Prepared Overseas

Posted on 25 January 2010.

China has now overtaken the UK and New Zealand to become Australia's biggest source of immigrants, according to recently released figures. In the four months up to October 2009, Chinese migration to Australia grew by 15% compared to the same period in the previous year.

For several centuries, Chinese have been emigrating to countries across the world, including places in South East Asia, America, Europe and Australasia. Increasing numbers are also going overseas to study. The US remains the top destination for students, while about 75,000 Chinese now study in the UK, and Chinese make up the third-largest foreign student group in France.

Across the world, these emigrants gather in thousands of Chinese churches. In Canada, for example, there are more than 350 Chinese churches; in Germany around 56; in Cambodia at least seven. Even in the Middle East, around 200 Chinese attend church in Dubai and 110 Chinese recently came to faith in Kuwait.

"Through the past century, God has been preparing His people outside of China through various waves of global exchange, economic emigration, or political exile... The overseas Chinese have been core partners since 1980 with those who remained behind and survived to revive the church," comments a writer in ‘Pathways'.

Overseas Chinese people's language skills and greater cultural understanding, as well as their skin colour, often give them the ability to adapt and blend in more easily to the Mainland Chinese context. So if they are willing to come in humility and with a clear recognition that they have much to learn from those they seek to serve, such overseas Chinese will have an important role to play in supporting the church in Mainland China.

Pray that overseas Chinese believers might recognise the privileges they often have with so many opportunities to receive Biblical training and be nurtured in their faith in comparison with their mainland Chinese brothers and sisters. Pray that they would be willing to give (whether financially, in prayer or in practical support) as well as receive, particularly to those in Mainland China.

Pray that many more ethnic Chinese Christians living overseas might be willing to respond to the Lord's call and move to China long-term to play a vital part in supporting the church in Mainland China.

Pray that those overseas Chinese Christians who come to China would come in humility and with a willingness to listen and to learn.