My month in China was filled with a lot of crazy travel days, cold weather, sickness, smog, and a lot of sharing the gospel with a couple of good friends we made here.
Our China adventure started with a 35 hour train ride from Hong Kong to Lanzhou. That was a bit of a rough way start the month but we all survived that ride and made it to our hotel in Lanzhou. During that ride the climate changed from warm to really cold. It was very similar to the weather back home in MN actually, just no snow. That meant we all needed to find warm clothing if we were going to survive this month. So everyone traveled over to the clothing markets and found plenty of cheap warm clothing.
For our ministry this month we weren’t connected with any organization. We were basically free to do whatever we wanted. My teammate Jamal and I spent a lot of time at Lanzhou University playing some basketball and eating at the cafeteria as a way to meet some people. We ended up meeting a 16 year old boy who we met with a few different times. This first couple of times we spent some time getting to know each other. Then in our last meeting we were able to share the gospel with him. He had no idea what Christianity was about or why we celebrated Christmas but he was open to hearing everything we had to say and gladly accepted my Bible before we left.
We also spent a lot of time with another man we’ll call Joe. He was a man searching for true meaning in life and was very interested in hearing our testimony’s and any wisdom we had for him. Most days he would come over to our hotel in the morning and my team and I would study the Bible with him or talk about life. Then in the afternoon Joe would take us to see different places around the city and that presented a lot of other opportunities to talk to him individually.
Meeting Joe was the highlight of the month. He helped us a lot in terms of helping us find good cheap food to eat, helping us find our way around the city and was our translator whenever we needed him. He blessed us so much and I think he felt the same way about us because of all the time we were able to spend with him.
Overall it was a great month except being sick with a head cold and cough and other stuff for much of the month. I really enjoyed my time in China and really liked how my team had no other responsibility this month besides sharing the gospel. Now as I write this from Beijing we’re at our month 4 debrief where the whole squad comes together to regroup before we head out for the Philippines. I think everyone is looking forward to warm weather again and all that God has for us there.
