I met Mulan!

Ok not really, but I am in China. It's very different than I imagined, but I like it a lot. This month we are living in Harbin, China, which is a city of ten million people, and it's up north close to Russia. We are working on two different things: college ministry and planting churches. We are living in APARTMENTS with electricity, hot water, and washing machines, and we have access to wifi at the six-story mall that is about ten steps from our building. Not exactly the type of world race roughing it that I had prepared myself for, but we aren't complaining! I'm sure we will be sweating our butts off soon enough.

This is what our apartment looks like:

And this is the view from our window:

The journey to get here was pretty rough on all of us. We traveled for 60 hours – 14 hour flight from Atlanta to Korea, 2 hour flight to Beijing, an hour long bus ride, a night at a hostel, a subway to the train station, and finally a 19 hour train ride to Harbin. Imagine 50 racers with all their packs cramped into a train car with 50 Chinese people, and a lady whose only job is to push a beverage/food cart up and down the aisles every five minutes while yelling in Mandarin. It was awesome.

The first few days of this adventure were challenging for me. I was very homesick and I kept asking myself, "what the crap did you get yourself into?!" But two days ago we had church in a courtyard near our building. It was cold, but the warmth from the sun was just enough to keep us cozy. As we sang worship songs, some Chinese children rode their bikes in circles around us. And in that beautiful moment, I knew I would be alright.

Yesterday we started working, and our job for the day was to familiarize ourselves with a section of the city and try to figure out how many families live there. Our contact is trying to plant churches and needs ballpark figures as to how many people are in certain parts of town. On our walk, we came across three beautiful ladies who invited us into their home church (what Americans would call an underground church, but it's not really an underground church.) They fed us dumplings, read us scripture, and sang us hymns in Mandarin. It was so cool to connect with Christians from the other side of the world. We sang Amazing Grace to them, and then I was reminded of a vision I had gotten in Atlanta. At Launch, we were asked to do some ATL ministry. It stands for Ask The Lord, and the goal is simply to pray and then do what we feel God wants us to do. During that process, I had received a vision of singing Amazing Grace to an elderly woman. We never found that woman in Atlanta, but sure enough here she was in China. How freaking awesome. God is good.

 

The people here are so adorable. I made a Chinese best friend. Her name is Alice (one of my squad-mates gave her an English name) and I seriously love her so much. Her job is to pass out flyers outside our building to advertise the pizza place where she works. The past two days I've helped her pass out flyers and had such great conversation with her. I even gave her my one and only scarf last night because it was freezing and she had forgotten her jacket. I have a feeling I will end up with nothing in my pack by the end of the year.

But in only three days I've learned so much about the culture here. Chinese people hock loogies nonstop. They believe it's a way to rid the toxins from their bodies (or so I assume), but I still haven't quite gotten used to the sound. They also have no personal space bubbles. In an empty elevator they will stand right up on you. It is interesting. Also, not many Americans visit this city, so the people here are very fascinated by us. They stop and take pictures of us, and occasionally they ask to take pictures with us. They assume we are all rich or famous or both. It's like being in a glass case in a museum.

I've also learned a few words in Mandarin. Here is your Chinese lesson for the day:

Hello = Nee How
Bye = Zai Jien
Thank you = Shie Shie
Sorry = Dway Bu Chi
Cute baby = Shao Pung Yo

Anyway, that's a quick update. My mind is jumbled with newness, so please forgive the lack of flow in my writing. Thanks again for all your love and support!!! Love you all!