SAN FRANCISCO- Leading Chinese Christian organizations have taken the opportunity to share the gospel as the Chinese community in San Francisco Chinatown celebrates Lantern Festival.

San Francisco Chinatown is holding the two-day annual Street Fair on Feb. 11-12, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of Chinese people in the city. Among all other secular businesses and organizations, a few Chinese Christian churches and ministries have set up booths to reach out to the grassroots and share the true blessings from Christ’s salvation with them.

At the booth of Chinese Christian Herald Crusades (CCHC), the team of over 10 volunteers has prepared a full-day program for evangelistic purpose, including traditional Cantonese opera, band show, puppet show, choir performance and games. People from all walks of life and all age groups- whether they are children, youth, adults and elderly- have attracted to certain activities. In particular, in the puppet show performed by a group of young adults, the gospel message of embracing the ones who are different is being conveyed.

At the same time, some other volunteers are distributing the Herald Monthly newspaper published by CCHC for free to other passerby and calling them to watch the gospel program at the spot. For those who have showed interest in the work of CCHC, some leaflets are available for further information about the other evangelistic activities.

For Chinese Christian Mission (CCMUSA), apart from distributing handouts with gospel messages and introducing their ministries, the booth also offers some basic health services for free such as checking blood pressure.

Cumberland Presbyterian Chinese Church, a prominent church nearby at the Chinatown, has also got a booth. A team of over 10 volunteers with a majority of youth or young adult has served at the booth from early morning to 4:00 p.m. Every hour, a puppet show will be performed to promote the outreach programs organized by the Church. Those who are interested in joining those programs can sign-up immediately with the assistance of volunteers. English tutorial class for new immigrants and the one-year car repairing class are the most popular programs, the director of social outreach of the Church Susanna Sham said.

"I am glad to see that more and more Chinese Christian organizations have joined this Fair and taken these opportunities for evangelistic outreach. I hope that more social groups can participate together in the future and organize joint effort for evangelism," said Sham, adding that the Church has already been running such kind of booth at the annual Street Fair in Chinatown for over 10 years.

Sham also said that the response was very good today, but she anticipated that there would be even more people coming on Sunday.