Carol Lee Halter loves Jesus so much that she has spent nearly all of her adult life serving people of
all ages and income level--if any. Into hundreds scantly furnished homes and children's classrooms she
goes carrying pounds of schoolbooks and bibles. She's now 81 and, she informed me, she's been
evangelizing like this here for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for more than 40 years. Carol Lee's
mission she says is: " The only thing I live for is to tell people about Jesus. "
The missionary "seeds" which Carol Lee has planted in Hong Kong,today is now a "special administrative region" of the People's Republic of China with a population of 7.5 million people. Here she has been a major force sprouting six primary schools, six high schools ( all with a total of 18,000 students ) and a special education school for grade school and high school students. " When kids come into the primary schools", Carol said, "they have never heard of Jesus. When they leave, many of them now do believe in Him. "
There are more than 1,000 Christian churches in Hong Kong; yet only 11 per cent or of the country's population is reported to be Christian. To help the hundreds residents who are forced to sleep on streets, Carol Lee has been heavily involved in organizing her mission's Chinese New Year's party ( which serves a "big" lunch ).
Carol has been described by a colleague and others as a "bundle of energy , the apostle lady with the dress ". She has written a book in Chinese , now translated into English and speaks fluent Cantonese; she graduated in 1965 from Valparaiso University as a Lutheran Deaconess and received her master of divinity degree in 1984 from the Hong Kong Concordia Theological Seminary . "She has a heart for the Chinese and a passion for people, and is very patient with them ," her friend Janice Lau once told me .
Mrs. Lau is a Sunday School teacher at the Church of the Holy Spirit in San Francisco, which is Carol Lee's church in America. " When my husband and I occasionally visit her in Hong Kong, " Mrs. Lau said, "and an ambulance passes us on the street, Carol immediately says a short prayer for whoever might be inside it." Carol makes an occasional trip to her home base in San Francisco .
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Eight percent of the population of Hong Kong is "categorized" as ethnic minorities", which includes a large number of Filipinos and Indonesians who together make up approximately 4.6% of the population. However, the majority of the Filipinos and Indonesians population are short-termed foreign domestic helpers.
What led Carol to become a missionary ?
" It all started in Florida when I was about fourteen years old," she recalls." At that time a missionary from Africa came to our church and spoke to our Sunday School about his work among the black people of Africa. I was sitting in the second row on the right-hand side of the church. I was curious about the array of drums and bones he had on the table in front of him. What in this world could these things be used for?
"When he explained that these were used in Africa to worship the gods, it came as a shock to me to realize that still so many people in this world did not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus , there was just one thing I wanted to do--- and that was to tell them about Him. As a teen-ager and young person I often said to God, “Here am I! Send me.” I didn’t know if God could really use me or not, but I always hoped so.
" I rejoiced when God first allowed me to come to the mission field of Hong Kong, and now, after over fifty years of proclaiming His Gospel to the Chinese people, I still rejoice – and even more. I thank God for letting me be one of His servants here on this mission field, and I pray to Him that He will send many more to the mission field to reap the harvest that is ripe and waiting. "
Carol Lee paused . " I am now looking out the window of my 14th floor apartment, and I see many buildings around mine. I live here in Mei Foo Sun Chuen which, when it was built, it was the largest private housing project in the world. In its small area of about ½ mile by ½ mile there live 56,000 people. Over 100 buildings are almost exactly alike. Each building is 20 floors high and each floor has six to 8 apartments.
Carol (far left ) shares the Word of God on the streets
of Fan Ling, New Territories, Hong Kong
" What thoughts go through my mind as I look out the window at the many other twenty-story buildings that surround mine? There are two thoughts that I have again and again. Both of them take the form of a prayer. The first one is, God there are so many people out there, and so few of them know you. It breaks my heart when I look out and see so many apartments where they have incense burning to the idols which cannot help them. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. This is just what the Bible says of them in Psalm 115. How sad it is to see people offering fruit and meat to these idols which cannot help them. I just so long in my heart for all these people to know the true God Who loves us so much that He gave His only Son to die on the cross for our sins, and Who even gives us His Holy Spirit to help us to believe in Him. If only these people could all know the true God, then they would no longer have to live fearing the demons and trying to appease the gods. Yet only eleven percent of the people in Hong Kong The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke 19:10 .
A letter to Carol's friends and parents of her students:
There are many Filipina maids here working for local Hong Kong people, and so I provide and donate clothes, shoes, and other items for them to send back to their families in the Philippines. Whenever COVID prevents gathering in person, I spend a lot of time sharing the Word of God with people who are sick or in need of counseling using e-mail, What’s App, or the phone. If I ever have any extra time, for future Sunday School teachers training programs. So the work continues even though much of it is online because of the pandemic.
"But rather than telling you in detail about what I do in Hong Kong these days, today I would like to tell you about a couple of my favorite people here. One is Mia, a street sleeper in her forties whom I met in a nearby park. At first, she would ignore me and not let me talk with her. Gradually as I brought her face masks and water, she began to warm up to me. Although I found a place for her to live rent-free including meals, she does not want to go there. She is afraid that it would limit her freedom too much because she would have to be home at a certain time at night as well as participate in helping cook meals and wash dishes.
"I continue to be in contact with her, if not in person, then at least by phone. She told me that she doesn’t always answer her phone because she is too tired or is not in the mood to talk. I always tell her that even if she does not answer her phone, when she sees that I called, then she can know I was praying for her at that time. Whenever we talk together, she wants me to pray for her. She asks that I pray for her too, have good health, people to help her when she needs help, and enough money to live on. (As a street sleeper she gets money from the government each month). She is not ready to talk to God herself yet, so please pray for her that she will come to know Jesus Christ and trust Him as her Lord and Savior.
"The picture above was taken when we were celebrating her birthday together at a tea house. Another one of my favorite people in Hong Kong is my dear Mrs. Chan for whom I have been praying for many years. She is happy to have a meal together or talk with me on the phone, but she does not want to believe in Jesus. She believes that when she was young a god named Guan Yin helped her. She doesn’t want to turn her back on that god. Guan Yin in other places is sometimes depicted with a thousand arms and varying numbers of eyes, hands and heads, sometimes with an eye in palm of each hand.
" How very sad it is when people do not know the true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are always so many here in Hong Kong who need to know our Lord Jesus Christ. Do pray for these two ladies and all the other people here who do not yet know and believe in Jesus. "
Challeges and fun
I asked Carol what really challenges her in life. Her reply: "The fact of seeing so many people who need Jesus and don’t know Him yet. And meeting so many people in great need of counseling (which I do all the time). It seems like anything I do is such a small, small drop in the ocean."
And for fun and recreation? " Singing Christian songs and listening to podcasts with my girlfriends. "
Age? " Born 1942-12-29. Still working full-time with lots of energy--all totally due to the
grace of God Almighty. "
To support the LCMS through the work of Carol Halter, you may send a tax-deductible gift
to:
Mission Central, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
40718 Highway E 16 or P.O. Box 66861
Mapleton, IA 51034 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861
Make checks payable to “The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod” or “LCMS.”
Include “Halter-Hong Kong” in the memo line.
Gifts can also be given securely online through the LCMS website at www.lcms.org/halter
The End
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