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Macau Profile.Indd MACAU Macau [also spelled Macao], a Special Administrative region [SAR] of China, was formerly an overseas territory of Portugal and a major trading port. It is on the south coast of China on the Pearl River estuary. Population are joined to each other by a causeway and fishermen moved to Macau and the area • Population: 547,591 bridges. began to be established as a trading center • Density: 18,753 per sq km Its border with the Chinese province of for southern China. The early settlers built • 93.6% ethnically Chinese [largely Guangdong is marked by the massive a temple to the Daoist sea goddess, Matsu Cantonese speakers] Barrier Gate (or, “Border Gate”) erected or A-Ma, from which it is thought the name • 2.4% Macanese [Eurasian] by the Portuguese in 1849. It is connected Macau may originate. • 4.0% Other [Portuguese, Filipino, by ferry to Guangzhou and Hong Kong. In the hands of Europeans, Macau was Thai, Russian, other] An airport was opened in 1995, and the transformed, and it was an asset to the Macau is one of the most densely islands are being developed, but many Portuguese empire. Ownership enabled populated areas in the world. Macau City is parts are rural and peaceful. Portugal to increase trade with China, the commercial and administrative center Macau is a free port, so all vessels may load Japan, India, Southeast Asia and Mexico. of the province and is home to the vast or unload there without paying import It also led to Macau becoming the East majority of the total population. The land duties. Asian seat of Roman Catholicism, with its is almost 100 percent urban, but it does bishops controlling missions from Goa to contain some cultivated “green spaces” the Moluccas and Japan. such as parks. Climate But Portuguese colonial and trading power Macau has a subtropical climate, with declined from the mid-1600s, and Macau a monsoon from June to August and a struggled as Japan ceased trading with the Religions typhoon season from May to November. outside world and the Dutch took Malacca. • Chinese religions 62.0% The winters are cool and the summers For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, • Buddhist 17.1% warm. Annual temperatures average 68°F Macau was the main European trading • Non-religious 14.9% [20°C]. post in Asia for the next 80 years. However, • Christian 5.3% [Roman Catholic in 1841 the British took Hong Kong, and 3.1%, Protestant 2.2%] Macau’s importance in world trade began • Baha’i 0.5% History to wane. As Macau lost its pre-eminence in • Muslim 0.1% Macau was Europe’s first and last colonial Chinese trade, it began to gain a reputation There is no state religion. possession in East Asia. It was established as for smuggling and gambling. a trading colony in 1557, after Portuguese Portugal quietly handed Macau over to navigators first landed in the early 1500s. Language China in December 1999. Macau is now a But they were not the first to use it as a Cantonese is spoken by nearly 90 percent Special Administrative Region [SAR] of the commercial port. During the Ming Dynasty of the population. Dialects and other People’s Republic of China and follows the (1368-1643), Chinese languages, such as Mandarin and principle of “one country, two systems,” a Hokkien, are also spoken. Portuguese is similar status to that an official language, and Macanese or of Hong Kong. Patuá, a creole based on Portuguese, Malay, Indian and other languages, was used by the Macanese (people of mixed Portuguese and Asian heritage). Now, with the Macanese reduced to one percent of all inhabitants, it is the mother tongue of just a handful of citizens. Geography Macau covers just more than eight square miles. It is made up of a peninsula and two islands 40 miles west of Hong Kong. They OMF INTERNATIONAL • 10 W. Dry Creek Circle • Littleton, CO 80120-4413 303.730.4160 • 800.422.5330 • (f) 303.730.4165 • [email protected] known, St. Paul’s Cathedral, present a small number of missionaries has been described by work in evangelism, discipleship, lecturing historians as the finest in the Macau Bible Institute and English monument to Christianity teaching. in the Far East. Most of the cathedral burned to the ground in 1835, but Opportunities Available the façade remains and was • Long-term work in all aspects of restored by the Portuguese in church life. the 1990s. • Short-term English-teaching. Macau is also famous for the first Protestant missions to China. The first Challenges Include Chinese convert was baptized in Macau • Meeting felt needs among casino and Robert Morrison, the first missionary workers who work rotating shifts. to China, translated the first Chinese Bible • Reaching out to restaurant and there. When he died in 1834, he was buried Macau is overseen by a committee of hotel workers are another group in the city’s Old Protestant Cemetery. The politicians and businessmen who are with shift work. English teaching evangelical population in Macau has always approved by Beijing. presents a way to reach out to been small and growth has generally been The economy is dependent on tourism, them. slow, although it doubled in size between including its long history as a gambling • Finding ways to befriend tertiary/ 1990 and 2000. center, although older, traditional gambling university students from mainland dens are giving way to larger casinos and According to Operation World, Macau is China. There is potential ministry hotels. Gambling revenues in Macau now one of the least-discipled communities using English and small groups to surpass those of Las Vegas. of Chinese in the world. Training for local foster friendship. leaders is essential to help the church • Building and strengthening the survive. small, struggling local churches and Christianity believers. During Macau’s Catholic heyday, • Sowing gospel seeds among missionaries trained there and Catholic Strategic Priorities domestic helpers (especially literature was published. Peninsular Macau Missionary work is still permitted in Macau Vietnamese). There is a need for was said to have more churches per square under Chinese rule and OMF International Christian Vietnamese to teach the mile than Vatican City. continues to have a base there. OMF Bible to them. International (Macau) was officially Today the Catholic population has dwindled registered in 1996. Work has included prison Updated October 2012 to three percent of the total. Many old visiting, hospital chaplaincy, evangelism, churches remain, as much as tourist discipleship and church planting, Sunday attractions as places of worship. The best school teaching and English teaching. At HOW TO PRAY • Pray for those involved in the in evangelism, discipleship, planting movements within the gambling industry, which employs church planting, drug addiction region will spread to Mainland 40 percent of the workforce in rehabilitation and Bible teaching. China. more than 40 casinos. This presents Pray for their effectiveness in • Pray for effective witness from a tremendous challenge to the Macau. short-term teams visiting in the Macau church in terms of effective • The evangelical Christian summer. outreach as well as discipleship. population doubled between 1990 • Pray that Christians would work and 2000. Give thanks for this together, presenting a unified growth. witness. Pray for trust in ongoing • Pray for God’s blessing on all relationships. evangelistic and discipleship • There has been an influx of ministries. missionaries from Hong Kong and • Many mainland Chinese have other lands, most being involved moved to Macau. Pray that church-.
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