We so easily lose our sole dependence on God. The believers mentioned here are facing this problem.

They have had Christians coming from other areas to teach them, but now seem to place their faith in that teaching rather than their personal experiences with God himself. They talk about the teachers and the next teaching session instead of about Christ and the Word.

This tendency is made all the easier because the Chinese Bible is so difficult to read for these Dong believers, usually with only a middle school education. Spending time in the Word and studying it together is not an easy thing to do, and often the difficulty of the language itself can strip the fulfillment of time in the Word. Waiting for the next person to come along and give a teaching is much easier.

• We do not want to judge any of these brothers and sisters, but rather to pray for encouragement for them. We need to ask the Lord to reach out to them and speak to them. May the Lord bring out, with clarity, the message from his Word. Let's pray for their meetings together to be full of praise and reports of how God is speaking to them so that they may, together, grow up into the full knowledge of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.