We arrived here in Harbin on Friday morning at 8:30 am after a 19 hour overnight train. So to say we were all exhausted and slightly loopy is an understatement.
Later that afternoon, Alsya and I were hanging out at the coffee shop when she got a call to relay a message to the second ministry group leaving about dinner. So we packed up our stuff at Starbucks and went back to the hostel to meet up with them.
When we arrived there were only 4 people there, and the ministry contact had asked for 10 people. LaShon, Alysa, and I were only there to relay the message and then leave again because there were suppose to be a lot more people there. As they were getting ready to leave LaShon and I looked at each other knowing that we were going and just dove right in. We handed all of our stuff to Alysa and headed outside with the group.
It felt chaotic for the first few minutes because I just needed some time to wrap my mind around what was happening. We jumped on a city bus and went up two stops and had to "frogger" across the street. The area we were walking through is connected to a nearby campus and we were headed to an English Corner.
Leo and Simona were our guides for this ministry and they were fun to get to know as we walked.
We showed up to the English Corner and it was as if celebrities had just walked into the room. All of the Chinese students were super excited that we were there and immediately bombarded us with millions of questions.
After everyone calmed down and settled in we were able to formally introduce ourselves and we broke off into smaller groups to chat.
Vera, Rainbow, and Lucy were the wonderful ladies I got to talk with and a girl named Echo jumped in halfway through. They peppered me with questions and I peppered them right back. You all know that conversing is my favorite thing to do so this was just a BLAST!
It seemed like five minutes later we were being told our time was up and we needed to head back. But I was able to get all of the ladies contact information and I can't wait to see how the Lord uses these new friendships.
The moral to the story is…
GOD shows up BIG in the UNEXPECTED and UNPLANNED in life.
He knew I needed to go to that ministry on Friday night and He totally blew me out of the water with His timing and provision. I needed my heart to be excited and it was refreshing to jump into my nitch right away.
Please be praying for Rainbow, Echo, Vera, and Lucy as me and some of my squadmates continue growing relationships with them!
