Two churches in Guangdong and Fujian held activities of respecting the elderly to celebrate the Double Ninth Festival on October 4.
Guangdong Christian Union Church and its subordinate gathering points set October 9 as “Sunday of Respecting the Elderly”, when a series of related activities were carried out, according to the Guangdong CC&TSPM.
In several Sunday services of the Union Church, several pastors were invited and preached a sermon with a title respectively in each service, including Pastor Fan Hongen, Chairman of Guangdong TSPM, with the title “An Old Man's Sayings Are Seldom Untrue”, Pastor Lei Yuming, Executive Vice President of Guangdong CC, with “A Christian View of Respect for the Elderly”, and Pastor Cai Jianwei, Vice President of the Union Theological Seminary, with “Love of Older People Begins With the Love of One’s Parents and Grandparents”. In addition, Pastor Huang Zhaoping, Director of the church, also preached on the theme “Honor Your Parents That It May Go Well With You”, and Pastor Lu Enjie, Deputy Director of the church, with “The Beauty of the Dusk”. The five pastors jointly encourage believers to keep faithfulness in mind and practice it in real life.
During the services, the pastors gave gifts to the elderly over 70 years old.
After the services, free clinic activities were carried out. Eight Christian doctors of different majors were organized to provide health consultation and help for the elderly and believers.
Mutual Love Among The Elderly Committee of FuHua Church in FuQing, Fujian held its second general meeting since the fifth Council performed its duties, with nearly 900 members attending the meeting on the morning of October 4, according to the Committee.
Pastor Lin Xiule gave a testimony there. He mentioned that the Double Ninth Festival is a special festival for the elderly. Our country has had the custom of climbing on this day since ancient times, and ancient Israelites also had the custom of climbing the holy mountain in Jerusalem. They sang songs of ascents to express praise to God.
President Lin Rensheng made a report on the work of the plenary session in the past year. He introduced that there are 1763 members of the Mutual Love Committee, who are divided into 107 groups (each group has 4-30 people). In 2022, 41 members went back to the Lord and 86 members are over 90 years old. He also talked about the pastoral care work for elderly believers. The Bible Reading Class helped the illiterate elderly to read the Bible fluently. The elderly who have been living at home for a long time due to illness or lack of strength were visited and cared for. Moreover, the Elderly Choir, drum team, waist drum team, praise exercise team and dance team of the committee performed on stage at the festival of the church. What's more, Mashan Nursing Home has been doing well during the 3-year epidemic.
The second half of the meeting presented cultural programs on stage, in which the elderly performed six programs: chorus, “three sentences and a half”, drums, waist drums, praise exercises and dance shows. One of the sisters, now in her eighties, performed as the choir director, a drummer in the drum team, and a member of “three sentences and a half”.
Staff members of Zhangzhou Municipal CC&TSPM in Fujian presented cooking oil and rice on October 3 to ten needy families and 140 families with elderly believers aged above 70 from Jingzaiwei Church and Qianling Church in Wuzhai Township, Pinghe County, funding 15 senior people over 90 years old, with donations in cash and kind worth 19,500 yuan.
- Translated by Stephen Huang
