Hello friends! Last time you heard from me we were leaving Mongolia! A lot has happened since then and in this blog I’ll give you a run down on what happened in China. This month was ATL or ask the lord. It means we didn’t have a host, we just prayed and listened to what the Lord lead us to do. It makes for some really cool stories when you let him have the reins.
We left for China on Friday and got our tickets the day before. We had no idea how we were going to communicate with the tellers, but lo and behold there was an English speaking pastor who helped us!!
We almost missed our train because our taxi driver was late and ended up walking to the station. (Traffic was so bad we could walk faster than drive) We walked out on the deck and saw people pushing and shoving yelling at each other trying to board the train. We soon realized this was not our train…ours was underneath us and literally ran through the station to board on time (made it with 4 minutes to spare for those curious). It was a sleeper train and it pulled into our station at 8 in the morning, we got a bus to the border then hopped on another bus. It took us about 3 hours to cross the border we had to go through Mongolian customs then get back on the bus to go through Chinese customs and stand in a line where everyone cut in front of us.
After passing through customs with no problems we hopped on our bus once more.Here is where I was introduced to sleeper busses. It was a bus with three rows of beds that were super narrow and had a handle so you wouldn’t fall out of them, top and bottom bunk.best thing since sliced bread let me tell you. The roads were soooooo bumpy but I loved it. Reminded me of Alaskan frost heaves.
Arriving at our apartment we rented out for a week our host made us dumplings and tea and sent us to bed.(yep,we ate dumplings at 2AM and they were darn good) everything was short, it felt like living in a doll house. When I say short I mean I couldnt stand up straight and walk across the bedroom. Ministry here looked like passing out water in the street, witnessing to our Taxi driver everyday, finding people who spoke English and talking to them about Jesus.
On a overnight train again this time heading to Xi’an city. We made it to our next hostel and I was wiped out.our rooms weren’t ready for us yet so I fell on the couch and passed out.
Something wet and cold was in my ear. I woke up with a jolt to find a beautiful big boxy golden retriever smiling at me. He was shaved to resemble a lion with a big fluffy mane and long tail. . He sat with me and chilled while I petted and cooed on and on about how handsome he was. I got restless and got up to explore the town and this was the kind of thing I expected China to be. It looks like China Town, red lanterns everywhere, red doors, shops and vendors, rickshaws, mopeds everywhere.
We met a guy who invited us an English class with him that night so we went and it was so cool Four of us ended up sharing our testimonys and built relationships that we would continue growing during our time there. We got to continuously share to the people who lived in our hostel with us and had Bible study with them!
I was surprised by how much China is open to the gospel, alot more than what I expected. I didn’t think we would really get to talk about Jesus much and ended up we talked about him more in China than in Kazakhstan! I’m so glad I got to experience this first hand and not through the lens of other people’s views. God showed up in some crazy ways that I never could have imagined from keeping us safe and blinding the eyes of those against us, spiritual warfare battled in our hostel and open doors to sharing the gospel.
Thank you all for your continued support, I would not be here if it weren’t for you!
