UMHB alum fulfills calling by making friends for Christ in China

ATLANTA—Last fall, Brittany Phillips went back to college. This time, it’s in another language and in China—a country whose people grabbed her heart years ago and wouldn’t let go until she returned to stay longer and make a difference. 

Serving as a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship representative, Phillips lives and studies in Chengdu, China, where daily she makes new friends and consistently is surprised by the opportunities God places in front of her.  

Through relationships with Chinese college students, Brittany Phillips is developing a collegiate ministry at a quickly growing church start in Chengdu, China. (PHOTO/Carla Wynn Davis/CBF)

Although friends describe her as cheerful and social, Phillips has never been the life of the party like she became one Friday night on a local college campus. At “English Corner,” Chinese students gather weekly to practice speaking English. So, a native English speaker like Phillips can draw a crowd easily.

“What do you like about China?” the students asked her. “Do you like Chinese food? What is life like in America?”

And then came two questions Phillips didn’t see coming, partly because they opened a door like none other: “Are you a Christian? What does that mean to you?”

“It was great to be able to share with them,” Phillips said. “But, even better, on our way back to the dorm, my friend asked me more about being a Christian. I was able to share so much more with her about why Jesus is important to me and why I believe and trust in Jesus.”

That’s the primary way the gospel travels in China —person-to-person and friend-to-friend. In the Sichuan province, where less than two percent of the population is Christian, Phillips is focused on outreach to university students and young people in the province’s largest city, Chengdu. There, a church was started more than a year ago, and Phillips teaches its first Sunday school class for college students.

“I hope that in making friends, teaching English, teaching Sunday school and being obedient to other opportunities God puts in my lap that Christ can be seen in my life and work,” she said.

Commissioned in 2008 for a two-year term, Phillips first traveled to China during a summer while a student at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. With ardent devotion to following God’s call and the nagging feeling that her heart was always in China even when her feet and the rest of her were in Texas, she knew she’d have to return.

“I really didn’t expect China to grab my heart the way it did,” she said. “When I came to China I just really fell in love with it—the students, the culture, the life. I felt at home.”

Determined to return, she didn’t know how until Meadow Oaks Baptist Church in Temple helped show her a way. 

One Wednesday night, Phillips used CBF missions education curriculum to teach the children about Bill and Michelle Cayard, who serve in Chengdu. Excited about ministry possibilities in China, Phillips applied to serve with CBF and months later found herself in Chengdu working with the same church as the Cayards. It’s an opportunity she never saw coming, but she can’t imagine living without. 

“I’m overwhelmed with the love that I have for the Chinese people as I meet them,” she said. “I just really hope that while I’m here I can take hold of every opportunity that God puts in front of me.

“I’m so thankful and so grateful for this opportunity and that people are willing and feel called to give.  It’s by their giving that I’m able to be here and be able to follow God’s call.”