We are now in Beijing, after many adventures and a new collection of stories… here’s the excitement… its long... but maybe you can follow it....
Tuesday night, Terry (a family friend of our team member, Cory), took the whole team for a night out. We started by going up to The Peak. This is the Top of the hill overlooking the city of Hong Kong. It was beautiful! After looking at the city lights for a while, he took us to a 5-star restaurant next to the lookout tower~ and treated us to a huge, authentic Chinese meal. This guy was amazing, he did all of this out of his own pocket! He was so generous and humble, and was an extreme blessing to our team. This was all after buying Cory a brand new digital SLR camera – which Cory was already considering buying himself… it was his gift to Cory he said! Tuesday was Terry’s birthday as well… what a guy – he really used his blessings to bless others, and apparently it isn’t a rare event… we saw so much of his heavenly fathers influence in his life… That evening, we just went to bed in awe of Gods curious and extravagant ways of blessing his children.
Wednesday we headed into the surrounding neighborhood to just pray about things there, and see if we could talk to anyone (although hardly anyone spoke English! We thought that was a bit strange for Hong Kong) – after a couple hours of wandering the streets, we headed back to the hostel to pack for our trip into China! We caught our taxi to Hung Hom Station in only a couple minutes, as there are hundreds of taxis cruising around the streets… easy find… Grabbed some Mcdonalds in the airport-like train station, and waited around for departure while looking like a bunch of bum photographers… laying on our backpacks taking pictures of each other and the funny Chinese-english signs (not-so-accurate, but really funny translations!)~ Minutes later we boarded the train, found our section, found a place for our gear, and hopped in the beds ready for our peaceful journey to Beijing(we had a nice, shared sleeper section, not enclosed… and not necessarily anyone we knew above and below us in the three tier bunks). We soon found that it was going to get a little boring in our beds… even though we had a great view of the countryside out the window. Basically, we did a lot of sleeping, reading, picture taking, snacking, and thinking… we took lots of pictures, but the best ones were ones that reflected the natural beauty of the land… or ones that showed the Chinese people in their day to day life. This made me think – “What are these people living for?” I just saw the desolation of each and every town, city and village, it even LOOKED empty… and grey… I wondered what they looked forward to in their day, or week. What keeps THEM going? I just imagined countless families living without purpose, not knowing why they are meant to be, or even that they are loved. Every child I saw – I knew had probably one or no siblings. It was a sobering moment every time I looked out the window. I knew we were here to do what we could to change this…
Thursday afternoon we arrived at Beijing West Train station… we piled out last in line, got through customs no problem, then went outside and piled up our gear to sit on again, while we waited for our fearless leader, Landon, to find our transport to the area we were told there were a number of hostels (we had no arranged accommodation yet). As we waited, and were stared at, and talked to in Chinese… our lovely Merrick realized her wallet was missing, and after a thorough, but disappointing search of her bags, we got into gear and went to try to track it down… we headed to the info desk amidst thousands of people coming and going by train that evening… we tried our best to explain in hand motions that we had lost a white wallet on Train 98 that just arrived from Hong Kong… our tickets came in handy. Finally, an officer who spoke broken English was able to divert their attention occasionally to us and help us out a bit. After a grueling, stressful, patient half hour, They finally got the picture, and we were able to talk to the captain of the train, who had the wallet. He was very nice and said to come back to the station the next day at 11:30 to pick it up at platform 2. we got someone to write his name and the situation down in Chinese, and semi-contentedly walked back out to grab the team and make our way to find a hostel. We packed into bus No. 52, and slowly became more and more like sardines on a bus as people got on at every stop… we were all standing with our packs strapped on, and it eventually became quite comfortable when we had absolutely no room too move – we were kinda held in place. We arrived at a stop in the neighborhood of where we could find a hostel around 8:30 and waited again for our leader to run around and see what he could get for the night. We sat and prayed that we could actually get a place to stay, and that we would be able to find the wallet the next day and we got to give a bag of dried banana slices to a homeless lady! Only 20 minutes passed (once again we were an attraction – but why not?! 12 westerners sitting on backpacks on the sidewalk, just hanging out) And Landon returned with great news of a really nice hotsel just a block down the road, and we could stay for four nights! We dropped our bags in the rooms, showered and headed for Mcdonalds… haha, that would make it the 6th or 7th country I’ve had McDonalds in. We slept well after that long day of travel…
Friday Morning, we got up and got ready for a day of getting settled in and sorted out… we needed to do a room change from two rooms of 7 to 2 rooms of 4 and a room of 6… we didn’t ask why, but we finally got that sorted once again with hand motions, and pointing at signs, and then had to head out to find our way to the train station to get the wallet. We just didn’t have the paper – the one with the captains name on it. We couldn’t wait, it was already 11:00 and it would take a while to get there… so three of us hopped on the bus with a borrowed 100 Yuan, to pay our 1 Yuan fares… 5 minutes into the ride, I noticed that it looked like the wrong direction, judging by the ride the night before, and started asking questions, luckily there was one lady who spoke a bit of English and was really helpful and told us we WERE going the wrong way, and needed to get off at the next stop, cross the 8 lane main road, and find a different bus… we got off, and finally found a place to cross, but decided to grab a taxi… it was faster and more sure of arrival… but we didn’t think about the language barrier! So the first taxi drove off with his door hanging open so he didn’t get rear-ended by a bus… and we found a passing pedestrian who could tell the driver where we needed to go… so we got that sorted and were on our way… it was getting close to 11:30, we were realizing how big this city really was, and we still had throngs of people to navigate through at the station… plus a platform to find and a nameless captain to find…. It wasnt looking good… but we were praying, and we knew somehow it would work out… we didn’t want to lose the credit cards and a couple thousand dollars of travelers checks… drivers license… etc… When we arrived, we made a snake, holding on to each others backpacks to get through the crowd, and surprisingly, we got through in what was probably record time for a people-packed 200 meter dash… we got to the info desk again, and nobody recognized us, paid much attention to us, or acted like they wanted to help… so we were desperate… tried the police, and they had no clue what we were saying, and for the umpteenth time, we prayed, but this time for God to just send someone who spoke English… then we started asking around, we were going to ask every one of the hundred-something people in waiting area 2 if they spoke English, but within about 30 seconds, I found someone… she was an awesome girl, very friendly, and willing to listen… she understood the situation, and was more persistent than we had the strength to be at the time with the officials… the captain had already left with the train at 11:30 after another 20 minutes of conversations, and phone calls, she led us downstairs, continually asking directions, and we got to the lost and found office – another Chinese conversation, then, she turns around and asks, “the white one?” I was so happy, because I had never told her it was white… they must have it! Ever since finding the girl, Merrick had been on the phone with her father and American express, and had the instructions to cancel all the cards and travelers checks, this was going to be a big problem, but it was necessary… they got the message NOT to cancel just seconds before doing so… We signed for it and they handed us the wallet... mission accomplished, now we just needed to head home - the team was planning to go to Tia'anmen square that afternoon, and it was already 1 pm.
We caught the bus, the right one this time... and had plenty of time for a bowl of instant noodles, and some story telling before heading out to the Sqaure - only about 10 blocks down the road. We decided to make it a race with rickshaws (3-wheel bike taxis that carry 2 passengers), and seeing as a driver had told me the night before that it was only 3 Yuan (less than 50 cents), we thought it would be a fun, cheap way to get down the road! so we split up into pairs, and started running to find the nearest rickshaw... but everyone soon started walking because there were none around! we walked about a block, and finally found one... he wanted 50 Yuan! So we weighed the decision, and decided it was okay to pay a little more to win the race, since we thought we were pretty far ahead of everyone... we bargained him down to 25, and he was happy.... 2 blocks later, about two kilometers from the square... he drops us off saying thats as far as he can go, and its just nearby! we got off feeling ripped off... and started power walking down the busy sidewalks. When we finally arrived, we were only second... not too bad, but apparently these two had walked the whole way! So our little ride didnt do us much good! but it was fun.... it took about 45 minutes for everyone else to get there, because they had very little luck in finding rickshaws as well, but one pair was missing... so while the rest of us took a self-guided tour of the place, a couple others waited for the missing pair. We has fun taking pictures of soldiers, and helped some chinese art students practice their english, which slowly turned into helping them practice their salesman skills... fun fun! I had no money to spend, so I was outta there... My friend and team-member, Mike and I tried to go out the gate to meet up with everyone, but were blocked by guards for about 20 minutes as the others completed a very precise drill of taking the flag down in Tia'anmen square across the street. Once out, the missing pair still hadn't shown up, so we assumed they were pretty much lost in Beijing... not good huh? but anyways... we looked around for them and prayed once again, hoping they weren't in any trouble, as other pairs had some shady experiences with the rickshaw drivers... we took one final sweep of the sqaure, and had to head home to look for them there. This time, in groups of four, we were going to take taxis back. Along the way, we saw more rickshaws, and thought we would have some better luck this time... we confirmed the 3 Yuan... and hey, the guys were so nice anyways~ they even took pictures of us with our cameras! As we turned into the intersection where I knew we should make a u-turn to get on the right road, they took us down a dark alley instead. Now, i was either really lost, or they were taking us the "scenic route". I made sure they knew where they were going, and they seemed to think so, and when we arrived, it was nowhere near our place... so I said, thats okay, we'll pay you and we'll catch a taxi with the change... I handed one guy the hundred that i had, and he quickly put it in his pocket, put his cigarette back in his mouth and looked back at me, expecting something... thats when it became clear they meant 3 HUNDRED Yuan... hahaha... yeah. we thought they were gonna beat us up if we didnt hand over the extra 200... and then they generously lowered it to 200, but they didnt understand that the 100 was all the cash we had. So we finally convinced them that it would be enough, and we began to walk home... a good 4 or 5 kms ahead of us... we found an ATM and tried to pull out some cash for a taxu, but it didn't work at all... so we ended up having an awesome prayer walk back through Tian'anmen square, I mean, I was reading Psalm 97 and 46 just meters away from marching army dudes, and police... it was great! We really felt like that was the whole reason of our evening rickshaw escapade... God wanted us to pray... so we had a great time.... got home tired, but with busy minds... and it was another good sleep.
Today, Saturday, was much less eventful... we had a great day of just being able to catch up as a team, and not individual groups all over the place, and we went to the Temple of Heaven... where it sounds like they used to worship the true God, ages ago... maybe connected to the tower of Babel... it was another good time of prayer... but yeah, we were all tired. Through all these crazy, fun, new experiences... we really learned alot and grew so much closer to HIM...
Like i said... i hope to fill this thing with adventures and stories.. here they are!