I’ll attempt to capture in words probably the 4 most challenging weeks so far. We started out in Hong Kong, which, I must say is one of the most modern cities that we have been to so far. Disneyland, organic grocery stores, a city where wireless is pretty much available everywhere, subways, starbucks, malls galore, movie theaters. Ok I’ll stop. Anywhoo, picture this…going from all of this to China, which felt in a lot of ways like being transported 40 years back in time. The area of China that we went to had the feel of a war-torn country. And as we walked the streets (literally the streets…some areas had no sidewalks) the thing that struck me the most was the absence of laughter. Walking around the city with my teammates or with friends that we made, you could hear our laughter literally piercing the air, which probably didn’t help alleviate the staring that we encountered daily. You have no idea how much it was an oddity for us to walk the streets of China, where #1 everyone thought I was Chinese and I probably had to explain that I wasn’t Chinese about 25 times a day, and where #2 their eyes were completely unaccustomed to seeing white foreigners. Finger-pointing, shameless staring was pretty much a part of our daily existence. Lets just call that the culture shock part of the trip, except that the culture shock part of the trip pretty much was part of our days whenever we stepped foot outside into the world. It really gave a new meaning to the passage in the Bible that talks about how we are foreigners and nomads in this world. He was crazy good and crazy faithful. Here is a quick story of the Lord using our craziness for His glory:
After 7 months of being on the road, following the Lord around the world…you can understand how Western-food deprived we start to become. So Allison and I pretty much hit that wall at the same time and heard about a Pizza Hut in the area, so we hopped on the bus with Sean to grab dinner one night. As we ride the bus though, we scream as our eyes see the sign: “CARREFOUR”- translation: Western food grocery store or grocery store with a Western food section. So we hop out and run into the grocery store, and sprint through the aisles and came across one area of “international foods”. To our disappointment only pastas, pasta sauces, and salsa. Of all the food from the Western world…all that made it onto the coveted International food shelf were those items. Allison was in peanut butter withdrawal and continued her search while I stood and checked out the other goods…when to my surprise I saw a white couple cruising down the aisle among the sea of Asians…so I went and stood by them to listen and see if they spoke English. And to my delight and surprise, they did!!! I blurted out, “Are you American????” And they laughed and said yes, I immediately asked about the peanut butter situation in the country…and they completely understood. So that was the beginning of us meeting a sweet young American couple living and working in China. They directed us to the local Walmart and the local Subway (sandwich shop!!!!!!) and took us around some of the quaint and historic areas, a hiking area, and an English corner (these apparently are really popular out here). Meeting them though was no doubt a God-thing. Through them, we were invited to go into a highschool to share with students about the real reason for Christmas, to talk with groups of students and tell them about how God came down to earth in the form of a person was for us an amazing opportunity. Few knew about the Lord…and to finally be able to speak His name publicly was incredibly freeing…and to be able to speak it to people who didn’t know Him…a privilege.
I’ll attempt to capture in words probably the 4 most challenging weeks so far. We started out in Hong Kong, which, I must say is one of the most modern cities that we have been to so far. Disneyland, organic grocery stores, a city where wireless is pretty much available everywhere, subways, starbucks, malls galore, movie theaters. Ok I’ll stop. Anywhoo, picture this…going from all of this to China, which felt in a lot of ways like being transported 40 years back in time. The area of China that we went to had the feel of a war-torn country. And as we walked the streets (literally the streets…some areas had no sidewalks) the thing that struck me the most was the absence of laughter. Walking around the city with my teammates or with friends that we made, you could hear our laughter literally piercing the air, which probably didn’t help alleviate the staring that we encountered daily. You have no idea how much it was an oddity for us to walk the streets of China, where #1 everyone thought I was Chinese and I probably had to explain that I wasn’t Chinese about 25 times a day, and where #2 their eyes were completely unaccustomed to seeing white foreigners. Finger-pointing, shameless staring was pretty much a part of our daily existence. Lets just call that the culture shock part of the trip, except that the culture shock part of the trip pretty much was part of our days whenever we stepped foot outside into the world. It really gave a new meaning to the passage in the Bible that talks about how we are foreigners and nomads in this world. He was crazy good and crazy faithful. Here is a quick story of the Lord using our craziness for His glory:
After 7 months of being on the road, following the Lord around the world…you can understand how Western-food deprived we start to become. So Allison and I pretty much hit that wall at the same time and heard about a Pizza Hut in the area, so we hopped on the bus with Sean to grab dinner one night. As we ride the bus though, we scream as our eyes see the sign: “CARREFOUR”- translation: Western food grocery store or grocery store with a Western food section. So we hop out and run into the grocery store, and sprint through the aisles and came across one area of “international foods”. To our disappointment only pastas, pasta sauces, and salsa. Of all the food from the Western world…all that made it onto the coveted International food shelf were those items. Allison was in peanut butter withdrawal and continued her search while I stood and checked out the other goods…when to my surprise I saw a white couple cruising down the aisle among the sea of Asians…so I went and stood by them to listen and see if they spoke English. And to my delight and surprise, they did!!! I blurted out, “Are you American????” And they laughed and said yes, I immediately asked about the peanut butter situation in the country…and they completely understood. So that was the beginning of us meeting a sweet young American couple living and working in China. They directed us to the local Walmart and the local Subway (sandwich shop!!!!!!) and took us around some of the quaint and historic areas, a hiking area, and an English corner (these apparently are really popular out here). Meeting them though was no doubt a God-thing. Through them, we were invited to go into a highschool to share with students about the real reason for Christmas, to talk with groups of students and tell them about how God came down to earth in the form of a person was for us an amazing opportunity. Few knew about the Lord…and to finally be able to speak His name publicly was incredibly freeing…and to be able to speak it to people who didn’t know Him…a privilege.
