The four-day "Chinese Homecoming 2016" event was opened in Asia World-Expo, Hong Kong with a greeting speech by Rev. Ma Jianming on the evening of July 13, 2016, focusing on the reconciliation of Greater China.
Around 20,000 people from 30 nations including Australia, Canada, Germany, the US, Israel, Turkey, India, Thailand, Japan, and Korea, and 26 areas attended the event.
Rev. Ma, the senior pastor of International City Churches of Hong Kong and host of the gatherings several times, stressed that the convention facility has held five homecoming gatherings; therefore, the heavenly father stayed here to welcome them and he expected more glorious things to happen in this year's events like in the past when a number of wonderful things took place in the events.
In the opening ceremony, he welcomed the guests and claimed that Christians in Hong Kong and mainland China share the same goal which aims to evangelize back to Jerusalem and to help those who walked with them.
Later on, he explained the origin of the gathering. The believers were asking what was the will of God when Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 after being a British colony for about one and a half centuries.
The pastor said, "We believe that God will use Hong Kong to bless mainland China and the latter's blessing will bless the church in Hong Kong. So we walked on the unregretful journey a few years ago, beginning to hold the homecoming gathering by faith for the brothers and sisters in the mainland and the rest of the world."
Following this, there was an hour of unity worship followed by the representatives from the world giving their self-introduction, most of whom were from the mainland.
Besides the opening ceremony, the gathering consists of two leadership pre-meetings from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning and a three-day conference starting July 14.
The "Homecoming" official website introduced that this year makes the 70th anniversary of the Vision "Back to Jerusalem" and the year of Jubilee on the Jewish calendar, thus, the day has become an entrance for the unity of global Chinese Christians in the modern age.
- Translated by Karen Luo
