Here’s a quick little flashback to month 3: China
Our time in China started in the town right across the border from Hong Kong. We arrived in the afternoon and found out our hostel reservation was not kept. So we stayed the night sleeping outside at the train station! It was very nice weather and we all have sleeping mats and sleeping bags, so it was no problem.
The next day we took a 30 hour sleeper train ride to south central China. My team got to spend a week and a half in Yunnan province. The six of us each had a host family of our own, which is very unusual on the Race! We immediately started calling our host parents Mom and Dad, or Wo-Ma and Wo-Dieh. My host family had a 10-year-old girl and 2-year-old girl. The 10-year-old knew the most English in the family. I was excited to finally have a younger sister!
Our hosts were so generous to us and didn’t allow us to buy anything. We had lots of delicious food, nothing like Chinese food in America! They took us to so many restaurants and gave us food in between meals as well. They wanted to honor us and it would have been disrespectful to refuse the food. We were so well fed, one of my team mates joked at one point, “I want to fast!” We soon figured out we had to eat very slowly and not say we like a certain food, or else they would order more of it! We never thought getting too much food would be a problem for us on the Race!
Our mornings consisted of going to several kindergartens around town and teaching English to the kids. We sang lots of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Baby Shark, and YMCA. (Head Shoulders was the most popular, and it still haunts us in our dreams.)
Teaching the kids YMCA
Goofing off at one of the kindergartens.
Our evenings consisted of spending time with our families and eating out at restaurants with our teammates and their families. One evening we went to Karaoke! Our group had a very nice room to ourselves, and had a blast. It was my first time doing karaoke, and I sang “You Raise Me Up” and “Let It Go”. Afterward, one of our hosts told us they had never seen people have so much fun without getting drunk. (Shoutout to the joy of Jesus!)
Our personal karaoke room!
Hot Pot—the favorite food of almost anyone we talked to. It is a big pot of broth, half spicy, half not as spicy. You put meats and vegetables in it, wait a few minutes for it to cook, and enjoy!
One day my family took me on a hike up a mountain to see the peach and pear blossoms in bloom.
Although we were not able to openly preach, talking about our personal faith in conversations was totally fine. I was at first discouraged by the fact that we were doing secular volunteer work. I thought, any American could do what I was doing. But then God reminded me—how much better it is for those volunteers to be people who are living their lives for Jesus and showing His love in their everyday life.
What a privilege it was to be in a closed country. Through Jesus, nowhere is actually closed.
Present-day update:
We are in Kyrgystan, in the city of Karakol. We will spend 21 days here, the longest we will have stayed anywhere since January in Japan. This month is Manistry and Womanistry month, which means we are split up in one team of guys and one team of girls. Please pray for unity for my team, and that we form a deep sisterhood with each other. And please pray for the women’s ministry we will be doing this month.
Thank you for your prayers!!
Osh, Kyrgyzstan
