Don’t read this if bad grammar and improper punctuation drives you crazy. This blog is more a
word vomiting than put together story Left china by way of the Lanzhou airport. We had a
harder time leaving the country than getting in. I had a pocket knife with me, and I made it all
the way until the last train we took getting airport and the train security flagged Lubbock and I,
pulled us aside, and started gesturing unhappily. Neither of us being experts in the Chinese
languages stood there stupidly while they took pictures and took our knives and let us go.
Literally took so many different trains and made it through every single security checkpoint until
the next to last one.I was pretty salty about that but luckily the inner boy scout saved me….I
still have my backup knife. HAHAHAHA got em! Walking through customs before we could get
to gate was fun, proving that God A. Has a sense of humor and B. That we need to get our
stories straight before we do anything LOL. Don’t remember much about the plane ride, went
to sleep right away, most likely mouth hanging open, drooling. Glamorous as always.
We arrived in Astana (the capital)around midnight, no luggage was lost and proceeded to
scramble to get in Taxis. When I heard our drivers speaking Russian it sounded so soft and
melodious compared to Mandarin Chinese which was very harsh and loud. We had a mini
debrief for a weekend before we started our ministry. My team was ATL again this month and
we decided to stay In the Astana for a few days to decide where we were supposed to go. J(a heads up if you ever decide to visit, if no one smiles at you it’s normal. They are proud that they keep their faces straight.)
Some girls were involved with an organization called young life in the U.S and discovered that
there was one in a town called Almaty. Agreeing to go to Almaty with the promise of mountains
and a beautiful lake as well we headed that way and made our headquarters at da hostel.
Volunteering with young life was so much fun and met some really awesome people. They put
it a lot of work into this program and into the kids. We got to help out with club (basically a
youth group with less preaching) by teaching a cooking class, being chaperones and going into
schools to teach english.They have club for middle school, high school, college age and
special needs kids.
In Kazakstan it is illegal to evangelize so we got to invite the kids we met at English class to
come to young life with us, get connected with the staff who will continue to build relationships
with these kids and start sharing the gospel with them. Sometimes its hard because it feels like
I’m being useless, like what’s the point of teaching English and getting asked for the 15
thousandth time if America is just like the movies and how they can’t believe women can be
firefighters. In this case actions speak louder than words. Why are we different than other
Americans who come through, why do we care about them? Giving them an example of what
Christs love looks like and meeting them where they are at is sometimes all we “do”for ministry
and that’s ok.Ministry isn’t just painting churches and preaching in the streets or loving the
homeless man on the street. Its easy to move people you don’t know. Try loving the ones your
surrounded by every day. The same people you eat, sleep, poop and cry with(that statement
makes us sound like infants, promise we are all adults…well, kinda.) its choosing to be flexible
even when your dog tired and just want to sleep, its learning about the history and culture of
the people you are around. The little things matter, its not all guts and glory everyday.
Young life crew.
