Eye has not seen...Day whatever it is now...in China...

[I apologize some of the photos wouldn't download for me. So I will try to get them in tommorrow.]
From my journal:

4/03
6:45 AM
Hotel

"Eye has not seen nor has ear heard nor has mind conceived the things God has planned for his people" 1 Corinthians 2

Yesterday we spent around eight hours driving on the minibus through the mountains. The roads swerrved at every turn. They were filled with foot pedestrians. As the bus made its way, the driver would honk the horn every time we neared anyone, which was all the time. This was to give them fair warning no to enter the road. Our road followed the river which cut its way into the mountains. Every mile that we drove took us deeper and deeper into the mountains. The faces on either cliff stretched high into the sky. The sun shone just on the top half of one side as it slipped slowly below the mountain range.

All along the way we saw people hard at work. They were busy doing manual labor. There were large boulders being broken by hand with sledge hammers. There were ten foot deep holes, ten foot in diameter being dug in the sand by shovels Erosion and landslides left huge piles at the bottoms of the mountains to be cleaned up. Platforms had been built into the sides of the mountains to try to stop some of the erosion and to provide some areas for farming. These unfortunately only worked some of the time before giving way to erosion and leaving that portion of the land useless.



I couldn't help reflecting on how people's lives were shaped as well. There some houses built into the sides of the mountain. I can only imagine walking out of my house on a brisk April morning, smelling the freshness of the air, seeing the river below and the mountain ranges that surrounded me, and feeling overwhelmed and inadequate to be in such a beautiful place. I can only imagine the joy that would inspire within me. And yet there are other forces shaping people as well. The hardship of the work it takes to survive. The constant day in and day out physical exertion. And I thought that this was something the whole of the human race faces. In the same way the river and the rains had shaped the sides of the mountain, people's lives are shaped by their circumstances. It is a mixture of joy and hardship that over time carves out who we are. I guess the question is if we have enough joy in our lives to make the carved out mountains look grandeur?

We arrived after 8:00 pm last night. The first thing we did was to put our bags in the room and then head immediately to dinner. At dinner we met the county leaders. They served us a wonderful meal. I was encouraged to eat pig fat. It is just a sqare piece of pig fat. The government projects officer for the region was rooting me on. I put the whole thing in my mouth and continued to add rice and it started to go down. This seemed to find favor with everyone that was serving us.

From there we moved to the police headquarters for a beuracratic type meeting. Everyone was introduced and tok turns sharing pleasantries and hopes for the partnership. The county leaders shared with us the problem in their eyes. This included trafficking as well as urban migration. They seemed to point to the greatest need as being poverty alleviation.

The next day we headed towards the village. We drove about an hour before we arrived at the trail to the village. We had come a long ways to get to this village. What would we find there? About forty five minutes into the climb up the mountain we began to realize the altitude was going to make this climb much tougher The weather was cool and yet I was POURING sweat. For some time we ascended a rocky trail but then came to flat concrete walking wall. This was a good reprieve only about a third of the way up the mountain. Once passed this we were back on the rocky trainl and it began to rain. The rain made the trip more difficult as it became muddy and slippery.




We continued upward around another hour and fifteen minutes. We passed some workers farming the mountainside. We passeed a temporary camping site for men building a power station.

We came to a place where there were four costume dressed girls and an older man. They were waiting on us to carry our bags to the village. They greeted us by singing, "To God Be The Glory" in their language. This was the biggest shock of our trip yet. What a blessing to be standing so far up on this mountain in the middle of China and be greeted by such a familiar and fitting song. We had learned that the villagers were Christians from an earlier debriefing. Some English missionaries had come and given them a written alphabet. Until then their language had not been written down. I was anxious to see what role Christianity was playing in helping to sustain their village.

China - Day Five

Journal:
"Ahhh. aisle seat. We are on ANOTHER airplane. [this is my fourth airplane]. I am struck finally by how far it is to the villages we are headed to. 14 hour flight ATL to Tokyo--4 hour flight Tokyo -- Hong Kong -- 3 hour flight Hong Kong Kunming -- one hour flight kunming--to the next city [as mentioned last blog from here on out I will leave out the names]--6 hour bus ride to another city --2 hour hike."

Blog:
As at this point I have written three blogs and am yet to reach the villages I think you could sense the frustration that I began to feel. But I also began to feel like perhaps God had a big plan. If he had to take me so far to reach this point of need then there must be something big for me to see. As we left the airport the terrain began to change. There was the river along the side of the road that we seemed to follow. Hills lined both sides of the road and the river.



As we went further the hills became mountainside and the terrain began to rival that of Colorado.





The road was very rocky and the bus ride that was supposed to take 6 hours seemed to drag on. At one point we came to a place where all traffick was stopped because they were working on the road. So what did we do? What else do westerners do when they are bored? We made a game out of it.

Seeing the river was a good distance a way we decided to challenge each other's throwing arms.



Finally we were back on the road and by about 8 pm we arrived in the city we were staying in. And if you have been reading this blog then you might be feeling a bit like I was up until this point. When will the action start? Well...this is where our assessment began.

China - Day Four

Some of the city names I have been told to omit by The Salvation Army. This is to keep the precise region we were were working in confidential.

Day Four

We began the day off in Hong Kong. So before we went to the airport I made my way down to what has become known to me as the universal language--basketball.



I found out that ten feet in the US is ten feet in China.

Later that day we boarded the plane for kunming. After about a three hour flight I was on the ground in mainland China. We flew into Kunming. There we were met at the airport by Jerry the projects officer. The rest of the development staff met us at dinner that night.

From my journal:

"After dinner I was ablet to lean back in my chair and have some personal conversation with Puisi. She is the director of development for The Salvation Army in China. She is an incredible woman. Until the age of 29 she had not received a degree. She went from Hong Kong to Australia to study. While there she attended an anglican church. She was not impressed because the status of church members and what they did for a living was a very big deal. She wanted religion that was practical to her. She gained a degree in nursing and later a Masters in public health. She began attending The Salvation Army corps and became a soldier. She went to work for world vision. She worked for them for several years but The Salvation Army came looking for her. Since she was a soldier she agreed strongly with the mission of the army. in 1997 she started work in Kunming China. She was the army in all of China. One person among a billion. That is the spirit of this woman. She knows she can make a difference. It is to her credit that today there is a staff of 10 in Kunming and 8 in Bejing."

China - Day Two Continued and Three

Tokyo - Meeting Interesting People

It always seems that I meet the most interesting people when I am on mission trips. On my flight from Atlanta to Tokyo I sat next to an individual who was currently living in Brazil but had lived in Tokyo and in China. He had worked on exporting oil paintings out of China. He talked about how he had always wanted to get involved with philanthropic work but that he had only so far worked in business.

Later, I met some Americans at the terminal in Tokyo who were also heading to China. It was a bit surreal, partly because jet lag was settling in, but we all sat and talked for a couple of hours in Tokyo and it was almost like we had known each other for a while.

Hong Kong

When I finally made it to the airport in Hong Kong I had been traveling close to twenty four hours. I was tired. I just wanted to get my bags and drop into bed. But first I had to go through customs. I think customs is a metaphor for life. Perhaps some of the worrying that I had been doing related to this metaphor. When you get to a new stage in life at times there is a waiting period. Anxiety builds as you await entrance into that new land of what God has for you. Will I be accepted? What's on the other side?

Well literally after a wait in line I was accepted into Hong Kong and strolled to where I met the taxi. You can go back to my last blog to catch that the taxi went fine and I got in my room, met my roomate and went to sleep.

Day Three - Hong Kong Cont.

This is straight from my journal:

"I had some great conversations with Duncan, who informed Dr. Michael Smith

and I about what to expect in mainland China. It was exciting because he said that some of these villages are like "viking villages." they are very primitive with little touched by technology. He also said that Colonel Tsang [officer commanding in Hong Kong] expected to have corps operating in mainland China within 10 years."

I didn't have time to journal the rest of the day so the next day I penned this about this day:

"Yestaerday was great. We spent the day in the board room discussing human trafficking.

I was jetlagging pretty hard but I sensed that India has had the most success in this work.

The thing that I got the most from this meeting was that the army has barely scratched the suface when it comes to getting involved with this type of ministry."

The session actually seemed to be much more a brainstorming session about how we can work together internationally to combat this problem. I was left convicted that I needed to do something about it back home.

For Lunch we were hosted by Colonel Alfred Tsang who is the officer commanding for the Hong Kong and Macau command. He seemed to be a very energetic man and supportive of thejourney that we were about to take. I had never eaten chicken feet before but this was thrust on my plate and I found that it "taste like chicken."



With the preliminary meetings over my gaze began to turn to mainland China. The next day we would depart to begin our assessment of what we can do there.

My Trip to China Day One and Two

Well, I am back. I want to thank everyone who supported me through prayer or finances. So I am going to go back to the first day and try to chronicle my trip.

Wed. March 28th

Got all packed up...its funny how dog's can sense when I am getting ready to go on a long trip...




The whole night before I left to go on the trip I couldn't sleep. Here are some of the thoughts from my journal:

"I'm distracted. It has not been the best day. Big thoughts, Big worries about things here in the states have consumed most of my day. Here I am just a few hours before take off and I am focused on things weeks ahead. I am reminded of a previous mission trip I took where the Lord taught me to live in the moment I am in.

Sometimes it seems the enemy's plan is to get us thinking about the next important thing so much that we miss the ministry and magic of the moment. What might lie ahead for me? May I struggle to find my way from the Hong Kong airport to the place where I am staying at close to midnight by myself? Sounds like a bad episode of the amazing race. Will I be on the same page with the rest of the team? Will there be a spiritual application to the trip or just a physical one? Will I look into the eyes of a hurting kid in China and know that I have to do something? Will I be in touch closely enough with the heart of God to cry with Him?"

March 29th - 30th

The next day I got a plane for a long flight to Tokyo and then on to Hong Kong.





It was thirteen hours ahead in Hong Kong so I left Wednesday morning at 10:30 am and arrived Thursday night at 10:30 pm. But I actually spent around 24 hours of actual travel time including a four hour lay over in Tokyo.


The Salvation Army in Hong Kong has a beautiful hotel and command headquarters. I checked into the room and met my roomate Duncan Parker. Duncan is the Director for International Development for the United Kingdom. He greeted me by saying, "I hear I should call you J-Rock." I couldn't believe that my nickname had made it around the world:)




So as I lay in bed that night around midnight over there, 11 am back here in the states I felt excited about the days ahead and the place where the Lord had brought me.