ChinaConnect

By Pastor Eva Ching
Assistant Director, Hosanna Foundation

In November 2012, after six years of preparations, the Master of Arts in Holistic Child Development was launched.

In the first day of class, Kit, a Sunday school teacher from the Northeast, ran to me and hug me with great joy. I wasn’t sure if she was crying or laughing, “Sister Ching, it’s just like a dream come true! I have never thought that I could be elevated to this standard – to be able to get into a master program! Thank you for your help to me and the churches in the Northeast. God is faithful, through the SONshine China program that you are leading, I am molded a recognized teacher; in the future I am going to equip more and more Sunday school teachers.”

Kit joined us from the very beginning. That was a freezing winter. I brought along a team from Taiwan, with Pastors and their families, and senior teachers; they were professional and experienced, they also had the passion to teach and to serve. We spent a whole day travelling, and only arrived at our teaching site deep at night. The next morning we had to start teaching.

The “classroom” was actually the bedroom and plus the living room of our host. More than 60 of us, all coming from different provinces, squeezed ourselves into the room; I can still recall the students’ faces. On the first row there were seven, eight sisters from the rural area. Their faces were telling you that “I feel despair, I really don’t know what to do!” There was no hope and confidence in their eyes, they were worried. There were from the Northeast, it took them three whole days to travel on train to come for the training. After dinner they told me, “We did not receive higher education, we are only primary school or junior high school graduates. There are many children in the church but no one is teaching them, thus our pastor asked us to come.” I realized that on one hand they did not have much expectation on themselves, but on the other hand they knew they had a great mission of teaching children to fulfill. Such tension made them feel stressed and desperate. And it was from that moment, that I “fell in love” with them. I really can’t stop loving them more and more.

Today, the expression on Kit’s face was totally different! Who transformed her life? Who was the one who is able to change her? Is that Hosanna’s SONshine program? Their changes reminded me that, every time when Jesus healed the blind, the lame, the men with Leprosy, and even resurrected the dead, those who were touched by the power of the Lord transformed from their pain, the oppression and the loneness they faced, and were filled by the joy, fulfillment and abundance of the Lord.

When Kit joined, she had only completed junior high. In the past five, six years, she did not give up, but continued with the Holistic Child Development programs offered by SONshine China. From certificate course, diploma course, to the current master program, she equipped herself step by step. She will be sent to train other trainers, and be the teacher for teachers. Her heart is simply: to give all she can give for China’s next generation.

I looked into her eyes as she finished thanking us, I could see the overflowing joy and confidence in her. Her face transformed from despair to shining!

I was touched, what I could say was, “Nothing is too hard for Jesus. Let’s praise the Lord!”