by Dr. Jean Uayan (Professor of Church History)
In an article entitled “Religious Demography and Mission Strategy” [International Journal of Frontier Missiology 29:1 (January-March 2012): 13-21], authors Todd M. Johnson and Albert W. Hickman observed trends in religious demography. “Today,” they wrote, “200 million people are on the move, carrying with them their cultural and reli-gious background.” With regard to trends in Christian mission, they also noted that mission to the world’s cities is increasingly important as half of the world’s population is found in cities. According to the data given by the Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net/countries.php) there are 1,044,000 Han Chinese, 13,000 Cantonese Han Chinese and 486,000 Filipino-Chinese/Mestizo in the Philippines. It is not clear how many of these Han Chinese are new mi-grants. However, there is no doubt that such immigrants, mainly from the People’s Republic of China, are all over the big cities and even rural areas of the Philippines.
Among the 1.044 million Han Chinese, only 12% are Christian adherents/professing Christians and 3% are Evangeli-cals. Among the Filipino-Chinese, 96% are Christian adherents/professing Christians and 11% are Evangelicals. The task of reaching these groups of Chinese, not to mention the 106 million Filipinos in the Philippines, naturally falls on the more than 80 Chinese Evangelical churches and is the prime reason why BSOP exists. Aside from training Chinese Evangelicals to become pastors who go out to share the Gospel of Christ, BSOP intentionally sends out mission teams to partner with the churches in this endeavor. This year, 12 teams were organized, visiting 15 cities and other re-mote areas. Not only did they reach out to the Chinese, they also distributed tracts and shared the Good News to Filipinos of different ethinicity. In this and the following pages, the pictures tell their own stories. For what the teams experienced, enjoyed, and were able to accomplish, to God alone belongs all glory and praise!