Yunnan pastors map out the progress and achievement to evaluators on their social ministries in the past six years.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
In early March, CEDAR invited several experienced development workers to evaluate our six-year Church Mobilisation programme in Yunnan, China. Their findings and appreciation give us great encouragement.
This project was started as we move from rural community development to church mobilisation on Integral Mission. Apparently it may seem an easy task with training only and without any hardware construction; however, it is more difficult to change one’s soul and mind. To the Chinese government, the Christian approach to drug detox, HIV/AIDS prevention and caring work are sensitive and knotty issues. Thank God that local government has valued and appreciated our work and that has blessed the project with extra achievement beyond our expectation. We enhanced the understanding of 200 local churches on Integral Mission and social ministries. Among those churches, 33 of them have reached out to communities and started different services such as serving the drug addicts, people living with HIV/AIDS and their families, orphans and children at risk, and income generation and disaster risk reduction initiatives. All these works are not easy task, but with their love and faith, the local churches and Christians are able to bring hope to desperate people.
God is so amazing that He has made adversity into blessing. A severe fire burnt all 7,300 fruit trees planted by our project, but the power of prayer turned many people to Christ. The active action of churches caring for the HIV/AIDS patients has encouraged the whole community to accept and support those HIV/AIDS affected people and families. Even the local officials are impressed by the life changing and reconciliation brought by Jesus and His church.
Yunnan borders on Myanmar and is seriously affected by human trafficking. CEDAR, with very close partnership with churches in Yunnan, Myanmar and Northern Thailand, will look into this issue and develop a working plan. This cross-border project will be partly sponsored by an overseas funding agency, however, we still need to raise about HK$300,000. Fighting against human trafficking is an extremely difficult task, it is a grave concern of the international community and a great challenge to Christian organisations and local churches. We are looking forward to the participation of churches and Christians in Hong Kong.
On 28 May, CEDAR will hold a vision sharing and fund-raising dinner. You are cordially invited to join with your friends. Let’s come to learn more about CEDAR’s ministry and support our work with your donation and prayer. For details, please visit http://bit.ly/cedar-528dinner.
Your co-worker in Christ
CHAN Nim Chung
Chief Executive