Written by Prudence Tan Chen
February 6th, 2010
Grace Church of Glendora, CA
When I received an e-mail invitation by Pastor Gene to attend Grace Church’s Chinese New Year Celebration, I felt so privileged to know that our church no only has great passion for Global mission projects-like Bibles for China but also for local outreach towards local Chinese families and friends to celebrate the most important Chinese cultural heritage.
Our GFA (Grace for Asia) director, LiPing Martinez coordinated the event filled with joyful and fun activities for Grace Chinese Families and friends to create meaningful relationships and special memories together. Furthermore, this event also opened a door for new friends to visit church and for Grace families to plug into small groups.
On that day, we arrived at church around 3:30 to decorate our room with 4 paper/silk lanterns hanging on the ceiling, one year of tiger deco hanging near the front stage, 4 Chinese spring couplets on the wall, one firecracker deco hanging by the other side of the room. All of the beautiful decorations naturally created Chinese New Year atmosphere!
There were 10 round tables with red table clothes. We placed different tea sets brought in by different families as center pieces along with a plate of water melon seeds on each table. To serve tea and watermelon seeds are authentic way to welcome guests to any Chinese home for gathering.
After we finished decorating our room, few ladies started wrapping dumplings with three different fillings prepared by LiPing. LiPing began to boil the dumplings for our guests upon their arrival.
When majority of our guests arrived with potluck dishes, Pastor Gene blessed the food. We began our evening by watching 10 minutes of China today made by Discovery Channel. Afterwards, we lined up to get a different variety of Chinese gourmet food. During our dining time, Pastor Gene went around the tables to let us say our names and mentioned where we came from, so we would have a quick glimpse of all the different parts of China the whole group represented.
After dinner, Norman Chen sang two Chinese songs with acoustic guitar: the first one, Psalm 133; the second one, Reminiscence of Hometown. Later on, there were craft table to make Chinese lantern, Chinese calligraphy table which were well-liked by adults and children, wrapping dumpling at the kitchen, and trivia questions about China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong with prizes.
There were 61 people attended the event. Because of this wonderful program, two new families and two international students came to visit our church. What a great way to reach out new friends with a joyful gathering. One of the new families just moved to Glendora last month also came to attend Sunday service the following day.
Praise God for Pastor Gene, GFA director, LiPing, and other Grace members who volunteered their time and energy to make this beautiful event happened on Grace campus. My family was truly blessed by it and felt deeply in our hearts that we belong to Grace family and God loves all of us very much. We believe that the Chinese New Year Celebration was a beautiful gift given to us by Him through our Grace church.
May the name of our Lord be honored through everything we did in His name.