The day before my flight to Shanghai, I felt really anxious and nervous for some reason. I think a lot of it was my fear of flying, traveling alone and the unknown. It made me realize that in the natural, this trip was not easy for me. But praise God, and thanks to everyone's prayers, all the anxiety went away on my way to the airport. During the flight, I was very calm and at peace, and surprisingly enjoyed my time on the plane. I even slept some, and I almost never sleep on planes! I started getting really excited about this awesome adventure and journey with God! I found it humorous that while I was sitting in my seat, occasionally I would feel this soft nudge on my arm. I thought I was just being paranoid, until I looked at the armrest and saw this.
LOL, apparently the person behind me was getting a bit too comfortable, his (or her) foot would somehow creep onto my armrest once in awhile. I thought it was funny. Who does that?!
After I landed in Shanghai, I met up with the group from Florida, there were about 40 of us altogether. It was a bit overwhelming meeting such a large group of new people, but I found out later that a lot of them didn't know everyone either since there are multiple services at church. Everyone was really open and friendly, and I liked that I wasn't part of a clique at the start of the trip so that I could get to hang out with as many people as possible.
I was very quickly put to work as the group translator, as most of the people we came into contact with couldn't speak very much English, and I was glad that my parents spoke to me in Chinese growing up so that I could be helpful in these situations. I also learned to enjoy having guys around when traveling in a group. The guys took care of all the luggage while the girls stayed out of their way, and they really made sure that we were taken care of. I tend to be fairly independent so I am not used to it, but it's still kind of nice. After a late lunch, we flew to Zhengzhou and got to the college campus around midnight. There's only hot water a few hours a day on campus, so our only option was a cold shower if we wanted to be clean after traveling for 36 hours. The dorm we stayed in was for male athletes, so that was um, interesting. We each had one roommate and two rooms shared a bathroom. There are many things I miss about China, the bathrooms are definitely not one of them. First of all, most of the 'toilets' are squatty-potties, and as much as I try to not complain, squatting to use the bathroom is just unpleasant on so many levels. And the water pressure is so random in this dorm. Sometimes, the water in the shower would come out in spurts, almost like it's spitting on you. Oh, and I'm not sure what it is, but with the exception of the hotel, most other bathrooms smell bad in varying degrees, I think partly because of the lack of ventilation. So for future reference, unless you're staying in a hotel, I'd highly recommend bringing candles to put in the bathroom and tissues that smell nice to put over your nose when you have to use public restrooms. Sorry, I guess that's an aside on the bathrooms in China.
After the pseudo-shower, where I used a wash cloth of cold water rather than stand under the running water (yes, I know I'm a big baby), I was so looking forward to my sleep in a nice comfy bed. Thank God I didn't jump into bed, or I would have broken a few bones. Needless to say, the bed was anything but nice and comfy, it was like sleeping on a box spring, with a pillow that was the antithesis of fluffy. But after a couple of days, I got used to it and was able to sleep fairly well. I felt like such a slacker compared to my roommate, who was up around 5am every morning and she'd wake me up around 6:30am.
Our first day at the school was a fairly restful day. After breakfast and dinner each day, we'd meet for worship, prayer, devotions and group updates. These meetings were so essential for this trip, especially since we were such a large group and needed to make sure that we were on the same page and encourage and lift each other up in prayer. In this first meeting, we were told to be very careful when making calls or sending emails home, and that we needed to be careful even when talking amongst ourselves on campus. I guess I didn't expect there to be so many restrictions on a missions trip. It makes it a bit more difficult to share the gospel when we couldn't be open with why we were there. Basically, our only avenue of talking to the students about faith was in very small group settings in 'casual' conversations. So it was essential that we spend as much time with them as possible.
We took a tour of the campus during the day and had some time to unpack. I thought it was interesting that when I travel by myself or with family in Asia, I blend in very easily and don't draw any attention. But since I was with a large group of non-Asians, I was able to experience what the non-Asians experience in China, because we drew a lot of attention wherever we went. We met a few of our language partners during the tour, they are very sweet and those who are majoring in English speak really well!
My room and roommate. The sun rises at around 5:30am and the sun is really bright here, I don't know how I continue sleeping when the sun is up!
Italian Square. The campus is beautiful and very European.
The track and field outside our dorm
The dorm we stayed in. Ah, good times.
Where the couples on campus like to take midnight strolls (well, not really midnight since the curfew is 10:30pm). Yea, we had to be back in our buildings by 10:30 or otherwise we'd get locked out.
Hanging out outside the cafe, where Brett was invited to play at an event the next evening.
After dinner, a couple of people shared their testimonies and thoughts that really spoke to me. So many people say that 'someday' down the road, they'll rededicate their lives to God, but there is so much that God has for us that it's not worth it to 'waste' time on things that will perish. Do we really want to look back on our lives and realize that we didn't reach the potential that our Father had for us? We were also advised to get out of our comfort zone. Within 24 hours, we had already started sitting in the same spots at meals and hanging out with the people we know. It's so strange how we are such creatures of comfort. But we need to make an effort to not get so comfortable that we miss out on opportunities that God wants us to experience!
1 comment:
i hear ya on the having guys around to do the heavy lifting.. how funny that u say u r independent, not used to it and its nice.
Thanks for the info on bathroom! the good smelling tissue paper is such a good idea!
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