Greetings. It’s strange how most musical terms are Italian. Then again, I don’t know much about music at all. I get all of my musical terms from khanacademy.org’s musical term glossary. I learned all about dot structures on the khan, too. My chemistry teacher felt like she couldn’t have taught it better herself, I guess. I’m getting off topic. I’m surprisingly not here to talk about teachers of the past OR dot structures. But you can contact me personally for further discussion on these matters.
This blog is appropriately named Fermata because I’ve realized that I can have as much of Jesus as I want too. But it’s up to me. More on that in a moment.
First, we will pick up where we last left off. Mongolia. I feel as though a part of me will always be with you. We’ve been saying that we might not be able to say we’ve lived in all the places we’ll go to on the race, but we can certainly say we’ve lived in Mongolia. Forever in our hearts.
Now onto China. I’m not gonna lie to y’all. I watch a lot of Chinese shows. They’re fantastic. So clean. They don’t even kiss until episode 40 in most of them. And the kiss is like a peck on the cheek. Needless to say, I had high expectations for China. Not because I was looking to get kissed, to clarify. But China was a bit different from my expectations.
For starters, we took the sketchiest army van across the border. It was held together by duct tape. We then took two sleeper trains and a sleeper bus to get to our destination city. My sleeper bus experience was life changing and I’ve decided I am going to purchase one. It’s an extremely lucrative investment so please contact me if you are interested in partnering with me in this venture.
The strangest thing happened as soon as we got into China. We found out the citizens of China have a fascination with foreigners. The moment we stepped off the train we were treated like celebrities. People were asking to take pictures with us and even sneakily taking them from afar. Some not even sneakily. Many very openly. It was hard not to feel super cool. Kaysha was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she had a crowd of like 10 people watching her. I now understand what Justin Bieber means when he says “I live my life in a fishbowl.” We are one and the same, Justin.
I liked how China was cleaner than Mongolia. I appreciated the pride of ownership I saw. But still, people were blowing their nose onto the sidewalk. I am saying that in the politest way I can. But these people do not use tissues. There are no such things. So you need to be aware of where you are walking.
There are some random luxuries we experience in the states that are not realities anywhere else. Some of them you might already be aware of – free refills, ice, drip coffee, seasoning in food, free water (without getting asked if you want gas or no gas). But then there are some things that surprise me in other countries. Like not having paper towels/towels in general, toilet paper in the stall being a guessing game, people’s hygiene/what they deem socially appropriate, having to take off your shoes when you enter a room, eggs and milk being sold on the shelf rather than the fridge/the disorganization of grocery stores in general… my list could go on.
These are pretty insignificant things. But it makes you realize how wealthy America is even in the smallest of ways. We live out of an abundance. And we really do take it for granted.
But back to China. Our first destination was a city named Xi’an. We stayed inside the old wall of the city, which was quite a lovely experience. We bonded with a man there whom we got to know pretty well. He spent much of his personal time showing us the city and the best places to eat. We had some really cool Jesus conversations with him. He is definitely seeking truth so it was cool to impart what we knew of truth with him. Katrina also made a connection with these men from another restaurant, and they ended up treating us to lunch and a briefcase full of kiwis. The amount of helpful and kind people we found in China was surprising and all Jesus.
China altogether was a strange and difficult time. The hostel we stayed at was in a basement so there was no sunlight coming into our room. Incense was burning at all times in the hallways. And there was a lot of mold. I’m making this sound worse than it is. But we all just felt really heavy in China. Spiritually heavy.
We were watching a sermon downstairs one Sunday morning and the cops randomly showed up. They asked my Chinese friend what we were watching and he had to say he didn’t know us and he didn’t know what we were watching but that it was some movie. Praise God that those cops didn’t speak English and that they weren’t doing a water baptism that service.
I just can’t imagine living in a place like this! You aren’t free to practice what you believe and you feel like someone is always watching you when you do. I know the Lord is moving all the time, especially when we don’t see it. But dang. It’s so sad. And it makes me so grateful to be an American.
We all know China is a closed country. And we faced so many obstacles coming to China in the first place. Once we got there, I was just exhausted. And a little confused. Like… ok, Lord, are you putting these obstacles in our way because you don’t want us there? Or because the enemy is trying to keep us from going there because you really want us there?
I still don’t know the answer and I don’t think I really need too.
But I will say I had a revelation of sorts this past week.
I allow myself as much of Jesus as I limit myself too. I can choose to see Jesus in the mundane, in the spiritual heaviness, in a place like China… if I would just allow myself to. But I limit Jesus to what I want from Him and what I normally expect from Him. But what if He’s trying to show Himself to me in new ways?
My scope is so incredibly limited. I need to stop telling Jesus what will make me feel loved, joyful, content, restful, and comfortable. I instead need to let Him tell me. I need to believe that He is not only going to meet my desires, He is going to meet the desires I didn’t even know I had. He is going to continually exceed my expectations. And He doesn’t want to be boxed in by me. But He is such a gentleman. He will not force His way. But I’m going to start asking Him what He wants from me, rather than telling Him what I want from Him. I’m going to start believing that He’s better than I know and better than I had hoped He’d be.
On another note, we are here in Kazakhstan. We have about a week and a half left until we go to Kyrgyzstan. I don’t want to talk about Kazakhstan yet because I want the suspense to build. And I also feel like this blog has gone on for far too long already.
But continue praying for us. I am now technically the team leader so my team needs your prayers now more than ever. I start our day out with 50 push-ups. If I see any trembling forearms, I make them run laps.
I’m just kidding. But I really have been chosen to lead this group of ladies for the remainder of this month and the month to come. So pray I give every morning to Jesus. Along with every worry, frustration, “what the corn am I doing” and “I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.”
Love y’all. Jesus loves you more though. Let Him out of the box. That sounds super horror film-y but y’all get it.
