Chicken Dinner – including head
Friends: Mr. and Mrs. Andersen
Teenage guys at midweek meeting
Friends: Mr. and Mrs. Tolson
Four day old baby!
Mexican food in China
Group of friends at Red Orange Restaurant
My buddy: Ava
Another friend: Mrs. Laterza – acting as herself!
Another good friend: Jesse
I had the wonderful opportunity to meet on Saturday morning (15 hours ahead of Tucson) with one of our TBT supported families for breakfast. We were able to discuss different ways that TBT can help his ministry. After breakfast, around 8:45 a.m., I walked to a “Christian Bookstore” around 1.5 miles from the hotel. This was the actual sign on the building. They had a large variety of Bibles and dozens of books that you would recognize that have been translated into Chinese. While at the bookstore I secured a wonderful gift for the children of TBT. Or at least I think it is cool… we shall see!
After returning to the hotel, I checked out from my room and took my last taxi ride to the airport. The driver dropped me off at Terminal 3 and I walked to the United counter. It took less than two minutes to check-in. I took the subway train to the “E” terminal and then cleared security without any problems. I had around 1 1/2 hours to kill so I went to Pizza Hut for lunch. This was my first American food in a week and it was quite delicious. I then boarded the plane and we set on the runway for forty minutes before takeoff. The flight was uneventful and we landed a few minutes early (10 hours and 18 minute flight) at the SFO airport. I cleared immigration without incident, retrieved my two bags from the carousel, and then proceeded to clear customs. For the very first time in all of my travel, customs stopped me to inspect my bags. It turned out to be a minor inconvenience.
I then boarded the plane for TUS and texted Jonathan to let him know I was on my way home. He texted back, “Tucson or Phoenix” and then I called Shelli and she said she was headed to Phoenix as soon as visitation was over. A simple text – it sure averted a disaster. So I am home and it feels great to be back in Tucson.
So… today (Saturday) will have 37 hours in it instead of 24 hours. One can definitely accomplish much in a longer day! The trip to China was great, as always. It is amazing to see other families serving the Lord in China and to see so many Chinese Christian families. Now that I’m back I will try once again to upload a few photos from my trip.
My blog has been blocked here in China so I am going to type quickly before it goes back down. It is actually around 23:45 on a Friday night here in Beijing. I just finished a four hour dinner meeting with three of the supported families here in Beijing.
A couple new adventures have happened outside of the scheduled events. Everything we do is by taxi cab, so I have been in a couple hundred taxi cab rides in all of my trips in China. Yesterday the taxi cab driver missed the turn to get to the hotel – so instead of going to the next exit and navigating his way back to the hotel, he does a u-turn and goes against the expressway traffic back to the exit! People were blowing their horns and flashing their lights. I was ducking for cover! First time that has ever happened in such a scary manner; only to be followed today with an even more frightening event. I jumped in the taxi this morning and the female taxi driver turns left out of the hotel into oncoming traffic. The highway in front of the hotel is a two-lane highway and it is one way. She is talking on her phone and trying to use her stick shift and going the wrong way. A huge bus is coming toward us blinking his lights and blowing his horn and she does NOT move out of the lane. The bus swerves and misses us by a few feet. She is oblivious to the fact that she almost killed us and that she is going the wrong way on a one way street. I said “STOP!” I open the door and get out of the cab! I still don’t think she has a clue what happened.
The second incident which was interesting to behold and all of my China team members will be able to picture this… I arrive at the Silk Market today for a couple hours of walking around and looking for any deals. As I walk in I see my “best friend” as she calls me. I said that I would like to pick-up an X-large North Face jacket and that I would come back later to pick it up. I didn’t want to carry it around while I was at the market. She said, “OK” and that she would hold it until I came back. I walked around the market for about one hour when I noticed something strange. There were police all over and they were carrying bags and dragging the bags on the ground. They were full of… you guessed it… North Face jackets. They raided the market today and took every North Face jacket they could find. You must understand that there are seven stories and hundreds of vendors!
I go back to see my “best friend” and she said, “You should have come back sooner. Would you like a ‘Jeep’ jacket now?” I guess North Face had complained about all of the knock offs and so the police handled it. So no North Face jacket on today’s trip to the market!
I met a genuine Chinese Christian at the market today. I was looking at her shop and she asked me, “Do you worship Buddha or God?” I said I worship God and asked her who she worshipped. She said she was a believer and that she goes to a house church in her apartment building. Even through broken English she was able to tell me her testimony and it was sweet.
Yesterday I was helping one of our supported families with their daughter’s coat. Her sweater was pulled up inside the arm of her coat. She looked at me and said, “My mommy does it better.” Although, after reading her a Dr. Seuss book, we were pretty good friends.
The Chinese government is now allowing bookstores to sell Bibles. This is a major breakthrough and really eliminates the necessity of ever smuggling Bibles into China. It is now legal for a Chinese person to own a copy of the Word of God and they can even buy a copy at the Three-Self Church or a bookstore. In fact, tomorrow morning I am going to the local bookstore to look at the Bibles on sale and to take a couple of pictures before I begin my journey back home.
I am meeting for breakfast with one of our supported families to discuss camp. There is a real need for workers so I am going to find out the details and see if there is anything that TBT might be able to do to help.
Tomorrow much will happen… breakfast at 7:30, walk to the bookstore, gather up luggage and take taxi to airport, check-in and wait for flight to leave, travel for 18 hours before arriving back in Tucson. I guess it is time to head for bed.
I had a great night of rest; albeit, not very long. I went to bed at 22:00 and woke up at 03:00. Read and studied and then tried to go back to sleep. WOW! It is cold and freezing here. On the Chinese news channel (in English) she reported that this has been the coldest winter in Beijing in over ten years.
The wind is extremely strong. All of the flags are flying straight out. The temperature has been in the single digits and with the wind chill factor added in, I have decided that I am rather wimpy. It is bone-chilling cold. The river next to the hotel is frozen and all other water is frozen on the sidewalks and streets. The traffic has been horrible today (I guess no one else likes this weather either so they are taking a taxi too). However, one of the things that I’ve enjoyed today is that the sky is the clearest that I have every seen in Beijing. The wind has driven the smog out of the city and the sun is brilliant and the sky is a pretty blue.
I had the wonderful opportunity to spend time today with one of our supported families. After supper tonight with this family, I was able to preach for over one hour out of John 4 to their congregation in a house church. There were 21 people in attendance and six of those in attendance were teenage boys. This is quite impressive. One of the teenage young men interpreted for me.
Yes, on the pic uploaded, this is a chicken head that was given to us for consumption. This TBT supported family asked for help with summer camp. Do we have anyone that would be willing to come and help with camp again this year?
Today I began my journey to China for the 13th time. It is so hard to believe that my life has been so dramatically impacted by the Chinese people and those who are serving from America in this country.
I left the hotel at 6:30 a.m. to ride the shuttle to the PHX airport. The shuttle van driver has been doing his job for 27 years. He goes to bed at 7 p.m. and gets up at 1:30 a.m. every day. Now that does not sound attractive at all; but, he loves his job and enjoys meeting lots of new people. We arrived at the US Airways, terminal four, around 6:45 a.m. Once I checked in at the counter I was off to security. There were no problems at all and things actually went quite smoothly. Upon arrival at the gate, everything had gone so smoothly that now I had a 1:45 wait until we left for San Francisco.
We took off in Phoenix on-time and landed in San Francisco around ten minutes early. What a confusing airport! After deboarding I walked through the terminal and had to transfer to the United International Terminal. This meant that I had to clear security again. That took a little longer than it should have taken. Once I cleared security, I was hungry so I began looking for something to eat. Unbelievable! There was not a single fast food place, nor was there a Starbucks in the entire International terminal. There were two or three “no name” restaurants of different ethnic variety but no American restaurants. I found a box of fig newtons at the bookstore.
I boarded the 747 and sat in seat 19A. This was a coach seat but a bulkhead seat so I could stretch out my legs during the flight. This flight left on-time and was scheduled for 12:18. The flight was incredibly smooth. I was able to read much on the flight – there was no personal entertainment system. I walked around three times to keep all of the blood flowing and to prevent cramping or blood clots. I sat next to a college student from Notre Dame. He is studying business; however, what made our conversation enjoyable and interesting is that both of his parents went to the U of A. Both of his parents are Koreans and so he was quite familiar with Tucson. What a small world. He was going to Beijing to study at-large for a semester.
We arrived at the PEK airport twenty minutes early. I stood in line for 45 minutes to clear customs and then took a train ride to baggage claim. My bag was already on the carousel so I grabbed it and headed for the taxi line. My oh my, as soon as I walked out of the airport the temperature plummeted. The cold air felt like a knife slicing through my lungs. It is COLD here in Beijing! The wait was another 30 minutes to get a taxi and standing in the cold was most unenjoyable.
I finally secured a taxi and off we headed for the hotel. Well, it took another hour to get to the hotel because there was a wreck on the expressway. We finally arrived and my room was ready and I was ready for a shower. I was able to contact two of our three supported families. I went to the Red Orange restaurant in the lobby for a bite of hot food. The meal was excellent and while I was eating both Anna (GM) and the head chef came to my table to see me. Word travels fast. Both were very friendly and welcoming to the hotel.
It is 10:00 p.m. and time for bed! It has been a very long time since I have been in bed. A great start to this trip without any problems of any significance. Did I mention, it is freezing cold here.