Our team was only in China for two weeks, and yet we received so much favor from the Lord! Going into our time in China, I was unsure of what to expect because it was our first ATL month. ATL stands for Ask The Lord, and it is where we do not have a host for the month. Instead, we get to listen to the Lord and find our own ministry.
For the first week, we stayed in one city that was only about 2 hours away from the Great Wall of China. We took a day trip to see the wall, and it was incredible! It was my first time seeing a wonder of the world, definitely a bucket list moment. The Great Wall of China is mesmerizing with how it curves, winds, and follows the mountainous terrain it is surrounded by. Absolutely beautiful!
After one week, we packed up and traveled to a new city. We stayed for one week before flying out to Kazakhstan. During this one week, I felt like we went from “asking the Lord” to just plainly receiving from the Lord. It was as if we didn’t even need to ask, God kept dropping people and favor right in our laps!
We noticed in our first week in China, that English speakers were a rarity. We only came across maybe 3 in the first city we stayed in. As we began our travel to this new city, we weren’t expecting to come across many English speakers if any at all. We took a 19 hour train ride from Beijing to the city we would stay in. I repeat…19 hours on a train. And not a sleeper train, but one where there wasn’t enough space for our all of our bags, and people could buy standing room only tickets, meaning the aisles were packed with people for the entire trip. There was probably around 150 people or more in our car. All these people and we only met one who speaks English, and he ended up sitting right next to us! His name is something I can’t pronounce in Chinese, but he said we could call him, Du.
When we finally arrived at our destination, we needed to find wifi so that we could find a place to stay (nothing like last minute planning). As we were getting off the bus, Du asked us where we were staying, and we told him that we have not booked anywhere yet. Without hesitating he asked if we needed help, even though I’m sure he was more than ready to be home after the long trip. But thank goodness for Du! We probably would not have found a place to stay without him. He ended up calling about 5 different hostels for us until we found one that would accept foreigners. But that’s not all. He even showed us which bus to take, rode the bus with us to the hostel (where he had to call them to find out exactly how to get to the door), and then came inside and translated to the hostel owner for us. A complete stranger did all of these things for our team. Um hello favor from the Lord!
We were so incredibly thankful to our new friend for all that he did for us. We didn’t want this to be the last time we saw him, so we asked if he would like to go get dinner with us one night. He agreed and we were able to meet up with him again later in the week. And what was supposed to be us treating him to dinner, turned into Du treating us by bringing us milk tea, showing us a local restaurant for dinner, and treating us to ice cream after.
(Side note, before we left Mongolia our team got together one morning to pray for our time in China, asking the Lord what he had for us. Then we all shared with each other what we got from the Lord. I shared that I saw our team having a meal with someone we would meet in China. It was so sweet that Du ended up being that person!)
These sweet moments all came from simply following what the Lord had for us each day. Saying yes to Him. Saying yes to talking with Du after the train ride, yes to going to dinner with him, and yes to just living with open eyes for the people God places right in front of us. How cool is it that sometimes we don’t even have to ask and the Lord shows up and provides!
China, you were incredible & you will be missed!
