For Zhong Guo.

Above: View from a place I frequented in Shenzhen, China 2006.

Recently, Blogger put a feature onto it's page that would allow me to see where people are reading my blog from. The results were surprising, especially in recent months. Just for fun I wanted to put some numbers up before getting into the most important thing I can think of. These results represent views since the blog was started in May 2009. Since that date this site has been viewed 8,329 times. The numbers below are views from respective countries. Only the top 10 countries have numbers next to them. The list at the bottom is hugely incomplete but provides some idea of other sources.

United States: 4,312

New Zealand: 1,169

Australia: 410

China: 341

Netherlands: 288

Russia: 175

Germany: 157

Israel: 112

France: 97

Rwanda: 94

Chile, Taiwan, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, UK, India, Malaysia, Canada and Italy.

The reason why I bring this up (other than I find it interesting) is that in the last 3 months the views from China have drastically spiked. I'm not going to speculate to much, but knowing that www.davidandrewpiper.com is blocked in the mainland leads me to think that people from censorship or the government are reading my blog. Maybe that is entirely untrue and it represents views from Hong Kong that has wider internet access, but I find it to coincidental. The 300+ view spike comes directly in the wake of a email I sent to someone about Ye su Ji du, in the mainland.

So if I'm speaking about you, my curious Chinese friend, this is a simplified account of what God is doing in the world and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's you who I write this for.

Even if there is no church near you, if you seek Jesus, you will find Him. What is amazing about Jesus was that He came to earth, ate and drank, slept, was tired and hungry just like us. God (Jesus) became a man and entered into human history and time. We know from the Bible that Jesus was beaten and abused and even abandoned by his friends when he needed them most. We know that the God who became man (Jesus) suffered just as we suffer today and can relate to our problems. God feels the pain of your family because he has experienced it as a man on earth. In Jesus (the God who became Man, but was still fully God at the same time) we see what is near Gods heart. When we read the chapters in the Bible Matthew/Mark/Luke/John we see how Jesus lived and treated people. Now we know how to live and treat people, Jesus said, "If you have seen the way I live my life, you have seen how God truly is." Ever since the beginning, man has been trying to do life apart from Jesus and God, thinking that they know a better way to live life than Jesus. Every person alive though needs to repent and ask for forgiveness from God for trying to do life on their own, no matter how good a person they are. All people have tried to live apart from what God wants, and all people fall short of being like Jesus. All you need to do to become a Christian is to ask God for forgiveness from trying to do life on your own, and make the teaching and life of Jesus the most important things in your life. As you live like Jesus in faith, God transforms your heart to make it more and more like the heart of Jesus. What's important to Jesus becomes important to you, your life will be forever changed. Being a Christian you don't need to do any ongoing special rituals that all other religions demand, you simply need to place your faith and trust in Jesus. Your faith in Jesus is what saves you. The greatest Christian hope is that one day Jesus will come back to earth to restore all the bad things to good. We are certain of this as Christians. When Jesus returns there will be no more sickness, death, wars, natural disasters. What God calls Christians to (Christians are followers of Christ) is to live like the future is now! We as Christians are to live like Jesus has returned and made everything good. We are to love others without seeking reward, help those who have nothing and to share Jesus with others to free them from the evils of the world. We do this in faith until we die, or Christ returns. Faith, Hope, and Love are the 3 greatest things the Christian must pursue. No Christian is perfect, they still make mistakes.... I make lots of them. But as we seek to become more like Jesus, our faith in Jesus saves us from separation from God and our sins. I rejected Christianity when I was 19. One of my best friends died, and from that I wanted to know what life was about and what was important because I know life is so short. The best life possible is the life that Jesus lived. I want to be more like Jesus everyday. I pray that you will find Jesus as your savior and that your life will be transformed forever. I know in my heart that this might be the start of something special in your life. If you want to know more, click on the comment box below.

Christ's servant,

Da Wei