During a year and a half, I found that many local Hainanese (especially the elders) had never heard of the gospel or Jesus.What's more, some elders in the town even don't understand Mandarin, so we could only communicate in Hainanese.
Plus, the elders from Hainan have never left the Hainan Island and lived their whole life in the local.So they know little about the world out of Hainan.In the local Church in Hainan, people preach in the Hainan dialect. Even a preacher speaks Mandarin go to preach, whose words must be translated into Hainan, and then the local believers can understand.
In the process of serving, I realize that although Hainan is undeveloped for now, it is rapidly developing.Many young people are dreaming of going out of Hainan and have a look at the cities outside. With the number of young people who go out of island is increasing, they bring back not only the development of the world outside and some of the advanced culture, but also more or less to knowledge about Christianity they got.So when preaching the gospel to the young people of Hainan, I found they were not totally strange about Christianity. And the number of young Christians in Hainan is also increasing, which is very blessing and is a breakthrough for us to preach the gospel in Hainan.
The following incident was experienced by me after my coming to Hainan:
Last year (June 2015), on a youth fellowship, a sister bring her colleague (a brother who did not believe the Lord). We learned that he did something that should not be done a few months ago, and had a strong fear for this, which made him unable to live a normal life and repeatedly want to commit suicide, ending his 28-year-old life. Even his parents at home knew his situation, but they were also helpless.
Many brothers and sisters in the Church prayed for him.He was unable to work at that time, so he came to church to communicate with me every day. The young man felt the love of brothers and sisters and the power of faith, so he made a decision to accept Jesus.Then during the following month, this brother's physical and mental conditions have been significantly improved.He was also very active in the church during this time.
In August, the brothers told me that since he could live a normal life, he wanted to go home to visit his parents to stop them from worrying about him.He also said that he would preach the gospel to his family, bring the Bible back, and pray more himself. During this period, I also kept in touch with him on a telephone to understand his situation.He said that everything in the home was very good, and since his parents stopped worrying, he would soon return to Haikou.
But a week later, he still did not come to the church.I thought he had not come back, so I gave him a call.But said he had come back.When I asked why he did not come to the church to worship, he tried to escape from this question.After being repeatedly asked, he finally told me the truth.Because before he went back to Haikou, his parents knew that he believed Jesus and clearly told him that if he continued to believe in Christianity, he would not be allowed burying in their family graves. In the end, he told me that though he knew that Jesus was good, but if he had to choose between the two choices, he would choose to give up the faith in Jesus.
After this, I realize the Christian faith is really poor here, and the traditional Superstition (Mazu, Buddhism, ancestors) is still so stubborn in many Hainanese's hearts. This land needs more prayer and more Gospel messengers to harvest on this land.We really need more brothers and sisters pray for land where the Gospel is in an urgent need.
