October 01, 1985 by Ralph D. Winter

We must record something about a most amazing mission conference in which the writer was a participant but also a wide eyed observer.

This conference August 19-23 was first of all profoundly spiritual, but it was also very ably administrated, planned three years in advance, and 1,000 people young and old, jammed into a University gymnasiumauditorium.

This was the first "Chinese Missionary Convention of Canada." Considering the fairly small number of Chinese in Canada, and comparing that constituency to the Urbana Missionary Convention (which also started in Toronto  I was there in 1946), this conference was the equivalent of 40 times as large!

Imagine: Canada (small country compared to the U.S.A.); Chinese (a small minority in the small country); Christian (smaller still about two percent of Canadian Chinese); and Missionary (that usually makes anything smaller doesn't it?). And yet... and yet, that large gymnasium¬audi Lorium was packed, even in the gallery!

I will never be the same. Here is just about the world's most widely scattered population, 44 million outside of China, and yet throughout the blood stream of one of the world's most highly educated and monied populations we wake up to this virile, highquality commitment to missions!

The 5,000 Chinese churches of their 'Diaspora" or "Dispersion" could field 1,000 missionaries tomorrow. Hundreds and hundreds of seminary graduates are sprinkled throughout these congregations listed in the table. But now this conference bares the striking will and determination to do it!