivities, please pray that God will use Chinese and Mongolian Christians to impact their family, friends, and even strangers during this time.

Chinese New Year's

The Lunar New Year will fall on February 7 this year, and as always the major holiday of the year will be celebrated widely throughout China. Much of the country will be on the roads, the rails, or in the air as China's people head to their family homes for visits that will be highlighted with New Year's Eve feasts. Offices, schools and businesses will shut down for a few days. Red envelopes filled with new money will be exchanged. Greetings of "Happy New Year" will resound during the daylight hours and sounds of firecrackers will be heard late into the evening hours.

Mongolian White Moon Festival

Although its culture and language is markedly different than that of China, Mongolia also celebrates its most important family holiday at the beginning of the Lunar New Year. During Tsagaan Sar, family and friends enjoy visiting with each other, exchanging khadags: blue silk scarves that symbolize goodwill, and devouring buuz: steamed dumplings filled with minced mutton or yak meat. Traditional games are played and oral histories are shared.

Christmas in China

God worked mightily at Christmas to draw Chinese people into His Kingdom. Rejoice with us as you read these exciting reports from those who participated in the Christmas in China project for U.S. university students:

"Workers had been praying about a Christmas party for months, hoping that 100 people would attend. But 450 showed up and half of them raised their hands to accept Christ!"

"We saw 27 come to know the Lord through the team's efforts and God's grace. We had the largest Christmas Party we've ever had, and the 170 plus people who attended heard the Gospel and 14 received Jesus that night

Eye On China

Numbers are climbing in many societal realms of China's populace.

Students: China now has 25 million university students, five times that of nine years ago.
Singles: More than 45 percent of Chinese people aged 15 to 35 are single.
TV viewers: With televisions in 99.89 percent of its homes, China now has more than 1.2 billion TV viewers.
Wealthy: China had 108 billionaires last year, up from only 15 the year before, and now has more billionaires than any country but the U.S.
Displaced: Four million more China residents will soon join the 1.4 million who have already been relocated from the Three Gorges Dam area in recent years
Would you like to pray for China? Perhaps you can't physically walk the streets of China, but you can still pray! Take a virtual tour of the places and people of China, praying as you go along. Click on this link. Virtual Prayer Walk