Standing ready to serve new Lutherans

A couple begins two new Chinese worshiping communities
where there was none before.

By Rachel Pritchett,
communicator

SOUTH KING COUNTY — Zheng Zihao, raised in China and on his own here for just a month, came to be baptized.
Physical therapist May Tee, another new arrival to the United States, came because she didn't know a soul. Ruth Liu sought prayer support for her son battling depression.
Welcoming them have been the Revs. Mike and Rowena Wang, an energetic and charismatic couple who have started two Chinese Lutheran worshiping communities in the 32-mile stretch between Seattle and Tacoma where there was none before.
"God's dream, not my dream," she said after Sunday-afternoon worship at Federal Way Chinese Fellowship, where she is pastor and he assists. Since 2010, the fellowship has been a "synodically authorized worship community" of the ELCA's Southwestern Washington Synod, serving a dozen worshipers of Chinese heritage. They meet at Cavalry Lutheran Church.
Hours before, they had led worship for two dozen in Renton at Grace Chinese Lutheran Church of South King County. There, he is pastor and she assists. It meets at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church and has been a synodically authorized worshiping community of the ELCA's Northwest Washington Synod since 2007.
Both services are conducted in a mix of Mandarin, Cantonese and English.

New teen arrival baptized as Lutheran
This summer Sunday, the Grace congregation is especially excited. Zheng, who is only 17, is to be baptized, not just in the traditional Lutheran sense but also by immersion in nearby Lake Washington. The tight-knit Chinese community has wrapped a protective wing around Zheng, who has come from the Fujian province of southeast China to study English as a second language at Green River Community College. His landlord is a supportive Christian; his English instructor suggested he hook up with the people of Grace and the Wangs.
Mid-service as the smell of cooking rice permeates the room, worshipers head to their cars and drive under columns of gray Northwest clouds to the lake, where they walk across a footbridge to a tiny island next to The Boeing Co.'s monolithic plant in Renton.
Mike Wang and Zheng wade waist-deep through the frigid waves. The pastor takes a clam shell from his pocket and pours water three times over Zihao's head in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and asks in Mandarin, "Will you follow the way of Jesus?"
"Yes, I will," Zheng says.
Later back at church, Zheng and all the others enjoy the rice, now paired with many Chinese dishes families have brought.
Zheng has been an active Christian all his life, and when asked why he wanted immersion included in his baptism, he said through an interpreter, "because it is told through the Bible that we wash away our sin."
The roots of these two worship groups are house churches, where families have met for worship, Bible study and fellowship, sometimes for decades.
But house churches only could go so far. There was no formal child and adult education, for instance.
That changed after the Wangs made the Northwest their home. Grace Chinese Lutheran Church of Seattle, an established congregation, had helped support their training at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong. It was a natural choice for the Wangs to bring their dream of starting new Chinese Lutheran groups here.

Right time, right place
They arrived in 2005, when the Chinese presence in the Northwest was growing fast.
In King County, the population of Chinese residents grew 54 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census.
Some 69,212 King County residents, or 3.6 percent of the total population, was Chinese in 2010, more than three times the proportion of Chinese to the general population, nationally. The 2010 count, while still relatively small, was a sharp rise from the 45,018 Chinese residents in King County counted in 2000, then 2.6 percent of the general population.
Word travels fast through South King County's Chinese community, and the Wangs became well-known, first as volunteer pastors. The six families in Federal Way asked them to be their pastors.
The families and pastors had spotted centrally located Calvary Lutheran Church, and prayed in the church parking on three separate occasions that God would find them a house of worship. The Rev. Melanie Wallschlaeger, director for evangelical mission for the Southwestern Washington Synod, quickly helped, and Calvary's pastor, the Rev. Lori Cornell, and the Calvary council gladly made room.
"God opened the door," Rowena Wang said.
Southwestern Washington Synod Bishop Robert D. Hofstad has had an initiative to start new congregations. But in this case, the Wangs came to him.
"Sometimes starting new mission congregations means getting out of the way of the Holy Spirit's work, and then supporting that work when it becomes helpful," he said.
The pastor couple acknowledges it hasn't been easy convincing longtime house-church goers to come to church instead.
Mike Wang looks to the Old Testament.
"We challenge them. 'Do you want to go back Egypt, or do you want to go to Canaan?' " he said.
The Wangs anticipate spending at least 10 years growing Grace Chinese Lutheran Church of South King County and Federal Way Chinese Fellowship. They hope by then both will be full-fledged congregations that grew because stood ready for the new Lutherans of tomorrow, like Zheng, Tee and Liu, who cried after worship. She said she'd found the prayer support she needed for her depressed son.
"Wow, I'm so happy," she said.

Pictured:
The Revs. Mike and Rowena Wang
The Rev. Mike Wong baptizes Zheng Zihao in Lake Washington on July 31.
Member of Grace Chinese Lutheran Chur4ch of South King County look on.