When we were in China, we met a family in one of the cities we were staying in. It's a pretty remarkable story, really. They were the first hotel that would take us, being foreigners and all. When some of our group went out walking the city trying to find food and internet, the po-po met up with them and escorted them back to the hotel to get our passport numbers.
A few hours later, we went to pay for our room that night and they wouldn't take our money To the best of our ability, we asked them why they wouldn't take it; we found out in a phone call from one of their relatives who spoke english saying that we couldn't stay there that night because they didn't want any trouble from the 5-0. So, a few of us went out to find a place to stay for the night and then go from there the next day.
As we were getting ready to go, Mommy and Sister walked into the room (that's what Chinese people do – just let themselves in 🙂 After taking some pictures with them, they finally got across to us that they wanted us to stay with them again that night, even after the call with their relative. (For the life of me, I can't remember if the man was Mommy's brother or son…) We told them that we had already paid for a place and that we would be back tomorrow, and we prayed that they understood what we were saying.
The next day we came back and after that, they really began to treat us as a part of their family – we often ate meals with them, Mommy and Sister would make us dumplings for lunch/dinner, Mare & Bea would help with laundry and try to build a relationship built on helping them in any way possible. It was a beautiful picture of cross-cultural relations. And it reminds me that it doesn't matter what we say or how well we're able to verbally communicate – it's about what we do, not what we say.
we became fast friends with the family, and the son, Sheywa, took a special interest to us, taking us on adventures – we went to the Yellow River, the boys played hackey sack with a monk + Sheywa & his brother, we went to a bar where we sang, as a group, Amazing Grace and From The Inside Out in front of a bunch of tibetan people and listened to them sing traditional songs, we went karaoke-ing and just had a blast. They were all so generous and gracious with us. Oh! And we played dress up with them! They dressed us in their outfits and it was so much fun!
Please pray for that family, that they would accept Christ. Before we left, we printed out pictures, wrote a note on the back of them, telling them how glad we were to have met them and telling them about Jesus. Pray that their relative who spoke/read english translated what we wrote on the back and that they are now followers of Christ. Also, pray that if they are/when they will be, that they will get a bible and start telling everyone they know about the love of Christ. Pray for revival in the land of China, that Christ would be glorified there and that the people who live there would no longer lfe a life dictated by fear of: man, grades, family, jobs, money, independence, or anything else that holds them back.
