Heartbroken for the China's Delegates

So it looks official. The Chinese authorities are preventing the Chinese delegation from leaving China by confiscating passports and other means until after the Congress is over. After two long years of preparation, prayer, selecting delegates, raising funds for themselves, and for others who need scholarships outside China, the majority of those delegates will once again be denied the opportunity to join the world Christian community at a Lausanne Congress.

We take comfort in God's sovereignty that surely he is doing a work of renewing his precious church in China. And surely God is reminding the rest of us, that what our brothers and sisters face there daily, in choosing to walk the path of the cross, is perhaps what normative discipleship should look like, and perhaps we live in the bubble encumbered by any cost or sacrifice.

We will miss their presence in Cape Town and there absence will be more conspicuous than ever.