Adventist Church reaches Chinese communities in Tonga and Solomon Islands

Several Seventh-day Adventist leaders serving at the Hong Kong-based Chinese Union Mission traveled to the South Pacific in July to support an evangelistic initiative in the region. They were deployed to Tonga and the Solomon Islands, where they reached out and connected with the Chinese diaspora residing there.

The team was supported by regional church leaders in their efforts to share about Jesus. Fluent in Mandarin, team members spoke to Mandarin-speaking residents in Tonga and the Solomon Islands as part of the Trans Pacific Union Mission for Christ initiative. Local territories provided accommodation and logistics support.

“No one has ever reached out to the Chinese living in Tonga,” explained one of the team members. “But here in Nuku’alofa [the capital city of Tonga], most small shopkeepers are Chinese.”

Team members explained how they began visiting stores, knocking on doors, and talking to the owners, inviting them to learn about the Bible and Jesus.

In Tonga, there’s a small Chinese congregation from another Christian faith. Other than that, most Chinese are non-Christian or not religious at all, visiting missionaries explained.

"It’s not easy because the Chinese are known to be hard workers," they explained. “They start early in the morning and keep their stores open into the evening,” one missionary shared. “It makes having time to discuss spiritual topics more difficult.”

In Tonga, there is a law that forbids any kind of work on Sundays. So, it is a day Adventists can use to reach out and do mission work among the Chinese, the missionary explained.

“It represents an opportunity for us to invite them to study the Bible."

In other regions of the world, Adventist members are reaching out to the Chinese diaspora by showing friendship and care for them. In 2020, the Adventist Church in Honduras inaugurated its first community center for the Chinese community in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The leaders’ goal is to serve the thousands of Chinese families in Honduras.

Chinese Union Mission president Daniel Jiao participated in baptisms while visiting the Solomon Islands.

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The stated intent of the center is to help Adventists learn more about Chinese culture and provide services as Mandarin classes to help younger generations get reacquainted with their own culture. At the Tegucigalpa Center, supporters coordinate Spanish-language classes and healthy lifestyle and cooking classes. Additionally, the center is used to help local Chinese people with legal assessments and serves as a recreation center, church leaders said.

It is estimated that about 60,000 Chinese reside in Panama and another 20,000 in the Dominican Republic. In response, the Adventist Church in Panama City has opened a center at the heart of the local Chinatown. The center began offering several activities in the community in 2021.

At that time, Samuel Telemaque, then Sabbath School director for Inter-American Division (IAD), remarked, “With leaders properly equipped with a better understanding of the different approaches to sharing the message in special people groups, the consistent efforts will yield great results.” Telemaque is now the director of Adventist Mission for IAD.

That same year, IAD organized a week of mission filled with messages as part of a cross-cultural outreach initiative to reach Chinese communities. Presentations touched on topics of health, family, and money.

In the Solomon Islands, Chinese Union Mission president Daniel Jiao also engaged in reaching out to the local community. He participated in the July 18 baptism in the capital city of Honiara, where hundreds of people were embraced as church members on the last day of the evangelistic efforts in the archipelago.

Overall, visiting missionaries acknowledge that significant challenges remain in reaching out to the local Chinese. Still, missionaries understand what their role is.

“Our job is to spend our days sowing,” one of them commented. “Harvest will eventually come.”

The original article was published on the Adventist Review news site.