Boston Trip Conclusion

Attended a good morning service at Park Street Church, sermon by Pastor Hugenberger on Evangelical. He made mention of Rev. Tong's arrival next week and will be the guest speakers for the whole Sunday's services. "Nuclear man" was how he described Rev. Tong's energy. I do however feel uncomfortable when he mentioned Dr. Tong is the second greatest evangelist in the world today, next to Billy Graham. Of course, this is obvious if judged according to the numbers of audience preached. However, when one has studied how great John Calvin's ministry was, which still is, one might think twice before arriving such conclusion. Rev. Tong was an evangelist whose ministry impacts a Muslim country, as a reformed Christian, his doctrine is soberly sound with no toleration to anything less than God's will.

I believe Billy Graham would have been number one in my book today had he not tolerated those which he referred to as "heated issues". Of course, when one works with Americans in America, I would agree that the temptation to fall is greater.

Well, I wonder if it's just me or that areas surrounding MIT were like ghost towns. I've only managed to hand out one "package" to a Japanese (if not Korean) guy who's smoking in front of MIT's main building. The rest are mostly tourists...there's just no sense to waste my time inviting them to Rev. Tong's rally.

So I went to Harvard Square. It was rather crowded and there were already some group of Christians handing out their own tracts in front of the Harvard campus entrance. I did not do anything. I took the time I have to visit the Boston area up to Boston University, where I had the most success in handing out all my flyers minus the Chinese version. I stood on a less crowded site. My theory has it that if one hands out tracts or flyers in a most crowded area, the chances for them to take notice are actually slim, contrary to common sense.

My pastor had printed me 100+ copies of her flyers which have additional talks hosted by Rev. Tong at Harvard and elsewhere. But after realizing the problem with the details and calling the pertaining staffs for confirmation, I had to throw all those flyers away (after stapling most of them last night and handing one today). I did not want to confuse anyone with misinformation on language and location, which were partly inaccurate on the flyers. I ended up handing all 60 of my own flyers in English with the first few attached with a copy of "Our Daily Bread". This is actually the first time I have distributed away all of my "Our Daily Bread". As for Dr. Tong's other talks, which seem rather last minute, it's beyond my ability. It is always important to plan ahead, orderly and be accurate with the message, otherwise they are as good as garbage. Of course, I'm sure all is well and I will keep praying for God's blessing and mercy in all of Rev. Tong's activities here in Boston.

As a side note, I do notice that the interracial relationship, the AWWM (Asian woman white man) complex, is remarkably stronger here in the whole Boston area if compared to just downtown Manhattan. Perhaps due to colleges in the area. I started wondering about the future generation in America, Christian outcome, etc.

It is 9:19 PM now, I am now concluding this entry at Back Bay Station, awaiting for my 10:30 PM Megabus to arrive to take me home at 3:00AM. Given the time I would need to get from Time Square to my apartment, I would say I should be taking a long long (if not on the bus) sleep at 5AM. Good thing I've moved some schedules to Tuesday and tomorrow is Labor's Day.

Although it's not really "My" ministry, I am medidating this in conjunction with burden of energy and strength - miles of walking, sore feet, patience vs wisdom vs time efficiency, etc.