The Lord woke me up about 3:00 AM to pray. That was an hour later than I was used to. I guess He let me rest in a bit because I was coming down with a cold. I asked Him to heal me, but He said that He had other things He wanted to talk to me about. He began to speak to me about Macau. He said that the things He would be doing here would seem small to the natural eye, but He was planting a seed for Macau's future. I took that to mean that I should not expect very many people to be at the conference, and I was right. A total of about 60 people flowed through conference, but the most we had in the building at nay one time was about 40.
The Lord also spoke to me that the enemy had worked hard to corrupt Macau (it is primarily a gambling island that was under Portugal while Hong Kong was under the British. It is a place where people in Asia go for vacation and to gamble. The Lord said that He was going to restore the purity and power of His church there. He also told me that their role in the revival in Asia would be different than most of the rest of Asia. Most of Asia would have to send out missions to reach the lost, but Macau would be different. God would bring the lost to Macau, and the believers there would start having more and more influence over those who come to vacation, leading many vacationers to the Lord. Believers who worked in the hotels, who drove the taxis, who worked in the restraints and stores--they would see the mission field come to them.
Macau is relatively young in it's "revival" development. The church still has a lot of growth to do before it is ready to rise up and take it's place in the revival, but God is already at work grooming them for it. But there will come a time when these believers are doing signs and wonders in the name of Jesus and leading many vacationers to the Lord
God spoke to me about Macau and His plans for them for about an hour, then He told me to go take a shower and wash my hair. I did, and it felt really good. Then I put on some worship music and spent the next few hours worshipping, and His presence filled the room in a very tangible way.
I was getting relatively sick and I asked God why He wasn't healing me. But I could not get Him to talk to me about it. His presence filled the hotel room in a very tangible way as I played my worship CDs on my little portable speakers. I forgot about all else and spent some time just worshipping him.
The conference was scheduled to start at 9:00 AM and I was to meet my escort at 8:00 AM for breakfast in the hotel dining room. I worshipped for about three hours, lost in the Lord's presence, then I started getting dressed, doing my hair, etc. It was nice to have an extended worship time before I officially started my day. I really love how God shows up and meets me so tangibly in my hotel room when I am traveling for Him. I think I get more of His tangible presence in my hotel room on a mission trip than I do in a really good worship service and ministry time back home. And being with Him is my favorite part of missions travel.
My escort left in the middle of breakfast to go get some photocopying done. I finished breakfast quickly and ran upstairs to pack, then went down to the lobby to meet him. I was sniffling like crazy by then, but at least I did not have a sore throat any more and was not coughing. I still wasn't sure why God hadn't healed me.
I had been instructed to leave my case in my room until lunch, so I came down to the lobby with just my teaching material and bible. To my surprise a white lady with blond hair was waiting for me, along with a Chinese man and woman. I had been told that Sharon Lowe (a minister from Hong Kong) would be interpreting for me, and I had assumed that Sharon was a Chinese lady. I was really surprised to find a Caucasian. She was young and pretty and incredibly sweet and I liked her immediately.
There was a big time crunch for this particular seminar, as I had only 2 4-hour sessions to do a whole conference, and that also included worship time. I asked God what material to exclude and to include. He said something that really surprised me. He told me to give them the mechanics but not to do the Lordship part. (That is the part where I explain about how we are held more responsible to obey Him as we are able to hear His voice more clearly, a short teaching on Jesus as Lord and then invite them to make a covenant of His lordship. God said that the people there just were not ready to make that type of covenant yet. That session is usually the most powerful, because we do corporate ministry and also individual impartation prayer. It is also usually God's favorite part, which is why I was really surprised when God said to exclude it. It was a bit rushed, but I managed to get most of the rest of the material in.
The conference went well and the Holy Spirit showed up at the activations. It was hard to judge how powerful it was, because Sharon and I spent most of the activation time connecting and talking. I felt like one of the main things God was doing there was to make a connection between Sharon and myself.
We spent our whole lunch hour trying to find me some medicine for my cold, which was getting progressively worse as the say wore on. Unfortunately, none of the medicines in Asia seem to have the ingredient in them that my body responds well to.
The seminar finished right at 6:00 PM. I was supposed to leave by ferry to China on a 7:00 PM boat-- the only boat of the day to the Mainland from Macau. The ferry station is only a 6 or 7 minute taxi ride from where we had the conference, so that schedule should have been easy. The only problem was that we could not seem to find a taxi. Every taxi that came by already had someone in it, and refused to stop for us. We spent a full 50 minutes standing on the street hailing taxis, but to no avail. We started praying for them after about 20 minutes, but even with our prayers, no taxis stopped. I was starting to feel concerned that maybe I would miss my boat and not make it to China that night. Finally a taxi stopped for us at 5:50. We reached the ferry station about 6:55 for a boat that was supposed to depart at 7:00 PM. The only problem is that it takes about ten minutes (minimum) to get through the various stations and checkpoints (including customs) and get to the boat. My escort seemed to know everyone and walked me through them exceptionally fast. There was one really long line for customs, but we somehow bypassed it to go to a private window. Even with all of that, it was still after 7:00 when we ran (I mean that rather literally) down this long plank to the boat. Somehow God held the boat for us. My escort put my suitcase on the boat, said a quick goodbye, and the boat left. I was on my way to mainland China and feeling very excited about it.
The trip was a little over an hour, but I feel asleep early on it and woke up just as we were docking. It was very easy to get through customs from the boat, just one checkpoint. Only the line was very long and I had to wait a long time for the customs official. He seemed to be spending a lot of time with each person, and gave some of them a hard time. But when he got to me, I greeted him with a smile and handed him my paperwork. I don't think he had ever seen a US passport before, which has a different picture on each blank page. He spent some time leafing through the blank pages, obviously looking at the picture. Then he grabbed his stamp and stamped my passport and visa and I was in.
When I came out the other side, there were people waiting to pick me up. One of them was the man who would be serving as my interpreter. (Please note that I am being careful not to use any names or descriptions that might give away identities, as the churches I worked with there are underground, and I don't want to endanger anyone.
The interpreter was Chinese born, but now has his nationality with another country and h3e works in China in software. He feels that God sent him back as a missionary. He is a "straight evangelical" and does not believe in things like speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, modern-day prophesy, etc. I knew this was going to be interesting because God had put us together for a good reason and He had something up his sleeve for the interpreter.
They took me out for dinner (and it was delicious) and then to my hotel. The pastor who invited me was a lady pastor who had about 200 people in her home church. I am not sure, but I think they use a cell-group model of meeting in smaller groups but are all affiliated under her. She also is a net worker and had established a network with several other pastors in several other underground churches throughout China. I had met her before in Hong Kong, and I really liked her.
The explained to me that the conference was "closed" and not just anyone who wanted to come could attend. They were limiting it to a few senior representatives from each of 16 churches. They said that right now it was up to 50 people and 16 churches, but they expected that number to increase by morning. They said that it could not increase very much, as the room was already packed to full capacity with 50 people.
After dinner, they brought me to my hotel. They had checked in for me before I arrived because they did not want to call attention to the fact that a foreigner was staying there. If a foreign person takes a hotel room, they have to record the passport, etc. So they had a local person pay for the room and give me the key. The hotel was supposed to be a relatively nice one, but the room itself was very warn out and deteriorated. The curtains did not close all of the way and there was no shower in it. The Chinese pastor (let's call her pastor Anne, which is not her real name) apologized to me about the condition of the room. Clearly she had been trying to get a nicer room than what this one turned out to be. I told her the room was fine. We hugged each other and I said good bye to the interpreter, and she left.
I was really in China! When I was 17, the Lord had told me that He was going to bring me there one day. It had been a long wait, but now God was keeping His word. I could hardly wait to see what He would do.
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