Dear friends, brothers, and sisters in our Lord, Jesus Christ,

By the Grace of our Lord, Chaplains for Christ sent a team to China on one of the most exciting mission trips we have ever taken. Below is a photo of our team and the 1000 Bibles we distributed.

Usually, we go to prisons in other countries and conduct ministry, distribute Bibles to the inmates and do prison training. However, at times we have gone to the persecuted church in various countries to distribute Bibles without doing any prison work, i.e. The Sudan and the Philippines.

About ten years ago, I had a dream in which I was standing in China and handing out Bibles one by one to the people. That dream became a reality at the beginning of September ’08.

We found the Chinese people to be more warm, friendly and helpful than any other people group I have ever encountered. I love the Chinese people and the first day we were in Beijing, I had the opportunity to give the gospel message to a group of Taoists who had never been exposed to the Gospel. In fact, they didn’t even know that China has officially recognized Christianity although the Chinese are only allowed to attend the government Christian church which is called the “Three Self Movement”. In order to accomplish our goals, we had to do the same thing that I did in my first trip to southern Sudan – carefully work outside the acceptable boundries allowed. We went at the invitation of a ranking official in rural China, I cannot disclose the details, but we tried to be “invisible” as long as we could. We stayed in a private home in Beijing until we took a train to a remote area of China.

There, we spent four days distributing 1000 Bibles to eight underground house churches. We personally handed the Bibles one by one to the people, preached, prayed, sang and worshiped with them with no restrictions. Some traveled many miles to be with us in the services and we even ate with them and stayed with them in their homes, most built in caves in the mountains.

We were the first foreigners they had ever seen and none of them, except the pastors (usually female), had ever had a Bible nor could they afford one if one were available. They only had hymnals, which they sang from.

They didn’t even know how to use the Bibles when we gave them to them. We gave each one of them a tract called “How to Read the Bible” which suggests starting in The Gospel of John instead of Genesis. (Below is the first page of this tract in Chinese)

We have videos and still photos of all that we did. At one of the churches, two unfriendly people came to the service and after we had lunch, the pastor received an angry call from the police wanting to know who we were and what were we doing there. We immediately left and from that point on, there was an “all points bulletin” issued for us and we saw many cars being pulled over and searched – but not ours. We had passed many checkpoints, both police and military, on our way to and from the churches but were never stopped and searched.

Once we had delivered all of the Bibles, we stayed at another “friendly” hotel where many of the usual rules were more “relaxed”. However, we were alerted that the police were on their way to see us. It was 10:30 PM. From down at the end of the hallway, I began to hear knocks at every door of every room slowly getting nearer to us. Then, they knocked on our door.

When I opened the door, there was a hallway full of police (about 7 or 8), some in uniform and some not. One spoke English and said, “Here they are.” They were polite and asked to see our passports and visas. Then they left – for the moment. They then talked with our Chinese companion from the U.S. and the Chinese official that invited us, who, by God’s grace, had come to say goodbye to us all. Soon they returned to our room and began to ask us questions. What kind of work did we do, please give us your passports again (they looked at every page and wrote down information from them), when did we arrive in China, when are we leaving? etc., etc. They left again, for the moment. They again talked at length with our befriended Chinese official and our Chinese companion. Suddenly, the official and and our Chinese companion were in our rooms telling us to quickly give them our videos and camera discs because the police were about to confiscate them and see where we had been and what we had done.

We quickly gave all of them to her and she hid them in a garbage can in the hallway in case of searches in all of our rooms. Moments after she left, the police knocked on our door. We barely had time to put empty discs into our cameras. They asked for the cameras and opened them to look at the images. “Why are there no images on these discs?” We said, “Well, we begin our tourist visit tomorrow at a nearby tourist attraction. After all, there isn’t much to see in these small towns.” They were very upset and began to search some of our belongings for what they knew to be missing film. We told them they could look wherever they wanted. We knew that they would find nothing including any of the 1000 Bibles because we had passed them all out.

We then spoke with all of the provincial officials who had come looking for us – The Wise High Police Chief of the province, the Minister of Religious Affairs in the province and other police officials. The Governor of religious affairs asked why we had not seen him before we went to the churches. He claimed that he would have personally driven us in his own car and taken us wherever we wanted to go. Right.

After three hours and the providential intervention of our local Chinese official, they left.

We returned to Beijing but stayed in a home. We never did register with the police, which we were supposed to do wherever we went. We knew better.

Finally, we shopped, went to Tiananmen Square and even climbed the “Great Wall”.

What a trip. To God be all the Glory.

Chaplain Rob Brown

“..you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Dear Brethren,

Greetings in the wonderful name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Chaplains for Christ International formed a team that traveled to Romania during this time. The team consisted of Constantin Lupancu, Pavel Sav, (Stefan) Fanel Cornel Tohatan, Grigore Aluculesei, Randy Steven Chandler from Dallas TX, and Willie Ripple from Chicago each of which had the privilege to minister to inmates and churches in Romania. Together with Triumph of Hope Mission led by Daniel and Emilia Husar from Romania, they ministered in about 14 prisons and jails. This mission was different from others because they concentrated more on reaching those behind bars with the Gospel of freedom from Jesus Christ.

From among those 25 prisons with maximum security in Romania they were able to visit the southeastern part of the country with God’s help. Our team arrived in Bucharest on February 12 at noon. Our contacts, Daniel & Emilia Husar and Costel Gramada (a pastor from Urziceni Church), met us at the airport in Bucharest and drove us on the same day to the first prison in Tirgusor which is close to the capital of Romania and arrived around 3 pm. This prison is a women prison and about eighty women attended the meeting. The message presented by Steven Chandler, Willie Ripple, Constantin Lupancu, and Daniel Husar lifted up and encouraged those women and many of them rededicated their life to Christ. Some of them committed for the first time to change their lifestyle and to receive Christ. At the end of the service we gave them bibles and some clothes that we brought for them.

On February 13^th our team visited Jilava Jail in the morning where we ministered to about 50 inmates that were very open to the Gospel. We gave them bibles at the end of the service. In the afternoon, we’ve been granted access to another prison in Bucharest named Rahova. In this prison some inmates appeared resistant towards our ministry but during the worship part of the service, the songs sung by Daniel & Emilia Husar, broke their resistance and when the message of Jesus Christ was presented, their hearts were open to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

The administration of the prison asked us if we can remodel and old building that was previously a movie theatre during the communist regime and to transform that into a place of worship. Our mission was not to transform buildings but lives, being the most important. The gospel and the worship songs had a big impact on about 100 inmates that attended. Many of them committed their life to Jesus. In the afternoon, the same day, we traveled to Tulcea, a city in a delta close to where the Dunav River empties into the Black Sea. We arrived there at about 2 pm and were granted access in the prison, which is located in the city of Tulcea. In order for our team to minister more efficiently, we divided into two teams. Constantin and Brother Ripple ministered to about 80 youth inmates. They were very interested in hearing the Gospel and testimonies of lives transformed by the Power of the Holy Spirit and they asked us to pray for them at the end of the service so that they receive Jesus Christ. A asked if he could receive Jesus because he understood that only Jesus can make any real difference in his life and the lives of human beings. We gave them bibles and encouraged them to read the bibles and pray everyday. The other group ministered in other wings of the prison, and returned with a joy that the transforming power of Jesus confirmed the message they presented. Brother Daniel Husar (former inmate), noticed an inmate without any shoes, instead he was wearing slippers on a cold day. Daniel took his new shoes and gave them to the inmate and took the inmates slippers and walked outside of the prison. Outside the prison, Brother Ripple (also a former inmate) saw Daniel without shoes but in slippers and asked him what happened. Daniel gave him the testimony of the shoe and slipper trade. William took $100 and handed them to Daniel to go and buy himself a new pair of shoes. What a great illustration of Jesus leaving the glory of God and walked in our ‘slippers’ to put us in a better spiritual condition and save us from death and hell. He identified with us and our needs; He took our nature and became flesh. No one understands us better than Jesus and no one understands the life of an inmate than a former inmate.

On February 15^th we ministered in the prison of Braila where we have an attendance of about 75 inmates. At the end of the service, we gave them bibles and prayed for them so they will be strong in faith. In the afternoon, we traveled to the city Galati where we ministered in the prison of Galati. We brought a message of encouragement. We worshipped God, gave them bibles and prayed for the inmates. On the morning of February 16^th we traveled to a city named Focsani where there was a lot of opposition for Christ in that area. Despite the opposition, we were very welcomed in the Focsani prison by the director and administration of the prison. Not only the inmates but also the guards and director attended the meeting. We ministered with songs and the message of Hope for the hopeless inmates. We pointed the guards towards Christ, whom has the power of transforming the lives of those inmates into a good citizen for the country and for Heaven. The orthodox priest/Chaplain also attended the meeting and was very welcoming. At the end of the service, we gave bibles and prayed for those that were open to receive Christ as the only “Rope of Hope”. In Vaslui we were granted access to the prison in the afternoon (even though it was a Saturday). The director came from home to meet us at the prison and gave us access to visit two dormitories, where we shared with the crowded inmates, the love of Jesus Christ and the difference that Christ made in the life of those that accept Him. The testimony and the Word of God was powerful and anointed and even the director said that she sensed something about that day she had never sensed before. She was so grateful that we came and ministered to these inmates. We apologized that she had to go out of her way to attend, but she stated that she was so blessed herself, because God had touched her. An orthodox priest was arrested and was living in one of the dormitories, and we presented the Gospel to him and the established with Christ in order to be saved – not the tradition of religion.

On the morning of February 17^th we split into two teams. At the Church of Bacau, we met Nelu Albu, a former inmate and a testimony of a life transformed by the Power of Jesus Christ. The second team, together with Daniel Husar, went and ministered in the prison of Bacau and distributed bibles to the inmates.

On February 18^th we left to minister in another prison in Iasi. We arrived in Iasi at about 12 pm and the director invited us to his office. There he questioned us for about 45 minutes. One of his concerns was what we used to transform the lives of people. We gave him a lot of testimonies and presented the Word of God who has the power to change lives. Then, he gathered together all the chiefs of security in the prison, and presented us with a dilemma. There wasn’t enough room for us to minister there, but if we minister to the chiefs of the rooms, they would in turn, minister to the inmates. We accepted this method and we went to that room where all the chiefs of security were gathered along with the guards. We presented the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them who were attentive, open and responsive. We gave them bibles, courses for the mission in prison and also goods such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, notebooks, and writing utensils

On the morning of February 19^th, brother Chandler and I traveled to the prison of Botosani where we had a meeting upon arrival at noon. The prison administration welcomed us to come and minister but when we got inside, the orthodox priest/Chaplain tried to confine our ministry only to certain people. But despite his resistance, there were about 75 people that came to hear us. God moved and many of them rededicated and dedicated their lives to Jesus Christ. We gave them bibles and prayed for them.

On February 26^th brother Stefan Torac came early in the morning and drove us from Suceava to the Bucharest Airport. In the meantime brother Pavel Sav from our team, after he separated from us, ministered in the prison of Popa Sapca Timisoara and the prison in the city of Arad with brother Silviu Grigoras. Finally, the team departed from Bucharest to Chicago and safely returned home in America after a great but long mission trip.

May all the Glory and Honor and Power be to God who protected, sustained, and blessed the team and their families during this mission trip. May the Lord of all creation richly bless all of you.

Staff Chaplain Rob Brown

Executive Director