The photo below is of migrant worker housing at a brick-making factory in a coastal city in China. These workers that make the bricks are primarily from the Yi minority group primarily poor mountain dwellers with a rich cultural history. These individuals are very mistreated by locals and factory officials, which makes it even more difficult for outsiders to connect with them.

A recent New York Times article includes a video clip of what happened to the New York Times reporter and his crew as they tried to make contact with Chen Guangcheng, a prominent activist in China -- including being hit by a broom-swinging "guard" in plain clothes and then locked in a van while their phones and cameras were erased.

"We thought we were a political movement. What really happened was a spiritual movement. God used the massacre to wake people up and prepare their hearts and minds for a new spiritual awakening. ... Many church leaders say it was a major turning point in how the churches evolved from rural to urban and became able to have a profound impact on China's society. It feels like Acts 29."  -- powerful insight from freedom-fighter Chai Ling, one of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement leaders.

Trying to explain the hardships migrants workers from the rural areas of China experience when they move to new Province where most factories and jobs are located is complicated -- but our friends at ChinaSource recently commissioned a white paper profiling "Those Who Drew the Lower Lot" and captured the "hukou" issue succinctly:

Chinese photographer Stefen Chow created this interesting slideshow illustration of how far 49 cents US (3.28 yuan) goes -- a typical daily wage for poor in China. Even using China's standards, their "poor" are living on less than $1 US per day -- which starts to put in perspective the 300 million Chinese poor that are leaving the rural countryside to move to the cities as migrant workers. 

WorldServe President John Sittema and India church-planting partner, Paul Devakumar, recently shared with Frank Keasler and Lesley Vitel on American Home Radio, a Saturday morning radio talk show in Jacksonville, FL, what just $1 per day can do in India. Just $1 per day allows the church to feed, educate, clothe and disciple these precious children. You can listen to an archive of American Home Radio at 600 AM WBOB's website.

WorldServe recently partnered with Dr. Paul Devakumar and his growing network of 230 village churches ministering to the most vulnerable and neglected in India -- orphans, street children and women-led households. Check out this video preview of the work to which we're being called ...

This video done by EdgeTV, though two years old, provides an detailed look inside China's underground house church movements that still have to delicately navigate the pressures being Christian in China.

Inside the Chinese Church from EdgeTV on Vimeo.

Recently the 80 millionth bible ran off the production line over two decades of printing at the only company officially licensed to print Bibles in China, the communist-owned Amity Printing House. An astounding 50 million bibles have been for domestic use, the rest for export ... but oh the irony of the communist party making money off the country's Christians who are often prevented from freely gathering to worship.

This is a must watch! "True Believers," a documentary on China's House Churches, also provides a humorous, but very serious, glimpse into the current tensions with Chinese authorities and China's "secret police."