'The Story of Ruth' Musical Drama Hits Chinese Churches in SE Asia

Jun 20, 2007 08:33 AM EDT

As media evangelism has becoming more popular, Chinese Christians in South East Asia have begun to explore this field. An influential Singaporean Christian media company recently produced a musical drama "The Story of Ruth", which draws thousands of audience from Chinese churches in Singapore and Jakarta.

JES Media Holdings has spent eight months in producing the musical drama. While the script of "The Story of Ruth" is purely based on the Bible, chaplain of the Singapore Bible Seminary Rev. Tan Cheng Hock is the advisor. With the persecution period accorded in the book of Judges as the background, the musical drama told the historical story that illustrates the Moabite girl's experience.

Ruth married an Israelite. When her husband passed away, she would rather follow her mother-in-law than return to her hometown. Ruth had no choice but to glean the fields to feed her widowed mother-in-law as she was criticized by the Bethlehem people and from a humble background. Ruth's strong belief and principles, and good attitude and noble character, had deservingly earned her recognition and respect of the Bethlehem people.

Later on, Ruth met her mother-in-law's close relative, Boaz, and then married him. It then brought about a new Kingdom because her son was the father of King David.

According to JES Media Holdings, this story clearly illustrates the persistency in faith and belief as well as a loving relationship between people. Therefore, it is a great example for the world today which suffers from lack of love and declining morality.

As "The Story of Ruth" was first showed in Singapore late March, JES Media Holdings moved a step forward and introduced the drama to Jakarta Mandarin Church in Indonesia in May. The two shows have drawn over 3,000 Chinese Indonesian Christians from different churches.

On June 25, "The Story of Ruth" will be marching into schools in Singapore with its first show at the Methodist Girl School. It is expected to reach out to many young people. According to JES Media Holdings, it is planning to launch a world tour for "The Story of Ruth". "The Story of Ruth" is performed in Mandarin with the duration of 2 hours.

JES Media Holdings is a non-profit Christian media company. It has partnered with many other organizations to bring gospel messages to the public through drama performance. Another famous masterpiece was "Days of Noah" in cooperation with the Hong Kong-based Media Evangelism Limited.