Outreach Stories

Installment 16 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China 

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate 

For almost a year I have chronicled the work of The Outreach Foundation in China from the 1990s until 2018. In this final installment of our China history, I will list a few projects that have not been previously mentioned. We will also speak of our on-going relationships, programs and projects which are now coordinated by the Rev. Juan Sarmiento. Finally, we will suggest some future possibilities to explore with the Church in China as well as potential challenges.

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Installment 15 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

After the opening of China in the late 1970s, the Church in China was permitted freedom to worship and engage in ministry inside the church walls. It was not, however, allowed to do social ministries outside the church. Neither could it print Bibles which were scarce because so many had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

The leadership of the China Christian Council found a way to address these needs by setting up a non-governmental organization (NGO), the Amity Foundation, in 1985. Its mission was to print the Bible for the churches in China and to serve the society of China through education, health, development, disaster relief, and other specialized ministries.

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Installment 13 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

One of the most fruitful results of the decision by The Outreach Foundation to focus on the provinces where Presbyterian missions had been historically strongest in China was a program we developed between 2009 and 2012 with the Jiangsu Provincial Christian Council. We called it the Summer English Exchange. The idea for these exchange experiences came from The Amity Foundation, a social service and development organization founded by Chinese Christians in 1985. One of the contributions Amity made to Chinese society was their Summer English Program. Every year international volunteers would spend four weeks helping English teachers in Chinese Middle Schools improve their spoken English. Many U.S. Presbyterians participated in this program which continues today.

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Installment 12 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

In the last installment of the history of The Outreach Foundation in China we told the story of First Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, North Carolina and its historical connection with Jiangyin in Jiangsu Province. In this installment we will share about an American church with an historical connection to the Shandong Province, just north of Jiangsu. This is the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Presbyterians in the northern stream of U.S. Presbyterianism began sending missionaries to Shandong in the 1860s. By 1895, the Shandong Mission had become the largest, and, in many ways, the most successful work of the PC(USA) in China (G. Thompson Brown, Earthen Vessels and Transcendent Power, p. 78). Some notable American Presbyterian missionaries served in Shandong, and one of them, the Rev. John L. Nevius, greatly influenced the Presbyterian missions to the Korean Peninsula that began in the 1880s.

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Installment 11 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

The previous installment of the history of The Outreach Foundation in China was about the thirteen years that the Rev. Dr. Peter Lim was involved in our work in China, first as an informal consultant and mission partner, then as our China Mission Specialist. In this installment we want to return to the decision made in 2004 to focus most of our efforts in China on the parts of China where Presbyterian missions were strongest. While we did not give up our relationships in other parts of China, we pivoted toward Jiangsu Province and, to a lesser extent, Shandong Province.

We did not know at the time that God was putting the same idea on a Presbyterian congregation in North Carolina, First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington. This is a brief account of their China story.

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Installment 10 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

In a couple of earlier installments of the history of The Outreach Foundation in China we have spoken of the impact of our trips to China on the U.S. participants. In this installment we want to speak of the impact of one of our trip participants upon The Outreach Foundation itself. He is the Rev. Dr. Peter Lim, a participant in our 2002 trip who became the China Mission Specialist of The Outreach Foundation from 2008-2015.

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Installment 9 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

In the first six years of our commitment to the Church in China, The Outreach Foundation supported specific projects identified by Chinese Christians to help them meet their priority goal of training more leaders for their growing church. We had begun taking groups to China to see what God was doing there and to invite their participation in that work. The connection with the Church in Heilongjiang was strong, and the “mini-library” project was in the process of being implemented at the national level

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Installment 8 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China from 1993-2018

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

In the last installment of the history of The Outreach Foundation in China I spoke about the development of the Mini-Library Project, a proposal to provide thousands of lay leaders serving the Church in China with biblical, theological, and pastoral resources for their ministry. It was approved by the Presbyterian Women of the PC(USA) at the end of 2001, and we received over $175,000 from their Birthday Offering. The Outreach Foundation raised a similar amount of money over the next few years from within our constituency. A key family with a long history of connection to The Outreach Foundation played a pivotal role, and this is their story.

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Installment 7 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China from 1993-2018

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

I closed my last blog with this reflection:

“As the 21st century dawned, The Outreach Foundation was ready to make a strong commitment to the Church in China. We needed more insight on how to work well with the Church, whose top priority was leadership training. The next trip would lead to a huge breakthrough for The Outreach Foundation.”

In this blog I want to highlight how that 2001 trip led to The Outreach Foundation’s first national-level project in China. I begin with the following summary of the trip:

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Installment 5 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China from 1993-2018

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

In my previous blog on the history of The Outreach Foundation in China, I emphasized how meeting Chinese Christians has impacted the lives of American Christians. In this blog I want to share a two of those impact stories. 

David Bridgman, the son of missionaries who returned to China on our 1998 trip after fifty years away, wrote a journal of his experiences entitled “China 1998: An Opening Door.” Our time in Harbin was especially moving for him. This is what he wrote on the meeting our group had with two of the church leaders, the Rev. Lü De Zhi and the Rev. Li Mei Lan:

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Installment 4 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China from 1993-2018

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

Heilongjiang Province, located in the northeastern corner of China, was an unlikely place for The Outreach Foundation to begin its first sustained mission involvement. Historically, it had no Presbyterian missionaries; instead it had a Russian heritage dating back over 100 years. But it did have a “Presbyterian Connection” through its 2,000,000 Chinese of Korean descent. 

Among the Christians in the Church in Heilongjiang were Korean Chinese, and one of the Korean Chinese Christians, the Rev. Li Meilan, was a leader in the Church in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province. Pastor Li was used by God to build the bridge to American Presbyterian mission efforts when she met two American Presbyterian missionaries serving in South Korea. This is how it came about.

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Installment 3 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China from 1993-2018

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

The Outreach Foundation was a new missionary movement within the Presbyterian “family” when the churches in China reopened. When the time came for us to work in Mainland China, we looked to those within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who already had connections with the Church in China. In this blog I want to highlight two of those people, Dr. Insik Kim and Dr. Donn McCall. Dr. Kim opened the way for us to build relationships with the Church in China, and Dr. McCall gave us confirmation of the mission strategy we would pursue. 

The Rev. Dr. Insik Kim was Coordinator for East Asia and the Pacific for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from 1973-2008.

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Installment 2 of the History of The Outreach Foundation in China from 1993-2018

by Jefferson Ritchie, Mission Advocate

The year that the Executive Director of The Outreach Foundation, Dr. Howard Chadwick, visited Taiwan and saw the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, he also came to South Korea where my wife, Megan, and I were missionaries. Dr. Chadwick led a retreat for the Presbyterian missionaries and told us what was going on in Taiwan as well as introduced us to the newly-formed Outreach Foundation. 

Around this time, we also began hearing about the reopening of the churches in Mainland China. Some of our denominational leaders had visited China and shared what they had seen with us when they stopped by Korea on their way home. Their stories interested me, and I hoped for an opportunity to see the Church in China one day.

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