Prayer Request 8/4 - 8/10

Tuesday
In the past two decades, there are 360,000 foreign brides in Taiwan; 250,000 of them were from China. The laws have been discriminatory toward those from China, not allowing them to work until 2 years after marriage. Let us pray for Taiwan churches reaching out to these foreign wives with language courses, Bible studies and helping them to adjust.

Wednesday
A new book out in China calls the following "the ten hopeless defects" of Chinese women: Don't know how to love themselves, superstitious about romantic love, afraid of aging, pity themselves, lack style, are highly competitive, are over-sensitive, are vain, easily blame themselves, and love to gossip. Women constitute the majority in most churches in China. They are made up of not only the Martha's and Mary's of Jesus' time but tens of thousands are like Paul's co-workers Phoebe and Priscilla. We pray for all the women believers, especially those who serve behind the scenes. May they be wonderful mentors to younger women believers.

Thursday
Many of the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, with a population of 9 million in Xinjiang, accuse the dominant Han ethnic group of discriminating against them and saving all the best jobs for themselves. Many feel the Party is repressive and tries to snuff out their Islamic faith, language and culture. The government believes the Uighurs should be grateful for bringing rapid economic development, new schools, highways, airports, railways, natural gas fields and oil wells in this vast and once backward region. It is fair to say that most Han Chinese are unaware of the ethnic pride and issues the minority groups in China face daily. Recently, China churches are engaging world mission with a great sense of nationalist pride and ethnic superiority. We pray that all believers will first seek to empathize with their ethnic minority groups in their provinces. May the Lord open our eyes, not to overlook to the needs of our "invisible" neighbors- the Muslims in China.

Friday
Children do well scholastically is the dream of all Chinese parents. However, even though Taiwan has now implemented mandatory high school education, parents will still push their children to get into competitive universities. A recent survey of Christian parents revealed that scholastic achievement is their number one concern while faith issues rank only ninth. May the Lord open the eyes of Christian parents to see the spiritual needs of their children. We pray, too, that Chinese churches will sense the crisis of this loss of young people and children in their churches.

Saturday
Sharing Jesus Christ to family members, especially parents is not an easy task. The traditional Chinese obeying-the-parents mindset make it even more difficult to "change" the minds of the older parents. Majority of the older generation are atheists, they see Christianity as foreign religion and equate it with Western colonial power. Every summer, tens of thousand overseas Chinese return to China for the summer holidays. Many believers have earnestly prayed that their time at home would be a great time to share their faith in Jesus with their relatives. We pray for the seeds they have sown and may the Holy Spirit quicken their hearts seeing the lives changed in these Christian.

Sunday
The Chinese government faces the problem of the ever-increasing foreign trade reserve. Officials speak of caution in spending this huge sum of money, worrying about devaluation of the US dollar and investment return. Companies also are concerned about safety, liquidity and preservation of their trade revenue. Chinese churches shy away from talking about financial matters as if that is something that is totally unspiritual. Money matters, pastors' compensation and tithing are generally taboo subjects in the church. This all contributes to neglect of pastors so we pray that God will change the attitude of all believers that they will give thanks for what they have and be willing to gladly give all they can to God.

Monday
These are excerpts of "23 behaviors of illegal religious activity" implemented in Xinjiang in both Uighur and Mandarin: Forcing others to profess a religion and observe Ramadan. Opening private religious school; conduct marriage or interfering social life with traditional methods, encourage students to attend religious service; unauthorized pilgrimage, collecting religious taxes, offering; unauthorized religious building; unauthorized religious meeting. The same definitions apply to all religions. We pray that believers will have favor of those who have jurisdiction over them. We too pray that their good deeds will be a shinning testimony to people around them.


星期二
近二十年在臺灣的外籍新娘已達36萬人，其中來自中國大陸約有25萬。台灣已有計劃停止對大陸配偶的「歧視性」法律限制。按目前法規：與台灣人結婚的大陸人士要在兩年之後才能開始工作。讓我們為臺灣教會對外籍新娘所展開的事工禱告，求神祝福這些語言課程或讀經班等，幫助她們調適生活和語言上的差異，並得以認識基督。

星期三
最近一本新書羅列了中國女性不可救藥的的十大缺陷：「不懂愛自己，看待愛情過度理想化，怕老，過份敏感，不解風情，傾向自憐自責，熱衷攀比，貪慕虛榮，又喜歡論人是非。」 中國教會男女會友比例大幅度向女性傾斜。其中不但有耶穌時代的馬大、馬利亞型的，也包括有保羅的同工非比及百基拉一類的。讓我們記念神家中的所有姊妹，尤其那些在幕後默默服侍主的人，願她們能成為年輕女基督徒效法的屬靈良友。

星期四
新疆有900萬說突厥語的維吾爾人，其中有人反應遭漢人歧視，且將最佳工作機會留給漢人自己；也有人認為共產黨鎮壓他們，試圖扼殺他們 的伊斯蘭信仰，語言和文化。反之，政府認為維吾爾人應該感激新疆經濟的快速發展，有新的學校、公路、機場、鐵路，天然氣田和油井。持平而論，多數漢人確實常忽略少數族群的民族尊嚴及民生困境。近來，有不少中國教會參與世界宣教活動，亦夾帶極大的國家尊嚴和種族優越感。求主讓我們懂得先用同理心對待少數族裔，尤其是開我們的眼睛，更多關顧在西北的鄰舍--中國的回教徒--各方面需要。

星期五
華人父母都希望孩子好好唸書。臺灣雖然實施了十二年國民義務教育，然而家長仍不斷努力督促子女，能入讀具強競爭力的大學。最近一份調查發現：臺灣基督徒父母把子女的學業成績列為首要關注項目，而孩子的信仰卻只能排名第九。願神開啟基督徒父母的心眼，讓他們看見兒女有比升學更大的褔份。我們也祈求中國教會能先知先覺對流失年輕人及兒童的危機，有所因應。

星期六
向家人分享耶穌基督的救恩非常不易，向父母更難，中國人對父母必須唯命是從的傳統觀念，要令年長父母改變思想更是難上加難。老一輩的中國人無神論者佔大多數，他們仍然把基督教視為西方國家用以擴張殖民實力的洋教。每夏都有千千萬萬海外華人趁暑假回家鄉，其中許多信徒更是迫切祈禱，盼望趁此機會與家人分享福音。讓我們與他們同心禱告，求聖靈使他們所栽下的福音種子，在他們家人的心中萌芽成長。

星期日
中國的外匯儲備不斷創下歷史新高。政府官員小心翼翼的管理這些外匯，擔心著潛在美元貶值、投資回報率等等問題。使用外匯投資的機構，則要再三評估外匯儲備的安全性、流動性、保值及增值等問題。華人教會有一個普遍的現象，就是「談錢色變」 ，一談起錢就等於不屬靈。講壇很少提及如何運用金錢，很少教導會眾實行十一奉獻，也避談傳道人待遇問題。直接造成了許多教會同工經濟窘迫的局面。 讓我們禱告弟兄姊妹能存感恩的心，甘心樂意奉獻給主。

星期一
在新疆以維吾爾語和漢語發布的「關于非法宗教活動的二十三種表現」，節錄如下：強迫他人信教，強迫他人封齋，私辦經文學校，按傳統方式主持婚姻，縱容學生禮拜，在官方之外組織朝拜，收宗教稅、奉獻金，擅自興建宗教場所，沒官方證書主持宗教活動……所有宗教皆受制于同樣法規，沒有例外。我們求神讓信徒在執法者面前蒙恩，並且使信徒的好行為成為有力見證。