MINISTRY//Grace and disease

Families in China are struggling. This includes Christian families. A year and a half ago, 316NOW began a pilot project to help Christian families discover God’s plan for healthy relationships.

Pilot project

We focused on helping children improve their relationships with their parents. An American teacher meets online with an upper-grade school child. Together they work on improving the child’s English skills, but mostly they talk about how much God loves them.

One of the students is a 14-year-old boy. We’ll call him Miles. In March 2017 he was diagnosed with a type of lupus. In spite of ongoing medical treatments, the disease continues to worsen. Now, just a fever will endanger his life.

Miles’ commitment

In addition to battling his disease, Miles, like all Chinese children, is under a lot of family pressure to excel at school. But his Bible study with this American teacher has been a priority he is not willing to give up. No matter how weak he is, Miles always insists on his weekly Bible class.  

His mother says, “Miles is very thankful to his teacher for his loving care, teaching, and prayer. Through the weekly study of God’s Word, his faith in Jesus has been strengthened and his life has an unwavering hope. The promise of God's love has always been the sunshine of his weak body that will not go away.”