I’m sorry it took so long for me to post. With the government screening everything I decided to wait till after we left China. And I can’t go into much detail about our ministry or share any pictures.
After flying into Beijing two of the four teams went to a hotel for a night. We would be riding the train to Yanji the next day. We were able to go to the Forbidden City and get use to the cold weather which to me, felt great. It was nice for a change to not be sweating every time you went out.
Long story short we missed our train, thus losing our beds on this 24hr ride. But thankfully there was another train leaving the same day with enough room for our group of 14. But it was a bullet train (aka- no beds and not bullet fast). For the next 27hrs I slept, ate noodles, watched a movie, slept, read, played Monopoly Deal, looked out the window (there was snow!) and slept some more. We finally made it to Yanji the next evening. It was cold, wet and snowing. Our contact picked us up and took us to our apartment
The next day we got to the Academy to start our first day. The Academy is a Christian based school in a Korean community. It was really great working there! We were able to be involved in all the classes and did some outside work of planting flowers and working in the library. The teachers there really love their student and consider teaching a ministry in building up the next generation of kingdom builders and not a job. The story behind the title- One boy was practicing his English and needed to finish the sentence “The singing bird…..” and thus decided to use the substitute teacher’s name to complete it. : )
One weekend we went to the “Three Way.” Which is the point where Russia, North Korea and China meet. We were not able to cross the borders but it was still really neat to be there and see those countries.
We also had the opportunity to visit the Great Wall! I will try to share pictures in another post.
One of the challenges I faced this month was learning to not be ashamed of my hearing loss. I didn’t want to tell anyone about my hearing loss in fear that they would say that they couldn’t use me. So I struggled to tell some of the staff at the school when I needed to. So my goals for this month was to have more confidence in myself and not be ashamed of my hearing loss, but to live with it with joy and confidence, to be able to tell people without fear of what they would say. And to be less dependent on my team to tell me what someone said, to be able to ask the speaker to repeat what they said instead of turning instantly to a team mate. It’s still a work in progress but I have seen a difference in it. I am more willing to try something new and even welcome it because God has yet to leave me on my own and He never will.
Our squad did a team change up again. : ) We have someone joining the Fusion Squad from Swaziland and will be with us for the next 3 months in Africa.
Our next destination is Swaziland!! It’s also all squad month!! Which means that instead of the squad splitting up into their teams to different parts of the country we will all be in one location. We will be working at an orphanage located in the mountains. I was told that this ministry site is the most beautiful WR site.
I will not have internet access this month so you won’t be hearing from me till the end of May, but I will be able to share more details and pictures in my next post as Swaziland is not a closed country.
Prayer request- That God would continue to grow and challenge me.
The unity of new teams.
The kids and ministry in Swaziland.
