The next morning, Chaim was up well before the sun. While he waited for the others to wake, he went over some of David's papers, which had been left out for him, along with a few explanatory notes.
It was getting harder and harder to pay for the printing without a microchip implant like everyone else was using. Those businesses that still accepted cash charged higher prices, and the only shipping companies that would let them get by without the implant tended to be dishonest ones. Chaim and the six judges had agreed that it was time to phase out the entire printing project.
Along with their unanimous attraction to doing free work, the movement was discovering that all of their members had a natural aversion to the microchip.
People everywhere were getting the tiny implant injected under the skin of their right hand, so they could just wave their hand under a scanner, like a credit card, when paying for things. Most Twelve Tribe members felt, even before they met each other, that the implant gave too much control to Dangchao's new world order. Some rebelled against it as yet another invasion of privacy. Underground believers in China had long seen it as the dreaded "mark of the beast". For these and other reasons, not one member of the Twelve Tribes had accepted the implant, and Chaim was teaching them that it should stay that way.
The sun still had not come up when Charmane slipped quietly into the room.
"Hi," she said as she sat down beside him. She yawned, then said, "I couldn't sleep."
"Do you want to talk?" Chaim asked, lifting his head from the papers.
"Not now," said Charmane, and she continued to sit there, saying nothing.
Chaim continued to read through the papers.
Half an hour later, Charmane spoke. By this time, Chaim had just about finished with his work.
"Why you ben worrying?" She asked.
Chaim smiled to himself. She could see right through him.
"Well , little sister," he started. "I'll tell you about it. I want to be a good leader. I want to follow God, and help other people to follow him. But sometimes God seems cruel. Do you ever think that?"
"God? Cruel?" She thought for a moment, scratching her head. "Yeah, sometimes," she concluded finally. And then added, "So what you wanna do 'bout it?"
"Do about it?" he asked himself, and then had to cover his mouth to keep his laugh from waking the others. "Huh! There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it, does there? Except maybe worry."
"You're not a worry man," Charmane stated.
"You're right. I'm not... most of the time," Chaim said. "If we can't change it, why worry about it, eh? I'll get over this one somehow."
"Yeah, I know," she said with a big smile.
"So what do we have planned for today?" Chaim asked, after a short pause.
*
Later that morning, Chaim sat with David on a park bench and looked out at a group of twenty people scattered haphazardly on the grass near them.
Charmane was there, squatting with her bottom almost touching her ankles, a most uncomfortable position in Chaim's opinion. A few people were going through slow motion exercises. Some reclined in various poses, but most just sat cross-legged. And all were quiet.
"Each day is different," David explained. "They might wait here all day, with people just coming up to them and asking questions or inviting some of them to their homes after talking for a while.
But mostly they form teams and move out in different directions. It's how they get most of their free work jobs, but it isn't always work that they do."
"Do they always start here?" Chaim asked.
"No, definitely not," David answered. "Charmane seems to know where they should start, and she makes arrangements ahead of time. If they were to go to the same place, people would take notice. We don't want that."
Just then, they noticed the people moving together into a tight bunch.
"They're probably going to share what they've received now," David explained. "She has different people each day, and yet they always seem to know just when to stop meditating and to start sharing."
"See that guy? Over there on the left?" Chaim was pointing to one man who was seated a short distance away from the others. "Any idea why he isn't joining in?"
"Oh him. He's from the Three-Self Church. That's the one the government set up years ago. Most of the old underground people see them as traitors, worse than the communists. Some of the Three-Self pastors tried to help secret believers in the old days, but they also had to betray them occasionally, in order to keep their position with the government. We don't get many people from Three-Self, but when we do, they have a hard time fitting in."
"Can he be trusted?" Chaim asked.
"Personally, I found him as keen as anyone here. He's especially eager to study Bible prophecy. They totally outlawed it in the Three-Self Church, you know."
"Yes, I've heard that," Chaim said. "It's ironic that the Chinese government seems to know more about Bible prophecy than the churches in the West. I'm supposed to be an expert on religion, and yet I never really understood it."
"The Three-Self people are super patriotic" David said. "They talk about the 'true Jesus'. He's not so different to the Jesus you hear about in a lot of churches in Australia. Never rocks the boat, and always supports the Government. More like the 'false Jesus' in my opinion."
Chaim nodded, thinking about his own earlier understanding of Jesus.
Then he changed the subject. "I went over the papers this morning, and it seems like you've done well with stocking up literature for the tribes."
"I hope so, because it's all they get. The last shipment goes out next week, and then I can be here in Guangzhou full-time."
"How's Charmane doing on her own?"
"She's not really on her own. Lee Chong is just one of many who look out for her here."
"How is her Chinese coming along?"
"Atrocious!" laughed David. "She's not a language person; but she spends so much time listening that it hardly matters. People just watch her and they learn. On the streets she keeps telling them to think poor, and then they start finding stuff everywhere.
"We have caves and abandoned buildings stocked with non-perishable food and literature, all over the country. The wealth here in China is amazing. They've come so far in recent years."
Chaim marvelled at how close he felt to David now, compared to his attitude when he first met him. David had changed, as a result of his contact with so many non-Christians, but Chaim believed that the most significant change had been in his own attitudes.
"It's good to hear that things are moving along so well," he said. "I'm off to Karachi tomorrow. But it has been a good visit. You're doing a great job, David."
And he really meant it.