My team, Uniquely Knit, is partnering with another U Squad team this month for our ministry. We were basically given a part of town, a college to connect with, a Christian Chinese contact, Rebecca (English name, obvi), and a mission.

Mission= Make friends. Make disciples. Duhhhhh.

So we set off to meet Rebecca and some other Chinese friends that she invited along at a Korean restaurant (I know) for lunch. What I love about the Chinese is that they LOVE Americans and really want to be our friend and hang out with us and just learn about Americans. Our teams had a great time getting to connect over lunch with these fellow Christians who are passionate about God and evangelism. And just super cool.

After lunch our new friends Harrison, Jeremy, and Steven took us over to their nearby college called Harbin Institute of Technology. It was a beautiful day and we had an amazing time just walking around outside taking in our environment, talking with these guys, and getting to learn more about their culture and life.

My teammate Bethany and I had an eye-opening conversation with our cool dude Harrison. We asked him what he thought of America(ns). He first said he views us as rich. We quickly laughed it off trying to explain, “ohhh we’re not rich!”

Next he said he sees us as free.

Free?

Harrison, what are we free to do in America that you aren’t? Or wish you could do?

He told us how he’s not free to do what he wants. Or choose where he lives. Or where to go to school. It’s all decided for him. He’s studying some fancy engineering in college against his own desires because he needs to do something to make a lot of money to provide for his mother and father.  He’s not even easily free to leave the country if we wanted to. The American dream to do and be anything you want is so appealing to him…. to them.

Reflecting on this with Bethany at the end of the day we were just moved. First, we tried to fight off the fact that we were rich when really…. we are! Even me having my own car, eating 3 meals a day, a home, and a job, I am SO RICH compared to the rest of the world.

Living this new WR lifestyle and having a daily food budget of literally $2.50 USD per person/day makes even ME realize how rich I am!

Then, dang it, I am SO FREE to even take this year off from my regular life to travel the world. I am free to choose where I want to live, what I want to do, and where and what I wanted to study in college.

Telling Rebecca earlier about my life in college and how I had several amazing different jobs in which I traveled all over and lived in many different places, she was just shocked saying, “you’re so independent!”

Freedom is written in our constitution. But experiencing life and cultures like this make me realize what it really means to be free.

We are blessed.