5 precious souls

God gave us five precious souls tonight, not a crowd, but five.

It was pouring rain when we loaded our car with the guitar, song sheets, a big bag of books for Kioni to read, 5 heads of cabbages, carrots, oil, salt, meatballs, sauce, tea eggs, a big bag of rice, rice cooker, steamer, steamed buns, 2 heads of garlic....

When we were on the road with the blinding rain and gusting wind, I grumbled, "Nobody will come tonight in this rain and wind."

Dan was silent, then he said, "We'll see."

I went into the kitchen right away and started cooking. With the help of our five volunteers, we started to get everything ready. I was in the kitchen frying up vegetables when I heard Dan said, "Ni Hao!" I knew, our first guest or guests had arrived! "Good, at least one person came," I thought. I didn't go say hi fearing I might burn the cabbage if I leave the stove. Suddenly, a head poked inside the kitchen, a big smiley face said, "Ni Hao!" to me, that's a Chinese face I have never seen before.

"I just arrived a week ago from China."

When I finally went out to the gathering room, there they are, the five of them, 2 girls and 3 men.

The girl who just arrived from China picked up one of the steamed buns and said, "Where did you buy these?" "I made them." I said, a bit worried that they didn't taste like they should. "You made them?! I miss eating these so much, I didn't expect to have these here. Thank you." Tears filled her eyes a bit. "It feels so good to eat these."

Everything went as planned, except the eating part took a little longer. They sang for the first time "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night", and in Chinese, too.

After Dan's talk about True Freedom, there were good discussions.

Out of the five people, one is a researcher, he is a professor of Petroleum Geology in China. He is leaving in a month going back to Beijing. He gave us his Beijing mobile phone number and urged us to contact him if we were in Beijing.

Three of the other four indicated that they would like to meet individually to discuss the Christian faith. The girl who just arrived and loved the buns wanted an English partner.

We are extremely delighted with the responses and we are sure that we will host another Gathering in a month or so. I just need to have the catering part run a little smoother. Need some more planning.

We have a great night. Kioni was a bit unhappy that I was in the kitchen too long. When I put her to bed two hours past her bed time. I thank her for being part of the "team", she held my hand and said, "You are welcome, I just had to sleep later, that's all." She has been a trooper all night.