Church in Chengdu.....

We find the only Christian church in Chengdu. When we arrive the service has already started. There are many people, and police at the gates. We make our way to where all the noise is coming from, a shabby building with at least 300 people inside and many others literally hanging out the windows. We push our way to the back and an elderly gentleman ushers us to two spare seats as someone leaves. People are coming and going all the time, and another person scrambles to the spare seats, sometimes jumping through the window. We can't understand anything, but recognise the familiar Christmas carols sung in Chinese. We join in. A procession of candle bearers proceed into the church as the lights are turned off; they sing many songs with gusto. Children perform and are cheered loudly. Many people are taking photographs mainly on mobile phones. A male soprano sings How Great Thou Art in Chinese and the people applause loudly at the end of each of the 3 verses when he bellows out how great thou art. He struggles with the last verse and has tears in his eyes as he is so moved by the Spirit...... He finishes strongly. Kevin has fortunately videoed it.When the service ends we go outside and hear squeals and shrieks as lollies are thrown from a balcony. People scramble to get them off the ground. As this finishes the "Jesus" police I have named them usher us out very promptly. Kevin catches them taking our photo as we talk to a young Chinese couple who wished us a merry Christmas. We spoke with them in their limited English and they tell us they have never been to this church before, are Christians and belong to a group of about 20 people who meet in homes regularly. They say they both have their own Bible. I try to find out about the level of control the government has on Christians, but they don't appear to understand or don't want to answer our questions....we ask them to show us where a coffee shop is as they are very rare.....they walk us up to Starbucks!!!! and we invite them for a coffee but they decline.