I can’t believe it but it is month 11 of the world race! It seems like forever ago that I was in month 1, Romania. Yet, with notes I can remember many of the experiences just like they happened yesterday! Once again we had some crazy travel days. We slept the night in the airport in order to catch our early flight out! We arrived in Hong Kong and stayed there for about 6 days for China visas. It took extra long because of holidays and the weekend. We stayed at a YWAM “youth with a mission” base. It was a great time to spend with other squadmates and explore the city!
We left at 12pm on a bus for at least an hour to the train station. Got on a train for 2 hours. Took a metro to another train station. I may have gotten stuck in the door getting out of the metro, using my bag to keep the doors open so I didn’t miss the stop. We then took an overnight sleeper train for 35 hours. Then a 2hr car ride, followed by a 2hr bus ride after lunch. Funny to say it was actually a pretty easy traveling time compared to others in the past because I actually got sleep on the train.
So here we are in North Central China. We are living in a beautiful town surrounded by mountains. It was pretty nice all month, a little on the chilly side. Several days we had snow flurries and rain. The town has a huge monastery with over 2,000 monks living there. Many of the people are Tibetan. According to the people we are living in Tibet, but according to our passports we are in China.
Our contact this month had us ATLing, or “ask the Lord.” This means we have free reign to do anything we want and whatever God calls us to. In addition he has a monk friend who is on the verge of converting so we met with him several times. China is a closed country so it against the law to openly talk about Jesus. So we try to share His love in whatever ways we can. We have had a lot of fun just walking the streets and exploring the stores meeting people. Saying “nee how” or hello to almost everyone we come across and prayer walking as we go.
We have formed relationships with several store and restaurant owners. We have gone to one restaurant many times and have had many conversations with the owner. We helped him pour a new cement patio and relay patio bricks. Others have helped in the kitchen and teaching English to the waitress. We ran one day and met 2 sisters. We have met with them to play soccer, and some of our girls have hung out helping them with English at their apartment. We also got to meet a missionary who was traveling through. He has been here in China for 20 years! We also went to the park one day and played worship music and flew my kite again. We left information from our meetings with people so that the next racers who come will have leads to meet the same people and continue to build relationships with them, along with several leads to others in the community. It was a great month and fun getting to know some of the Tibetan people!
