Pastor Peter Xu

Tonight at work, a doctoral student, Yalin Xin, came up to the counter with an older Chinese man. He told me he was giving him a tour of campus and wanted to introduce me to Pastor Peter Xu (pronounced "shu"). I shook his hand and tried to remember why I recognized that name. That's when I realized who he was. Pastor Xu is the founder of an Evangelical movement in China that meets in house churches. I first heard of him in my Church History class where we were assigned to read Back To Jerusalem. This is a man who underwent a great deal of persecution for what he believes even spending three years in a Chinese prison. As soon as I realized who I was meeting, I asked them to stay at the counter for a minute so I could go get Doris, one of my coworkers in the library. Doris was in my Church History class and I knew that she had done a fair amount of reading about the Back To Jerusalem movement. She was even more excited than I was. We got to spend 20 or 30 minutes talking with him while Yalin translated for is. It was quite an experience to meet someone who was so humble and actually wanted to take pictures with us. I thought I should be the one breaking out the camera. :-) Anywho, before long we started to have other people coming into the library and it was time to get back to work, but not before Pastor Xu prayed with us. It too was an amazing experience. His prayer was not a "canned" prayer, but was something truly heartfelt. I wish we could have spent more time with him, but I needed to get back to work and Pastor Xu wanted to look through all the books we had for sale to see if there was anything he'd like to buy.
It was a great way to sort of wrap up my very stressful and busy week. This week had really taken a toll on me and I was really starting to think that I was crazy for still being in school. But then I look at Pastor Xu. A man who has little formal theological training and speaks very little English, but has a faith deeper than I can imagine; and who even now was buying books that I had barely even glanced at. He is still striving to expand his education, and here I am complaining because I had a couple of small assignments and a test this week. I realized that I have been given an opportunity that many will never have. I need to be thanking God every day for this education He has provided for me and I must do my best not to waste it. Well, that's enough rambling for one night!