The Story of Siu Fung

On July 22, Thursday.

Pastor Wan, Mario, Christina and I visited Mrs Lau at her grocery store at Barcelona. It was a half and hour drive under a hot and humid weather. On our way there, we saw many beautiful houses on the water. Most of them had their private boats parked by their house. This showed a rather distinct contrast between the rich and the poor in Puerto La Cruz. We saw a big shopping mall which was the usual hang out destination for the local youth.

Finally we arrived the grocery store. A young man named Siu Fung greeted us at the entrance. We settled down at the storage room upstairs. The room was filled with many grocery items such as toilet paper, toothpaste, sugar and other items. As we expected, most of the items are made in China. Looking around the store with the interesting smell brought back some memory of those old grocery/stationary store I used to visit in my childhood time.

Mrs Lau started sharing her story: her family was kidnapped by local robbers some years ago. One evening, as they departed from the store after dinner, three cars intercepted their car and kidnapped them. After some negotiations on the phone between the robbers and other relatives, they were released within several hours. The robbets dropped them off at some remote area. Luckily the other family members were able to locate them. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the experience had created intense fear for the family.

She said the kidnapped business were quite prominent here, and they even have "express service" for the kidnapping business, which means smaller amount of money is involved and usually the hostages will be released in a short period of time. These "express" kidnap was rather small scale and they could be done by local civilian who are struggling to make a living.

As she shared her story, Siu Fung suddenly came up into our room and started asking questions about Christian faith. This rather surprised us because we did not plan to have discussion with him intitially. He had questions as to whether the Bible is still applicable in the present time. We answered his question with 2 Timothy 3:16 followed with explanation. We then explained John 3:16 with him about the Gospel. Later he had questions regarding good works so we talked about Ephesian 2:10. In the end, Pastor Wan invited him to receive Christ as his savior and he did. We were very grateful for him. Siu Fung showed great joy after receiving Christ as his Lord and Savior and he even walked us out the store with a sincere and joyful spirit. Later he also joined us for lunch and we were able to talk to him more about the new life in Christ.

The next day we were told that Siu Fung might actually had received Christ before; however, he was rather unstable in the church. In addition, he often refused any visitation from mission team but at same time he continued to ask many questions about Christian faith. Therefore it was a surprise for us to see Siu Fung proactively came and ask us questions on that day.

I personally believe he had received Christ with a genuine heart; we prayed that Siu Fung will grow strong in the Lord in the fullness of Christ's love and God's truth. Thanks for reading my long blog. I still owed another story to share with you all, but I will save that for tomorrow.

Note: Everyone was doing fine and we are in good spirit. The Lord continue to show us favor in visitation and I can see God's hands are moving in His work. Please continue to keep us in prayer.