A strange encounter...

Ever since I came to China for the first time in 2010, I was hoping to come into contact- in some form or another- with the growing Christian movement. Many of us have heard stories about how Christianity is growing like wildfire in China; however, the movement is not always so visible. The government has been opposed to Christianity at times, and therefore underground churches have cropped up. Also, despite fast growing numbers, the percentage of Christians in China is still very small. Well, last Sunday I had my long awaited encounter with Christianity…and in strange fashion.

Last Sunday, I decided to go to one of the bustling squares in Nanning to eat lunch and get a theraputic massage. The massages here are very cheap (about six dollars for an hour), so who wouldn’t take advantage of this stellar deal?

After eating lunch, I went to look for the massage place that I identified online. I spent quite some time committing its location to memory so that I could find it on my own. All the streets are jam packed with stores of all kinds, and it’s not always easy to identify what is what. After some searching, I finally found the right place!. However, I soon realized that they did not offer massages on Sunday. Dismayed, I left without a clue of what to do next.

I still really wanted to get a massage, so I decided to look around some more for another place. I did not know of any other options from my research, but I just assumed that one existed in this bustling square. I looked for maybe 40 minutes, walking up and down every street, but was unsuccessful. At one point, I thought I found a massage place. I saw several men lying on long beds while a man attended to them. However, after asking them if they offered massages and seeing the confused look on their faces, I noticed that the people lying down all had casts. This must have been some kind of rehabilitation center! At this point, I was kind of embarrassed by my pathetic search attempt and wanted to just give up.

However, on the brink of giving up, I decided to search one more street. I had literally combed every nook and cranny within a half-mile radius, with only one place left to look. To my surprise, I stumbled across a massage place! To find what I was looking for in the last possible place was not only ironic, but it was practically a God send! Well, that’s not too far off.

As I expected, the people giving the massages were all blind. I paid the money and then went into the room. I had a moment of panic, as I realized that I was completely alone, lying down and completely vulnerable. When asked, I lied and told the masseur that another person was waiting for me and would pick me up when the massage was over. I could not do anything about it at that point anyway, so I just continued.

Within the first couple minutes of the massage, the masseur asked me, “Do you believe in God?”

I could not hear very clearly, and was honestly surprised by the question, so I asked him to repeat several times before I finally responded.

“Yes, I believe in God.” I didn’t know the Chinese name for Jesus, so I asked him, “Do you believe in God’s son?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Do you believe that he died and went to heaven three days later?”

“Yes”

“Why do you believe in God?”

At this point, he said three things. The first two I could not understand, but the last one I heard perfectly. “Because God gives us his love.”

At this point I knew that I was most likely not in danger and had stumbled across something very interesting. As I continued talking, I learned many things about the man. He had many friends who also believed like he did. He grew up in the countryside and only recently moved with his wife and two 12 year old daughters to the city. His mother also believes in God, but he only recently started believing when a man told him about God and Jesus. He listens to the bible on his MP3 player since he cannot read (blind).

He invited me to his church one Sunday. I want to go with him, but it may not be wise to pal around town with a stranger. However, I have a sense that I should go with him. We will see how it shakes out…