China Trip 2011 Summary

It seems that we were just talking about taking a vacation in China yesterday. Now it's already a past memory. So many things happened during those three weeks and so many pictures have been taken. I haven't had chance to get it together. To start, here is just a brief summary of our vacation.

We left Dallas on August 15th at 3:30am, flew to San Francisco (over 3 hours), then flew to Beijing (12 hours), then we stayed in a hotel for a night, flew to Urumuqi the next morning (4 hours). My dad and my brother picked us up at the airport. We got home at around 8:00pm on August 17th (local time). There are 13 hours of time difference between Dallas and my home town. Andy had a hard time adjusting his sleep schedule. He had an even harder time adjusting back - all of us struggled with the jetlag for a week after coming back. Andy's sleep schedule got completely messed up. He didn't get half of his normal sleep. He got sick two days later. Unavoidably, Emily was sick also. Both kids are still not completely well. Andy's sleep schedule almost returned to normal. I finally got chance to sit down and write something. So the jetlag was the biggest side-effect of the trip. But still it was worth it!

Both kids did great during the long trips - much better than I thought. They adjusted to the Chinese environment very quickly. In other words, they thoroughly enjoyed every moment. They were like human-pass-around-parcels, always in somebody's arms. They loved spending time outside with the neighbors or relatives - they could live outside if we let them. Our neighbors loved our kids. Often times after Andy had a stroller walk, his strollers were filled with fresh produce or delicious food from the neighbors. During the three weeks, we stayed at six different places (half with air conditioners and half without). In my hometown, my high school friend let us stay in her dad's two-story vacant apartment. To the kids, every place was an adventure. Because of so many fresh fruit, vegetable and melons, Andy's constipation was gone and his picky eating habit got much better.

One of the highlights of our trip was to help my mom to find a church family. We had a couple of house church Christian contacts from last trip. But we couldn't reach them this time. So we visited the local government church. I was impressed by the preacher, who didn't receive any formal theological training. After church, we met a lady who lives close to my parents. So the following Wednesday we took my mom to her small Bible study group. My mom seemed to like the group. She said that she will make an effort to go to the Bible study regularly after she comes back from my sister's place (she left the same day as we did to see my sister in Shenzhen). The local government church was trying to reach out to the local Muslim community. One Ugur family was converted and then moved to another city. Before long, that family converted four other Muslim families. One Ugur told the Christians frankly after he visited the church:" We Muslims wash outside (seven times); while Christians wash inside (the heart). Our mosque is doom and stinky; while your church is bright and fresh; We look heavy-ladened; while you look happy... I'll come back again." We often heard about the government church verses the house church. Undoubtly, the government church has its advantage in evangelizing more people. The preacher's comment impressed me "No matter where I serve, the government church or the house church, I know who my Father is. And that's who I serve."

David did Let's Start Talking with several University students. Hopefully the seeds will grow someday. One day at the bank, we bumped into two American ladies. They were the missionaries in Beijing and Shanghai, who were sent to Xinjiang to do some exploration. We are curious about what they were finding.

On the way back, we stayed with our missionary friends Gary and Danita Jackson in Beijing for three days. During the three days, they had two baptisms. One guy was from my home province. He shared his testimony after the baptism "I wanted to set free as soon as possible so that I can serve others better." There were over a dozen first time visitors in that Sunday service (of about 60 attendants), plus four LST workers (Pleasant Ridge team). One visitor was from Ghana. He said he knew that China has Kongfu and Taichi; but when his Chinese customer invited him to the church, he was surprised. Now he can go back to tell his friends that China has lots of churches too! Gary and Danita are such a wonderful couple! We were so blessed to witness their busy and effective work in Beijing. While we were there for the weekend, they had English Corner, Theological study, Baptism celebration, church service, fellowship, Bible study and another baptism, ... One of the church members said they were God-sent. Their dedication to the Lord was one of the reasons that church member made the decision to follow Jesus. Their busy schedule didn't affect them from being a wonderful host. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them and learning from them.

We also visited our missionary friends Andrew and Jaime and their five months old daughter Lucia. On the way out, we bumped into one of the LST workers (prestoncrest team), who attended Prestoncrest 15 years ago. She had planned to do LST for four weeks. Later we got word that she and her teammate will stay in Beijing for two years and six month respectively.

I haven't look through all the pictures yet. So I'll have another post with pictures sometime next week. Overall, we had a wonderful time with family and friends, although we didn't have enough time to see all the people that we wanted to see. When we got home in Dallas, both kids had a dream look on their faces. I totally understood that - the three weeks' life, the sight, the sound, in China seemed to be a dream!