Mobile Daily Devotional

Part of me wishes that we had done this issue years ago. Northeast Asian cities, especially in China, are growing extremely rapidly, and they have been doing so since the 1990s. What can we expect to see during these times of great change? Most likely, there will be a widening gap between the rich and poor. Some will make much money in businesses, while others will try to scrape by as day laborers. Farmers will lose their land as more of the soil becomes devoted to urbanization. These landless farmers will probably wander to the cities to take low-paying jobs.

We can also expect some social changes. Many of the otherwise remote, unreached people groups will be living in places where they can be reached with the gospel. As the generations go by, they may lose their unique ethnic identities and languages. It will be easier to reach them for Christ in the urban future than it was in the rural past.

One word of caution about this issue. Though we tried to match up unreached people groups with cities where some of them live, sometimes the matchups were a little forced. Paul Hattaway, the author of the urban China books which we used extensively in this issue, noted that the reached Han Chinese groups mainly inhabit China’s cities. However, there are often pockets of unreached minorities, especially in cities in Chengdu and Lhasa.

Please pray for the cities themselves as well as the unreached people groups this month.

In Christ,