First We Pray

A bright yellow banner we purchased in Beijing hangs in my office at the church. We found the banner at a Christian scroll shop tucked away in the “arts district” of Beijing. When we got there, the door was locked but we knocked and the owners let us in. The shop is so narrow that I could stretch my arms and almost touch both walls at the same time. It is a little oasis of hope in the middle of Beijing. Somehow (I do not know how) the owners keep their little shop open even though the word “Hallelujah” and other Christian words fill the front windows. We ended up buying quite a few scrolls that day, and we did not bargain because it is an honor to pay full price to brothers and sisters who have such courage. As I was looking at the scrolls on the wall, my eye kept coming back to the bright yellow one. It shows a Chinese farming scene. You can see the workers harvesting their crops. But there are only a few workers, and the field is very large.

Above that scene the artist printed the following words of Jesus in Chinese: “Then he said to his disciples, ’The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’”