Chinese Students Choosing Christianity

March 10, 2011— -- "Kitty" encountered Christianity at several junctures of her life in Eastern China -- first through a wayward aunt, then through a reformed cousin, and finally via a high school classmate who was quiet about her faith.

But a lack of in-depth knowledge about the religion paired with an education based in Marxist principles, which shuns religion, led Kitty to discount Christianity while she lived in China.

"In school they would not say, 'There is no God,'" said Kitty, a University of Texas graduate who asked that her Chinese name not be used. "They would just say, 'You should believe in science. You should believe in anything you can see.' So we only believed in something we could see or something we could hear. And surely we cannot see God."

Cut to February 2011: Members of the Austin Chinese Campus Christian Fellowship sing an up-beat Christian hymn in a classroom on the University of Texas campus. Kitty is in the second row. Her body thrums with devotion as she sings, "You opened my eyes to your wonders anew. You captured my heart with this love. Because nothing on Earth is as beautiful as you, Jesus!"

In May 2009, Kitty, an international student from China was baptized at the Austin Chinese Church, officially converting to Christianity. Since then, she has enjoyed homemade chow mien, a shared language, and group prayers with her ACCCF brothers and sisters at fellowship meetings every Friday night.

In the 2009-10 academic year, the number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. spiked by 30 percent, to nearly 128,000 students, according to the International Institute of Education.

Madeline Hsu, director of the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas, said that China's recent economic boom has allowed a larger population of students the ability to seek an education in the U.S.

"A lot of schools in the U.S. are more than happy to have these international students. For one thing, they pay more in tuition," Hsu said.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, international students contribute nearly $20 billion a year to the U.S. economy.