I will try
to keep this as short as possible.
September 29th - Oct. 1st- Today
marked the beginning of our 7 day vacation, for Mid-Autumn Festival! (A holiday
celebrating family). We were headed to the northern part of China, to ride
camels in the Gobi desert, and to see the 2,000+ year old Terracotta Warriors.
We departed Wuhan with our backpacks full. Getting on the 590 (the bus we
needed) was basically impossible, because everyone, and I mean everyone,
travels during the breaks. Each bus that came by was packed like sardines, so
eventually we squeezed in to the point of not being able to move! An hour and a
half later, after meeting up with the fellow Wuhaners coming and catching
another bus, we boarded our first train. The first train ride was a 6 hour
standing train. Ugghhhh! It wasn’t too bad standing for hours, until one of the
stops. A bajillion people all at once boarded and we were on our tip toes,
basically lying on top of the people sitting down. Chaos continued as people
pushed, shoved, and squished their way onto the train. While standing pressed
up against some Chinese people sitting down, a guy started talking to me in
English (he is around 20 years old). He ended up helping us when the train
conductor told us Americans to move to a different train. While talking with
him I was thinking about giving him an English name, Paul, because Paul (Saul)
was converted to be a Chr-stian in the B-ble. I asked what his name was, and he
said, “My name is Paul.” Wow!! He also goes to a university that is only 10 minutes
away from our apartment! So I got his QQ
# (an instant messaging website that everyone here has) and invited him to get
supper with us sometime in Wuhan. G-d willing he will want to come to our
Studies once we invite him. G-d works in mysterious ways! We then spent the
night in the city we stopped at, and caught a 22 hour sleeper train to Yinchuan
(way better than the standing train, we had a bed). After playing some cards we
headed to bed.
Oct. 1st – 4th- Finally in Yinchuan we had a full
day to explore the city. Yinchuan is substantially smaller than Wuhan, with less
people, less pollution, and fewer skyscrapers. It is still a big city for
American standards though. We had a massive lunch with all the Wuhaners in
typical Chinese fashion (a big rotating glass disk in the middle that you
rotate, with all the dishes on it, then you grab with your chopsticks whatever
you want and put it in your bowl to eat). The last dish that was brought out
was a big chicken platter, head and feet included! So I nibbled on the head,
then the feet just for fun. Really tough, didn’t have much meat either. We
finished up, and explored Yinchuan. First we headed to a miniature version of
Tiananmen Square (a big square of cement in the center of town, with a temple
at the front). One funny aspect of Yinchuan is that since it is way smaller than
Wuhan, people stare at you 10 times more because foreigners are “rarer” in
smaller cities. They also really really want to take a picture with you! Every
single time we stopped to take a picture, people would start to gather around,
and then ask to take a photo with us. During one of our group photos in the center of the square, in the 1 minute we were organizing ourselves,
around 30-40 people gathered around us. A couple girls asked to take a photo
with us, so we obliged. As soon as we saw everyone else start to get their
cameras out, we ran away! Literally, we ran away. Turning around, and running
was the only thing that came to mind, so that’s what we did! The rest of the
day we walked around, explored a big garden area with tens of thousands of
flowers all over, and then finished the day with supper and a movie.
In the morning we headed out on our main adventure for the
week, the Gobi desert camel treck! Us 10 Wuhaners headed to the tour company’s
building to meet up with the other 20+ Friends of China workers. After
arriving, it was really awesome getting to see all the other new teachers from
all over China that I had gotten to know well during our 3 weeks of training in
MN. Hearing all of their stories, and meeting all the other FOC returning
teachers was awesome. It is truly a logistical wonder that we all made it, from
all over China, to this tour company’s building at the same time. Wow! The 30
of us headed out on a 3 hour bus ride to the desert. We sang praise songs, and
enjoyed catching up. So great being together with fellow brothers and sisters
in Chr-st for this trip (including some Chinese friends too that came along).
As we drove up to our departure site, we could see 30 camels in the distance
with sand dunes behind. It was pretty exciting! We got out, and loaded onto our
camels. I named mine Jude. What I first noticed of these massive beasts is that
they poop, fart, and pee quite frequently! It was funny though. Sitting atop
the camel, between its two humps, was surreal. We headed out in the best camel
caravan ever, up, between, and over the tan sand dunes through the heat of day.
It was really relaxing, bobbing up and down while looking out into the
distance. Sand dunes rolled off into the distance as far as the eye could see.
At first it was slightly uncomfortable sitting on the camel. I am not a very
flexible person, and sitting on the camel/blankets required quite the
stretching of my legs. Let’s just say that now I am closer to being able to do
the splits than ever before in my life!
We eventually made it to our camp site for the night, a low
spot between multiple dunes. We went sledding down the sand, and played the
most epic game of ultimate Frisbee EVER! The playing ‘field ‘that we used was
probably at least twice the size of a football field. Not only that, but we put
the goals atop two dunes that were on opposite ends of the ‘field,’ with a dune
ridge in the middle! So the entire time we were running, falling, and diving up
and down steep sand hills. Ridiculously hard, and fun. I think we lost though.
After dinner, and as the sun began to set, I found a great spot on top of a
dune overlooking the vast landscape of sand. It was a great time for
reflection, d-votion, and pr-yer. A group of friends joined after a little bit,
and we watched the sun creep closer and closer to the horizon until it
disappeared into a golden glow. Definitely in the top 5 sunsets that I’ve ever
seen. We then all gathered for d-votion, and song. With all 30 of our voices
united in the dunes of the Gobi desert, we praised our Father and thanked him
for such a blessing. After setting up our tents, we hit the sack. The night was
cold, but not too bad.
In the morning we drank some coffee made by one of our 5
guides, and packed up. Today we spent the whole day trekking across the desert,
with a couple breaks. During one of our longer breaks I hiked for about 30
minutes to the biggest dune I could see in the distance. After getting there, I
looked up at the peak of the big dune which was a perfect pyramid. I hiked to
the top, and sat down for some quality B-ble time. From atop this dune I could
see everywhere. The shapes of the dunes, shaped by time and wind, were
beautiful. Winding, twisting, and turning through the harsh scenery.
Undisturbed sand dunes are really fun to look at. I hiked back, and we rode
until supper time to our camp for the night. This evening was a little
unpleasant. A big storm had rolled in, and brought with it ridiculous winds!
Let’s just say that eating supper while standing, with chopsticks, with sand
blowing everywhere, is slightly hard. It was kind of comical though. After
sunset and supper the men headed out for a men’s d-votion. Since our d-votion
dealt with the burning bush, we had to make a fire. One slight problem though,
the wind was blowing like crazy! After a long time of attempting to start a
fire, Adam took out his Axe body spray and used it like a flamethrower. The
fire started right away, and we started to throw tons of dry bushes on top. At
one point we had probably 6 feet of dead bushes piled on top of the huge
bonfire that we had created. The flames whipped about in the high winds, and we
marveled at what we had created. D-votion was great, and we had a great pr-yer.
When the fire started to die, we ran frantically around looking for bushes.
Running back and forth we grabbed bushes and threw them on the fire. This
normally would be dangerous making such a huge fire in the wind, but we were
surrounded with miles and miles of desert. Nothing could catch on fire! Plus,
we were in a valley of dunes. This whole situation was a great illustration for
me personally as well. We need to feed the fires of our souls! For ourselves, and for
others. We need to continually run to Him and His Word and supply ourselves
with kindling. Without this continuous process, of running through the
windstorms of our lives and supplying wood to burn, the fire will die and go
out. The same goes for spreading His Word to others. We need to continually
kindle the fire, and then trust in His power to bring others to fa-th. It was a
fun bonfire, and eventually we made safely to our tents to sleep. The last half
day we spent riding our camels to our final destination. Once there we hopped
on a bus and back to Yinchuan. A successful trip to the desert indeed.
Oct. 5th-7th- This is kind of getting long, so I
will summarize the last few days! We rode a train (14 hour sleeping train) to
Xi ‘an, and played card games with some really cute kids on the way there.
In Xi ‘an we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, thousands
and thousands of sculptures of an massive army, buried to guard the first
emperor of China. These ancient marvels are over 2,000 years old. While looking
at them, I caught myself multiple times with my jaw and eyes wide open. Only 10
feet away, I could barely believe the history that was within a stone’s throw
away. Truly breathtaking.
The rest of our time in Xi ‘an consisted of walking around
the town, and buying probably the coolest souvenir I’ve ever bought. We went
(on the recommendation of a Yinchuan FOC teacher) to buy some Chr-stian
scrolls. The lady that creates these beautiful scrolls has a beautiful faith,
and she told us stories of how even though she loses face (a Chinese way of
saying losing respect) for being so openly Chr-stian, she knows it is G-d’s
plan for her to do such work. We shared with her our faith and encouragement,
and she did the same with us. We were basically almost all in tears when she
was telling us of her fa-th and how important it is to her. A great bl-ssing
from Him for us to meet her.
We then explored the ancient Xi án city wall ( a 12 mile wall
surrounding the older part of the city) walking on top of it for a few miles.
Eventually we hit the sack, hopped on a 15 hour sitting train ride (not a
sleeper, which was really uncomfortable, loud, and bright-they never turned the
lights out). We met some pretty cool Chinese people though and had fun playing
the card game Mafia with them. We arrived in Wuhan, sp-ritually refreshed after
an epic week of camels, sand, history, and traveling.
