Deep heart issues and passions aside, I would love to share
with you a more tangible view on our time in China!
After our 38 hour train ride to Harbin, we arrived to a
delicious Chinese breakfast and our welcoming contacts, Jake & Steph
Taube. These two are absolutely
wonderful, obedient servants of the Lord.
They moved to Harbin and started church planting 5 years ago and today
they have three thriving churches. They
are very bold with the gospel and aren’t afraid to share the good news with
anyone and everyone they meet. I wasn’t
sure what to expect coming into China, but I think I was assuming we would be
talking in code, and unable to talk about Jesus freely. While this is definitely still a reality for
some in China, the ministry that we partnered with believes that if you takes
risks for the Lord, He is going to meet you in that. And so far, that is exactly what has
happened.
We were paired with another team this month, and within our
two teams, they split us up between the three churches. I was put together with a girl from my team,
Megan, and two girls from the other team, Allie and Jenny. We were told we were going to work with Grace
Church, the newest church of the three, only a few months old. We trekked out to the North side of Harbin (which
was about a 30 minute drive from the other churches) and moved into our apt for
the month (which was also the church). Right
away we met Ning & Sadie (and their son, Isaiah J), our contacts for our
church. They were such an amazing couple
and loved us so well while we were working with them.
Our main focus while working with the church was engaging
with college students and inviting them to church, as well as teaching English
to people in the community. We were able
to connect with many families and tell them about the church as their children
were able to get free English lessons.
While this was a great means of outreach and provided for many awesome
connections, my absolute favorite part of the month was being able to meet with
the college students. We would go to
English Corner twice a week, meet students and if they were interested,
schedule dates with them. We would out
rightly ask them if they would want to meet up to study the bible with us. We also planned little outings and parties,
such as a KTV (karaoke night), which was absolutely hilarious and then we also
hosted a spa night for the ladies at the church. We also were able to throw a small birthday
party for one of the girls. Birthdays
are not typically made to be a big deal in China, so she kept saying how
honored she felt celebrating with us.
I absolutely fell in love with getting to know and
befriending the college-age women. They
were just the sweetest women in the world.
Unfortunately though, they are under so much oppression from outside
forces. There is so much pressure for
them to do well in school and to be “successful� in the world. When asked what their dreams are, many of
them feel there is no use in even thinking about it, because it is hardly a
possibility. They just aren’t free. There is such a lack of freedom within their
government, but also just within themselves.
They don’t feel free to just “let go� and be themselves. I got so many comments from them that I just
seemed so “crazy�, “free� and “full of love� to them. I tried to pour as much love out onto them in
the hopes that they would take a hold of it and run with it. I want them to feel and know Christ’s love so
badly.
Life in China was amazing, but also so hilarious. Because of the language barrier,
communication often happened through charades, or through calling the first
Chinese person we found on our phone to do some translating for us. During one of our longer taxi rides, the
driver insisted on talking to me in Chinese the entire time, even though I didn’t
understand anything. We came to a
hilarious pattern of him saying something, me attempting to repeat it and then
him laughing hysterically. We also had
quite a time getting food every
night. In Harbin, the culture is very
much a “eating out� culture. Very few
people take the time to cook, especially when delicious street food is
available for $1 or $2. I recommend the Japanese Tofu and spicy green beans! We
soon learned though that ordering 4 dishes for us= having leftovers for the
next week. Another ridiculous
interaction came from this, when we tried to offer a shop keeper one of our
dishes we had just bought, because it was just way too much food and we were
leaving the next day. It turned into
her thinking that we were trying to barter and offer her food for the supplies
we were trying to buy, haha.
Another thing that I loved was being able to give the
Chinese students English names. I was
able to name many students after my family and friends 🙂. Even more amusing though was the names that
many Chinese students already had. Here
is a list that we compiled of names of people we met:
Rice, Coffee, Paper, Music, Dolphin, Roger and Geoffrey
(they were girls), Teddy Bear and my personal favorite, Jack Sparrow (it was a
girl).
Overall, it was just a fantastic month. I miss being there so much and I am excited
to see what the Lord does with this passion He has put in me.
