For Dalits—formerly known as “Untouchables”—in rural southern India, officially declaring their Christian faith comes with a cost: Leaving Hindu caste identity requires Dalit Christians to abandon government benefits such as free college tuition and potential job opportunities.

As 2019 began, the 110 newly elected members of Congress arrived in Washington, D.C., to less of a fresh slate than a fresh slew of problems: A partial government shutdown trudged into its second week, with each party blaming the other for the impasse.

Mary Li Ma and her husband Jin Li collaborated to write Surviving the State, Remaking the Church: A Sociological Portrait of Christians in Mainland China. Through hundreds of interviews with Christians all across the country, Ma and Li show how Christianity transforms the lives of believers, including their views on education, marriage, charity, and nationalism. Here are edited excerpts of my interview with Ma, who grew up in China and professed faith while earning her Ph.D. in sociology.

How did you come to Christ?

HO CHI MINH CITY and HANOI, Vietnam—Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, is a mix of the past and present. Motorbikes whizz past a French-colonial-style post office; a red banner with a yellow hammer and sickle hangs from a lamppost next to a sleek skyscraper; slender women in flowing ao dai (a traditional silk tunic) snap selfies in front of a bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh.

This is the second story in a series about Christians born in the 1980s and ’90s in Chengdu, China, and how their faith influences their lives and livelihoods. I visited four of the millennials mentioned in “Taking the narrow path” (April 1, 2017) seven months after our original interview to see how they were doing now and added a new character, Zheng Xianghuang (the seminarian). The believers all attend Early Rain Reformed Church and represent the next generation of leaders in the Chinese urban church.

A Burundi moment:

Merry Christmas from Burundi. I’ve been traveling in the East African country of about 11 million people, located just south of Rwanda. The country is full of rolling hills covered in tea and coffee trees, which are a brilliant green right now due to the rainy season. It’s stunning, but it’s also one of the poorest and hungriest countries in the world, and recovering from recent armed conflict.

Ian Johnson is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the persecution of Falun Gong adherents in China. His new book is The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon, 2017).