Divine Encounters

On this particular day, as they walked hand-in-hand to the market, Mrs. Tang and her son didn’t expect anything unusual —but they were about to get a big surprise!

Mrs. Tang and her six-year-old son were on their way to the market to buy food. They often went to the market and Mrs. Tang’s son enjoyed looking at all the different vegetables for sale, and watching the people try to get the best prices from the sellers.

On this particular day, as they walked hand-in-hand to the market, Mrs. Tang and her son didn’t expect anything unusual —but they were about to get a big surprise!

Mrs. Tang believed in God, and she met with other Christian believers every Sunday, but she had to be careful about taking her son with her to these meetings, because the government didn’t like children to learn about God.

As they were walking along the road to the market, two kind-looking men came up to Mrs. Tang and her son and stopped.

“You know,” said one, “keeping Sunday is not from the Bible.” He held up a Bible and showed the astonished Mrs. Tang texts about the seventh-day Sabbath. Encouraging her to see for herself, the other man told her, “You can search the Internet, and see what day is really the Sabbath day.” Then the men concluded their brief presentation by telling Mrs. Tang that “Jesus came to this world, and the Saturday church is really God’s church.” Then as quickly as they had come, the two men disappeared into the crowd.

Finding the Church

Amazed by this short and unusual meeting, Mrs. Tang and her son continued on to the market where they quickly bought the things they needed and hurried home. Once they were home, Mrs. Tang began searching the Internet for answers to the questions the strangers had talked about. Surprised, Mrs. Tang found an amazing website—in Chinese—that had clear answers about the seventh day—Saturday—being God’s true Sabbath. The site also offered easy-to-follow Bible studies. Learning that the website was from a Seventh-day Adventist ministry called Amazing Facts, she wondered if there was a nearby Adventist church that she could visit.

After a little searching, Mrs. Tang was happy to find an Adventist group meeting in an apartment in her city. There must really be something special about this group, she thought to herself.

Finding her way to the Adventist apartment the following Sabbath, Tang Yue looked for the two men who had talked with her on the street, but she didn’t see them. In fact, she never saw them again.

Mrs. Tang keeps meeting with the Adventists and believes that she has found her spiritual home. “[This church] is teaching what the Bible says,” says Tang Yue. “It’s very different from the other church. I believe that what the Adventists are teaching is the truth, and that Jesus is coming soon.”

Mr. Zhang’s Story

Everybody respected Mr. Zhang. He used to be in the Chinese army, and then he was the mayor of his village. Later, he decided to move to a big city where he could earn more money.

One day as he was walking along a city street, he heard something unusual—music coming from the ground level of a large apartment building. Peering through the windows he could see people singing.

Soon someone came up to Mr. Zhang and invited him to come inside the apartment. Feeling a bit shy but curious, Mr. Zhang entered the Adventist house church. Noticing that several people had Bibles, he wanted to see this unusual book. Happily the Adventists shared with Mr. Zhang some of their favorite Bible verses and prayed with him.

Mr. Zhang kept coming to the Adventist house church. One day they talked about healthy living, including food. Explaining the Biblical laws of clean and unclean meat, the members told Mr. Zhang that pigs were unclean and often full of worms. Thinking they couldn’t be right, Mr. Zhang decided to do a little experiment.

The Pig Experiment

Many people worked where Mr. Zhang worked, and the company cook sometimes bought an entire pig to feed them. One day when pork was on the menu, Mr. Zhang sneaked up to the carcass to see if the pig was really “unclean.” Making sure no one was watching, Mr. Zhang quickly took a knife and sliced the animal open— the pig was filled with wiggling worms! Shocked and disgusted, he never ate pork again. Soon, Mr. Zhang accepted all of the Bible truths he was learning at the Adventist church and was baptized.

Then returned to his home village where he began an Adventist house church with just one person—himself! But he started sharing the things he had learned from the Bible with others, and soon the church grew. Today, the county where Zhang Wei lives has six Adventist churches, and three neighboring counties each have churches—due to the prayers and powerful witness of Zhang Wei.

This quarter, part of your Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help to establish more house churches in China. Thank you so much for your generous support!