China, 1997

One morning as we were about to leave on one of our field trips with the kids, I stopped at the door with a strong impression to bring my Bible with me. (We were allowed to have one copy for personal use only.) "Hm. OK," I thought, and grabbed it. "Guess we'll see."

That day we were to make the long ascent to one of the oldest (if not the oldest) Buddhist temples in China. This was somewhere on the outskirts of Beijing.

There were monks in full garb walking around us with their beads, probably praying or meditating, etc. There were enormous statues of Buddha, surrounded by incense, many other statutes (idols), and even people literally bowing down to them in prayer.

One of my students had a rather distressed look on his face, so I asked him what he thought of all of this. With furrowed brow, he said "I think they are praying for wealth, or power or importance. I don't think that's what we should pray for. We should pray for things like patience and kindness." Then he said, "this is the temple for Buddhist, but where is your temple?"

I said something like, "Good question. The temple of the true God is in our heart. He comes to live with us so we're never apart from him. That's what the Bible says."

"I would like to read this Christian Bible someday," he said, quietly.

Suddenly it hit me.

"Would you like to read it now?" I asked.

"Do you have one?" he asked--I couldn't tell if he was excited or afraid or some mixture of both.