God Is Moving 'Here & Now' In China

Published: July 22nd, 2008

It’s 3 am in this lofty-ceilinged art gallery space at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.  The air conditioning’s nighttime pause in this humid place has made it sticky in here, but it’s somehow appropriate.  There is a sweet buzz at this middle-of-the-night hour, one that reminds me of the reason I do this.  Three pairs of young Chinese sit praying, talking, and reading their Bibles.  A French man, a South African guy, and a Black woman stand in a triangle, plotting and preparing to pray together.  A 15-year old Hong Kong Chinese girl sleeps under a prayer shelter made from a ladder and a sheet, and her desire for God is evident though she slumbers.  Two American girlfriends of mine sit near with their journals and Bibles, and the exhortation that I received yesterday by email from an Oklahoman friend living in Beijing resounds within me:  DO NOT WASTE THE NIGHT.
Fifteen hundred of us are gathering for five days to this spot in Hong Kong, and we come from over 50 nations, including places I’ve never heard of - like Reunion Island.  Half are from Hong Kong and China itself.  Each has come on a team and every one comes to participate in this time-meets-destiny (kairos) season for the nation of China.  If ever we recognized the imminence of God reaching into human space to initiate change and a new beginning, it is now and it is here in China.  The very theme that we gather around at this Gateway Camp is “Here and Now”, and such a sense of honor resides in my heart to be chosen for such a time as this.  The man who initiated and directs this camp said the following statement, and I agree with him:  "There is no more significant place that we can be right now than here."

The number 8, which to us in Biblical terms speaks of new beginnings, happens to be a lucky number to the Chinese and one that they’ve chosen to mark this point of transition for their nation of 1.3 billion people.  On August 8th, 2008 – 8/8/08 – at 8:08 pm, the long-awaited Beijing Olympics kicks off and China joyfully gives the nations of the earth this invitation:  Beijing Welcomes You.  After 600 years of self-imposed isolation toward the nations, China has decided it’s time to throw open the gates to the world.  They are hosting an extravagant ceremony with the theme “One World, One Dream”.  China is getting married, and this is a new beginning.  

And, this will change everything.  When a shift occurs in a nation containing 1/5 of the people on earth, we can easily bet it will trickle (or flood) into the recesses of our lives as well.  

Thirty of us from the U.S. (and one from South Africa) have paid a load of money to be here in Hong Kong, and we are facilitating this space for 24-7 prayer and worship and we are filling the hours with continual face-to-face interaction with God.  Many from the camp also come and go in and out of this room.

We pray because Jesus, the Desire of the nations who desires the nations, invites us to an honored place of co-laboring with Him in earth-shattering moments such as this for China.  The day after the Global Day of Prayer this last Pentecost Sunday – which was the biggest prayer meeting on one day in human history – China was shaken with a 7.9 earthquake which caused massive and horrifying devastation.  The very earth is crying out for the revealing of the sons of God, and there is an unveiling occurring in China these days that you would not comprehend even if you saw it.  

And so, like Gideon’s army (Judges 7), this group of common people has gathered from the four corners of the earth to Hong Kong.  We are in a neighborhood that backs up against the border with China and which is called “Tuen Mun” – or, literally, “the gateway where the soldiers gather”.  We are actively waiting for God’s deliverance of China, and from China to the nations.

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