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July, 2004, was the year for Virginia Baptist administrators and church leaders to visit China, to re-establish relationships with Chinese Christian leaders, to introduce staff and church leaders to the new officials of the China Christian Council, and to learn about the current issues and thinking of Chinese Christian leaders.

Jerry Jones arrived first so he could go to Nanjing to meet with Amity staff about current and future opportunities for cooperation. Then, John and Deborah Upton and Jim and Debbie Baucom arrived for a combined meeting with Rev. Cao Shengjie, president of the China Christian Council and Rev. Deng Fucun, vice-president of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement organization. Perusing the selections in the CCC bookstore, we found copies of the recently released Jesus film in VCD form, with stand-alone disks as inexpensive as 65 cents, and a version with disks and bilingual book of Luke only slightly more.

Following the meeting at the national headquarters of the CCC were sightseeing excursions and church visits in Shanghai. Our guide, a minister of Community Church, took us to a public Christian bookstore near downtown Shanghai.

Then came a trip to Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, which has a large number of Christians, necessitating church building, a new seminary, and the development of many new pastors and leaders. We put on hard hats and had a tour of a church building under construction. When completed, it will seat 5000 worshippers. A companion building will serve as a major training center for the province.

Suzhou also is a city of great beauty and tradition, as well as being one of the cities in Jiangsu Province with a training school and many believers. John preached in the Sunday morning service before the group went on to the BWA meeting in Seoul. A sightseeing excursion took us to Zhou Zhuang, a traditional southeast China village built in the Ming Dynasty style, with water transportation being the main means of getting around.