No Ulterior Motives

Occasionally I am asked about my “ulterior” motives in teaching English in China. I find that term “ulterior” extremely distasteful, as if I were slipping something under the noses of the Chinese administrators who invite us to come to their university. I have no ulterior motives. I want the academic programs we offer to the university to be done with excellence. I go to China to teach, not to preach. 

But I also go as a believer, a follower of Jesus. I trust Him to put me with people who need to know how to follow Jesus. And I trust Him for how that will happen, and what I will say when conversations turn to spiritual topics. In many ways, it is no different from my relation to my community in my home country – just a different part of the world, a different language, a different culture. 

We’ve just returned from a stint at the university, giving lectures, and now we’re preparing a team to go again in July to run a summer English program. Our last night in China a few brief weeks ago was rich in relationships and joy. Around the table were five young adults, five different life stories, five journeys.

J met us last year at English corner (Imagine: Stand around for two hours in the cold and talk in English with scores of students). My husband soon found that J knew the Lord. He met the Lord through an uncle’s witness, but was totally untaught. He joined the 2012 summer program and was discipled by his teachers, a couple from Michigan. J will be one of our teaching assistants this summer and will get to learn from the whole team. 

L, was in our 2011 summer program. His teacher went out with him after classes often, drinking innumerable “smoothies” and talking engineering. They talked on Skype over that winter and in 2012 L was our teaching assistant. He was with the team 24/7. In the fall he wrote that he was attending a Bible study. When we got to Beijing in April, we went with him and found a great group of young adults studying with some workers from the midwest. One day talking at our apartment, we were able to help L understand that though he’s not yet a believer, he IS a seeker of Truth. He also will   work with us again this summer. 

M was in our 2006 summer program, but her search for the Lord began a year before with a Christian professor from the US and another from Australia. For seven years M has been seeking truth, writing to me, asking questions, probing and searching. Many of our teachers have invested into her life journey. At the end of the evening above, M told us that she is now a follower of the Lord and planning to be baptized.

R, a college-mate of M’s, was in our 2007 summer program. While talking with my husband, she realized that she DID believe and had eternal life now…and not just a reward after death. Since that time she’s grown like crazy and today is a translator of youth ministry materials into Chinese for use across the country. She thanked me at the table for being “her spiritual parents” and treated us all to a Mother’s day cheesecake.

Finally, there’s E. We just met E this spring, but he will be in the 2013 summer program.  E came up to us after a lecture and asked how he could study the Bible because “he needs something to believe in.” After dinner above, we all went to L’s Bible study with the MN workers and with about 25 people gathered around a circle, dug into the Book of Job and suffering. At the end E was ecstatic. He hugged us and said, “This is what I’ve been looking for. These people are friendly and they talk to each other about important ideas.”

Will you pray with us for more than 100 students for this summer! 

We can’t touch their lives if they don’t come to the summer program.  There are many competing activities, but we want to see students not only greatly improve their English speaking, but walk the streets, eat meals, and live alongside the 20 godly teachers who are planning to go to Beijing this summer. Pray for more than 100 students! The university will send us 40 professors, but students have to decide on their own to come.

And it can change their lives forever.