Cancellation

So, I'm going to talk in code talk for this entry because it has some sensitive material.  Ha!   

Last week, our church was supposed to hold an international leadership conference at an off-site campus here in Beijing.  This leadership conference, started and put on by a big church in the U.S., is an annual conference that is broadcast around the world, now in various locations in other countries.  Praise God!  I'm not going to name it, but you might be able to guess it.  While it's foundation is christian and has a christian message, the actual conference is for leaders and has various big named speakers who talk more on leadership development. 

Our church was holding one of the broadcast sites and leaders from around China were coming in to attend.  Well, as you may know, China has been transferring their leadership powers within the party over the last several weeks, so "things" have been pretty locked down.  For example, Jeff and I were training for a half marathon, but they post-poned it till after the political meetings because they did not want large groups congregating in the city. 

Last Wednesday, I believe it was, we got the call that there would be no worship music at this leadership conference, but now our worship team could just attend the conference without leading everyone in music.  Then that evening we got word that the whole conference was cancelled.  Basically, it was expressed that we could not have a large gathering that same week as the political party.  With it being in an off-site (not our regular building) location, we wonder too if they wanted to show that we still have limitations here in Beijing. 

It was definitely a reminder that we are still in China, there are still limits to what we can and cannot do in reaching the Chinese people.  Please pray for the Chinese government and people.