Online SalesmanOnline Salesman

By Jidian

I seem to have a special tie to Overseas Campus.

I accepted the Lord in Alabama, the United States in October of 1992. Overseas Campus began its publication in November of that year. Soon this evangelic magazine, with its fresh and vivid style and a combination of sentimentality and rationality, quickly attracted me to become its die-hard reader.

Our Bible study group in this small town in the South did not have a pastor. As we developed into a church, we were in constant need of coworkers. Brothers and sisters typically began to serve at church shortly after they accepted the Lord. They worked, they learned and they grew up. Overseas Campus provided me with tremendous help in the days of my early spiritual growth under the Lord's grace.

I began to go online in 1996 and I participated in discussions about Christian belief on Chinese websites. When I first went online, I did not know what to write. And so I often copied articles or excerpts from Overseas Campus. It seems there is a special tie between Overseas Campus and online evangelism and I quickly became an unpaid online salesman for the magazine.

Offline, my wife and I often recommended Overseas Campus to our friends and we even paid subscription fees for some of our unbelieving relatives and friends. At church, we strongly recommended the magazine to brothers and sisters and friends. We also subscribed two copies for ourselves so we could share them with our friends any time.

Even our little son was involved at a young age. When he was still learning to talk, he would hold a copy of the magazine and shake it hard. When asked what he was reading, he would reply in his childish Mandarin: "Hai Wai Xiao Yuan!"

Years have passed and Overseas Campus has become rich in contents and has attracted more and more writers too. There are more and more overseas scholar believers and online evangelism has become more and more prosperous. And, under the Lord's grace and guidance for my church and online services, I have become closer and closer associated with Overseas Campus.

Over the years, my wife and I have published our testimonies and our child education experiences on Overseas Campus. Rainbow is an annual publication in our church in Arizona. My wife and I participate in editing the publication and we also recommend testimonies in it to Overseas Campus. When I run into good articles on the internet, I will also recommend them to Overseas Campus.

When I see these articles getting published at Overseas Campus, bringing a lot of help to others, articles by my close friends or brothers and sisters, my heart is filled with joy.

Online evangelism and Overseas Campus largely share the same readers' community and they also share the evangelic and cultural missions. For this reason, Overseas Campus continues to maintain its attraction and profound impact on the internet. I often copy Overseas Campus articles to my online friends; Overseas Campus articles also become popular in more and more Chinese evangelic websites as well as among other online friends. We see more and more volunteer online salespersons joining in. In 2001, my introductory articles about online evangelism were published in Overseas Campus and Behold, a quarterly periodical published by Overseas Campus for Christians of visions and missions. At the end of my wife's testimony, the Overseas Campus editor wrote to introduce her: "Her husband is Jidian, a writer of this magazine." For the first time I realized that Overseas Campus already considered me among its writers. I felt I was not worthy of that, but I thanked the Lord for His grace. In these years of my strong ties with Overseas Campus, I feel I benefit from it the most. It is hard to describe all the help the magazine provides for me in my pursuit, growth and service. The Lord's grace falls upon me and gives me the opportunity to relate to this magazine that is extremely popular among intellectuals. I also get to know Rev. and Mrs. Su and Brother Lu, who often provide us with special help and encouragement electronically. I also have the honor to get to know the brothers who help posting Overseas Campus on the internet. These diligent volunteers are a great encouragement to me.

It has been almost ten years since I accepted the Lord. The tenth anniversary of Overseas Campus is also approaching. The editor of the magazine gave my testimony this title when it was first published: "No coincidence." I believe my relationship with Overseas Campus is also of no coincidence because God has always guided me with His loving hand. The author came from Chengdu, China. He works in New Jersey. His personal website for Christian belief is http://jidian.ccim.org.