Our recent Thanksgiving sharing dinner party, held on Nov. 3th, was a big success. There were over 80 friends who attended our party. This year, the restaurant wanted to impress our guests by providing a new dinner menu. Many guests commented on how they enjoyed the food. The rest of the evening celebration continued with a bi-lingual program. It is our hope that a bi-lingual program will attract younger adults who may be interesting in our ministry in the years to come.
In February of this year, the Chinese government placed extra attention on all religious activities in China. They want all religious organizations to follow their Religious Law. By doing this, their hope is to transform various religions into a Chinese localized religion. This has led to some level of uncertainty for us and we have had to make certain adjustments for our ministry in China.
For our short term mission trip this past year, we downsized our team from 15 members that we had in previous years to a 7 member team (including Ines and I). We also shortened the length of time that was spent in Zheng Zhou blind School. We only stayed in Zheng Zhou for 4 days. However, we used our time wisely and visited massage clinics in the morning and spent time with students in the afternoon and evenings. By doing this, it gave us an opportunity to deepen our relationships with the students we had previously supported. They were all very busy working after graduating from school and it was a privilege to spend time with them. These changes occurred because the school principal required us to apply for a special permit in order for us to stay 10 or more days, as we did on past trips.
We then went back to Beijing and spent most of our time visiting the massage clinics run by our sponsored students. After, we hosted a Beijing duck lunch and there were around 30 past students who attended. It was a lovely gathering and all of us had good time.
Due to the fact that we live in the internet era and new strict religious policies in China, we decided to focus more on online ministry. In the U.S., we’ve rebuilt our website and have added many more advanced features. In addition to the original menu items such as About Us, What We do and News, we added an Online Store, Online Teaching and Online Radio. Hopefully, this will bring more frequent visitors to our site. We also had an opportunity to take over an online radio operation in China since this past July. Right now, there are 5 different online media channels in operation. Please join us in prayer that God will bless this new ministry.
The program of encouraging blind students to engage in studying theology is going very well. There are currently 35 students enrolled at the Chinese Theology Seminary and 5 students attending the master’s degree program at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. Of the 5 students at Southwest Baptist Seminary, one is sighted and 4 are blind. Our prayer is that there will be more blind students willing to take this opportunity to equip themselves in the future.
You may go to the links below to enjoy some photos/videos from our events this past year. Please pray for us to continue to have many more blessed years to come.
In Him,
William Lei
President of Life Light Educational Foundation
Please see below three links:
The slide show for 2018 short term mission trip
Link: https://youtu.be/IYijApn03Ew
The slide show for Lifelight Music Group in Chinese Mission Conference
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKdGq_TfeM4
The Lifelight Music Group Southern California tour
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