From Tonga to Panama, Adventists Seek to Reach Out to the Chinese Diaspora

Several Seventh-day Adventist leaders serving at the Hong Kong-based Chinese Union Mission traveled to the South Pacific in July 2026 to support an evangelistic initiative in that region. They were deployed to the Kingdom of Tonga and the Solomon Islands, where they reached out and connected with the Chinese diaspora residing there.

The team was supported by regional church leaders in their efforts to share the good news of the gospel “to every tribe and tongue.” Fluent in Mandarin, team members talked to Mandarin-speaking residents in Tonga and the Solomon Islands as part of the Trans Pacific Union Mission for Christ initiative. Local territories provided accommodation and logistics support.

A street in Nuku’alofa, the capital city of the Kingdom of Tonga. A team from Hong Kong supported the Tonga for Christ initiative across the nation as they tried to connect with the Chinese community there. [Photo: Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review]

“No one has ever reached out to the Chinese living in Tonga,” explained one of the team members. “But here in Nuku’alofa [the capital city of the Kingdom of Tonga], most small shopkeepers are Chinese.”

What Missionaries Are Doing

Team members explained how they just began visiting stores, knocking on doors, and talking to the owners, inviting them to learn about the Bible and Jesus.

In Tonga, there’s only a small Chinese congregation from another Christian faith. Other than that, most Chinese are non-Christian or not religious at all, visiting missionaries explained. It’s not easy, they acknowledged, because Chinese are known to be hard workers. “They start early in the morning and keep their stores open into the evening,” one missionary shared. “It makes having time to discuss spiritual topics more difficult.”

Grounds of the Tonga Mission that helped accommodate and support the team from Hong Kong that sought to reach out to the local Chinese community in the Kingdom of Tonga. [Photo: Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review]

Still, in Tonga there’s a law that forbids any kind of work on Sundays. So it is a day that Adventists can use to reach out and do mission work among the Chinese, he explained. “It represents an opportunity for us to invite them to study the Bible,” he said.

Reaching to the Chinese Diaspora

In other regions of the world, Adventist members are reaching out to the Chinese diaspora, showing friendship, and caring for them. In 2020 the Adventist Church in Honduras inaugurated its first community center for the Chinese community in Tegucigalpa. The leaders’ goal is to serve the thousands of Chinese families in Honduras.

Daniel Jiao, president of the Chinese Union Mission, participates in a baptism in Honiara on the last day of Solomon Islands for Christ, July 18. He spent two weeks in the country connecting with the local Chinese community. [Photo: Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review]

The stated intent of the center is to help Adventists learn more about Chinese culture and provide such services as Mandarin classes for the younger generation to get reacquainted with their own culture. At the Tegucigalpa Center supporters coordinate Spanish-language classes and healthy lifestyle and cooking classes. In addition, the center is used to help local Chinese with legal assessment and serves as a recreation center, church leaders said.

Caring for 60,000

In Panama City the Adventist Church has also opened a center at the heart of the local Chinatown. The center began offering several activities in the community in 2021, regional church leaders reported.

At that time, Samuel Telemaque, then Sabbath School director for the division, remarked: “With leaders properly equipped with a better understanding of the different approaches to sharing the message in special people groups, the consistent efforts will yield great results.” Telemaque is now director of Adventist Mission for the Inter-American Division (IAD). It is estimated about 60,000 Chinese reside in Panama and another 20,000 in the Dominican Republic.

Chinese embassy representatives in Honduras sing China’s national anthem next to several audience members during the opening of the new community center for the Chinese community on March 3 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. [Photo: Honduras Union/IAD]

That same year, the IAD organized a week of mission filled with appropriate messages as part of a cross-cultural outreach initiative to reach Chinese communities. Presentations touched on topics of health, family, and money, leaders reported.

Praying and Waiting for the Harvest

In the Solomon Islands, Chinese Union Mission president Daniel Jiao also engaged in reaching out to the local community. He participated in the July 18 baptism in the capital city of Honiara, where hundreds of people were embraced as church members on the last day of the evangelistic efforts in the archipelago.

A group of the Chinese community in Panama City, Panama, pose for a photo with Zhang Shu (second from right) and his wife (left) during the inauguration of the new center of influence held in January 2020. [Photo: Panama Union Conference]

Overall, visiting missionaries acknowledge, significant challenges remain in reaching out to the local Chinese. Still, missionaries understand what their role is.

“Our job is to spend our days sowing,” one of them commented. “Harvest will eventually come.”