Hello blogging world! I’m baaaaaaccck!! I don’t have much time as I’m sitting at a coffee shop in a busy mall in Hong Kong using their free wi-fi to compile my thoughts on China and share them to you through the mind of Brenda….
Let’s start with the bad & ugly of China….shall we? At the end of our time in NW China in a city I can’t spell the name of (but can tell you where to get the best food), my camera was stolen from me. They left me with the case, however, which I thought was quite thoughtful. But they did get all of my photo’s (so don’t mind me if I direct you to other people’s blogs for photo’s or only put up Beijing photo’s)….did I also mention that it was stolen the day before my birthday?
So basically that left a bad taste in my mouth. I got on the train to Beijing mad at China and wrote the following in my journal…
“I decided that I hate China. The stealing of the camera mixed with all of the awkward & annoying experiences have just been adding up. Things like the poop filled troughs without doors (aka: squatties) that I stood in to go the bathroom, being stared at, pointed at, being ripped off for food, the driving rules (there are none), the constant honking & blasting karaoke on buses….I’ve come to the ‘I hate China’ part of my life. I do know that they need the Lord though. So even as my flesh hates this place right now, the Lord has brought me here to love it anyway. Love the people who he loves…to love those who grow up with no truth. Those who work hard their whole lives to please their parents, their teachers, the government, their ancestors, or their religion. They need truth. They need freedom. I need to forgive the theft of the camera. I need to love where I’ve been annoyed. I’m here because to LOVE them anyway. China needs to know truth & freedom in Jesus Christ!!!”
My anger turned into prayer and love and hope for a nation I was mad at for a couple of days. Now that I think about it…I think China is amazing and I would love to return.
On the good side (I like to end with a good side)…we met a man named “Mark” on a very random day. A day where a crowd gathered around Dennis, Carly & I and we found Mark to be the only English speaker. He led us to a school where we met teachers & spoke to an English class, ate lunch together and then met up later with the rest of our team where we toured a mosque, a villagers home, and had dinner where Mark shared with us about his life’s perspective and the struggles he faced and what he believed. He in return asked us the same (answering our prayer earlier that he would ask us because at this point we weren’t sure if he was working for the government or not)…and we shared the gospel with him and he was ready to receive it at our dinner table in some extremely long winded and hard to pronounce town somewhere in China! We took him back to our hostel and taught him to pray, gave him a Bible and to share what he knew. Please pray for Mark and his journey in China.
