Have you ever not answered someone’s phone call to you because you know they were going to want something? You know that one person that you never hear from unless they need money or they want you to watch their kids. I have a few people in my life like that but I still love them. Anyways, I know I haven’t written much about china yet but I thought everyone would enjoy reading about one of my experiences there and how it changed my perspectives of how I view God.
One chilly Sunday morning in China, my team and I wake up late to finish our last day of work. For three days we all have been staying in one hotel room with two beds. There are seven of us but we made it work. Some of us sleeping in the bed but the boys and I allowed the other girls to have the beds. LOL….funny enough the beds were as hard as the floor so it wasn’t really a big sacrifice. Any ways as we all scramble to get ready to finish this last day with a bang, I noticed that I’m moving slower than everyone else. My team assumed that maybe I was tired or even not feeling good, so everyone tried to encourage me to get a move on it. I put a little pep in my step and hurried up and got ready so I could listen to a sermon by Dr. Tony Evans. The sermon was called “Remembering God’s Faithfulness”. I finished the sermon as my team and I walked the busy streets of China to find breakfast before we head out into the villages. We came to this restaurant that was something like a fake KFC and we all started ordering everything but a healthy breakfast. So as I wait on my food I began to fight off the feeling to cry. All month I had known that this moment would come but I wasn’t prepared for it and I had been trying so hard to stay focused on what I was doing. The empty feelings that I had leading up to grandma’s funeral last year were now consuming me. This time was different though. This time I wasn’t able to just run into my parents or even my granny’s (my mama’s mother) arms like I had done previous times before.
I sat and cried feeling completely defeated by emotions. I began to pray and ask the Lord to send his Holy Spirit to be my comforter and not just for me but for my whole family. As I sat consumed in my emotions praying and crying, five teenage girls about 14 or 15 entered into the restaurant and sat close to my team and I. Like everyone other Chinese person in China they were completely amazed to see foreigners. So they began trying to take pictures of us without us knowing, but finally one of the girls decides that far away pictures just weren’t good enough. She comes over and starts taking individual pictures with each person on my team. I knew she was going to come to be because many people in mainland China haven’t seen black people before. After she takes a picture with Jo, Lauren, and a few other of my teammates she heads straight to me, but to my surprise as she approaches me she hugs me. But she didn’t stop there, this beautiful young child holds me for a minute and then she cups my face into her hands and gently wipes away my tears. I smile through my tears and took a picture with her and then completely lost it after that. I was completely speechless. That was the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for me.
To be continued…….
