Our Task Has Just Begun...

As a former economist (yes, I worked for Federal government for 3 years -- the length of our Lord Jesus Christ's ministry on the earth :-), I am still sensitive & interesting in statistics & figures. So when I spent sometimes reading Statistics Canada's Census 2011 few days ago, the following news came to my attention:

(1) Out of 910,000 population in Ottawa, around 19% are immigrants (177,000). If we include Gatineau into the picture, 16% of the combined population (1,220,000) are immigrants (201,000). The nation's capital region is still pretty multicultural & Mosaic, although the degrees (%) are much less than other major cities (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal) in Canada.

(2) Chinese population represents 2.9% (26,000) of Ottawa's residents, or 2.2% (27,400) of Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area. However, we often quote an alternative source (not sure where it originally came from) that we have 30,000~40,000 Chinese population in Canada's capital region.

(3) I did a rough calculation: the total congregation no. of 9 Chinese churches in Ottawa are around 1,800 (definitely less than 2,000). Not counting non-Chinese participants (mostly in English congregation) attending Chinese churches & excluding Chinese who attend non-Chinese (mostly Caucasian) churches, we are only reaching out less than 7% (1,800 out of 27,400) of Chinese population in the capital region. I do not think our Lord will be pleased (or even impressed) with the work we have been doing so far...

(4) Kanata is a community with 5% Chinese population (5,000 out of 100,000 total residents in Kanata). This Chinese concentration ratio is much higher than other regions across Ottawa & Gatineau. I even heard from various sources that there is a village (they called it "華西村" -- 渥太華西區的某村) in Kanata North (Kanata Lakes exactly) that 80% of residents are Chinese! However, we have only 2 Chinese churches located in (or near) Kanata. To reach out Kanata's Chinese community, we could have planted at least 1-2 Chinese churches!   

My dear friends, our task has really just begun! I do not have enough saving to move into Kanata Lakes neighborhood (and we are quite joyful as Barrhaven residents :-), but I pray that our Chinese friends in rich, middle-class or poor communities, will become friends of our church members across the city. Our new church site at EGAC is only few minutes away from both the richest & poorest communities in Ottawa -- I am exciting to see God's work through OMAC congregation in the future. May the peace & gospel of our Lord be spread into these communities and pray that we do much much better than 7% (although 7 is a perfect no. in the Scriptures)!