SURVIVOR-CHINA

See this little girl? It's Katie Mei VanLue....already a survivor from China!:) Did you know that the current reality show Survivor-China was/is being filmed only 25 miles NW from Nanchang...the city where Katherine was placed in our arms? Yes, the entire series this season is from Zhelin Lake, a reservoir just "around the corner" from where we met Katie for the first time. Although we don't always agree with the content of this show, the views of the countryside, mountains, and rice fields are amazing, and right where our little Won-ton was born! You can see full episodes as well as behind-the-scene views of production (which I found particularly interesting because they're using Chinese crew as well as American), at CBS.com. It's exciting for us as well because Jiangxi is a very poor, landlocked, province that doesn't usually receive much attention. We stayed in Nanchang for 8 days last year. Some of you may remember the Chinese-man-who-chased-Julie-through-the-Market Story. ...Picture whole pigs chopped up, laying on the street.....fish executed the same way, bags of frogs, bowls of eels (alive and dead) , many vegetables laying in between, dried scorpions, bugs (to eat), huge bags of rice, tucked into a tiny one-lane-street . We were walking through this madness and a man approached Julie with a mesh bag full of SNAKES!!! VERY ALIVE SNAKES!!!NOT SMALL SNAKES!! and began yelling at her in rapid-fire Chinese. She evidently didn't answer him correctly (did I fail to mention that in his other hand he was holding a porcupine??!! ) because Chinese man then chased her....hitting her on the back of her legs with the bag of snakes (they eat them there)! Mom here had Katherine in the "hip panda" baby carrier and was shouting for Dad to come rescue his women. Where was Dad? Waaaayyyyy down the street taking photos:) We found that we can run faster than Chinese snake man....and even got pictures of snakes-in-bag for all to see. We can only gather that snake-man wanted us to buy yummy-polluted-water reptiles for our dinner. We don't know, because nobody, and we mean nobody speaks english.:) You can view these lovely photos by clicking the link on the far right under "Chinese Travel Blog". So you see why it would be interesting to watch this Survivor series! We've already done our own version. :)

The second reason for this post is for awareness of the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church coming up on November 11, 2007. China is one of the focus countries this year. Consider these statistics

The Big Picture: China
Population: 1,298,847,624

There are 201 Living Languages

22 of these languages have New Test. translations

18 have portions of the Bible translated

15 languages have a complete translation

146 have NO biblical translation

China is still a developing nation and has a state-run government. What does that mean? There is no freedom of worship and persecution of Christians is widespread. You are currently not allowed to have your own Bible....so Bible-smuggling is still very much a reality. Please visit the persecuted church IDOP site, and join in the focus on intercessory prayer and awareness for those around the world daily suffering for their faith. Other sites you may also be interested in are Release International, Secret Believers, and Voice of the Martyrs . God is working all around the globe in the lives of believers....please mark your calendars and remember to pray for those facing extreme difficulty and even giving their lives in the call to bring the gospel message to China and other countries around the world! (stats from EPM ministries)