Mr. Justin Haruyama (University of California, Davis)

Over the last decade, there have been a proliferating number of Mandarin-language Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations in Zambia. These congregations are almost exclusively composed of local Zambians who have learned Mandarin as a second language, and count few to no ethnic Chinese congregants among their number. Nevertheless, these congregations conduct their meetings exclusively in Mandarin, and their Zambian congregants have attained a very high degree of fluency in Mandarin. Though ostensibly formed for the purpose of evangelizing to Zambia’s rapidly growing Chinese migrant community, members of the congregation emphasize that the apparent lack of Chinese converts is no failure at all. The talk will explain how their evangelizing efforts represent a challenge to secular time.