Nehemiah Update 5 - Daniel and the lion’s den

It’s Monday, and the seventh day of our program in Fuzhou. Tomorrow is the last day. I’m sitting in the back of one of the three rooms we are using for the program. The groups are discussing the skit that Nehemiah performed earlier on the theme of God’s Faithfulness. The skit was followed by a testimony by Ollie. Both did a great job. The skit - Daniel and the lion’s den - was HILARIOUS!! The whole room was roaring with laughter.

Laughter is an underappreciated emotion.  It’s often associated with not being serious and not often encouraged; in fact, too much laughter is often discouraged. But in China, I think it’s a necessary component to an effective witness. It speaks to the joy we have in Jesus; it makes our faith compelling.

I was talking to Karen about this very thing. “Karen” was an 11-year-old student in our program in 2011. She’s got a full-time teaching job and can only stay a short time, but keeps dropping in to hang out at the beginning of the program to join us as we sing songs and watch the skit.  She told me that Chinese students are under so much pressure to excel at school that there is little time for play and stressed how important fun and laughter are for young Chinese, and how few opportunities exist to experience it!  Some of the most significant memories she has of 2011 is of the laughter. And that’s why she comes back. I think it’s a good thing for the Chinese to associate those bearing the Good News as people who have fun.

Each morning, the team has breakfast together and then, depending on whether they are going out with their groups, one meal is day is “out.” That means the team gets in groups, is given lunch or dinner money, and is sent off to find someplace to eat. It’s a big (and tasty) adventure!

Fuzhou is not a tourist destination. They grow excellent Oolong tea in the mountains that ring the city, but other than that, there’s not much for tourists here. And the area our school is in (we are staying in a small university’s dorms) is on the edge of town. It’s a working-class area; a bit ragged and cramped, with dirty streets lined with tiny restaurants with two to three tables. It’s best not to look at the kitchen or the sanitary conditions; most would be shut down in a New York minute by state inspectors in the USA. But rarely does anyone get sick. They serve simple food that is cheap but tasty. Our students are very likely the first non-Chinese diners they’ve ever had. My personal favorite is a soup restaurant run by two women who make delicious noodle soup at 10 yuan ($1.40-ish) a bowl. I always leave stuffed and satisfied.

Our students are getting a feel of the real China, not the China most Americans experience at the sanitized tourist destinations like Beijing, Shanghai or Xian.  I think that when we leave on Wednesday, some of our students will leave a part of their heart here. But a lot of China will leave with them because they have showered us with gifts! It’s just a bit embarrassing. I’ve got more tea than my pack can hold, and the students have even more.

Tomorrow is our last day, and it’s going to be full. We finish the program in the morning, and then they are going to take us up to the mountain for lunch and some singing. We’ll get back…sometime. Time is fluid here, so you have to have a loose schedule and make adjustments as needed. We plan to have a worship time tomorrow night as a closure of our work here. As I mentioned, they’ll have a hard time leaving, and I expect a fair number of tears, which are justified. Everyone on the team has been deeply touched by the kindness the Chinese have lavished upon us.

But we still have a whole schedule of kingdom work ahead of us, and the team has to be able to make the emotional adjustment from the Chinese to the Filipino culture. Unfortunately, our work there will not be nearly as relational. But it will be equally as important. Please lift up the team and ask for a smooth transition. It would be a shame for any student not to give their all in the next stage because they remained emotionally “stuck” in China and measured everything afterwards against their experience here.

Please lift up our health as well. Many students are still battling colds. Nothing serious, but enough to slow them down a bit, and we are facing two long travel days beginning Wednesday morning.

We leave here at 7:00 to catch the bullet train to Shanghai. We’ll take the subway from the train station to Pudong Airport and get checked in. We won’t arrive in Taipei until 10:00 pm, and it will be another 2+hours before we can clear customs, get transportation to the hostel, and get checked in and settled. We have a 9:15 am flight the next morning, so we’ll be out by 5:30 am…almost not enough time to make it worth not the hotel! It’s four hours to Manila, and another 5-hour layover. We’ll finally land in Puerto Princessa just after 7:00 pm, catch some food, and then journey another 45 minutes to the camp. I expect we’ll get in somewhere around 10:00 pm.

Thankfully, the students will have a break to rest/recuperate and do some planning while the leadership team goes to town to prepare. We have to purchase virtually all the food for 18 people, three meals a day, for 14 days. I don’t envy Katie’s job. And then we have to haul it all up north with us in the truck and then boat to San Jose. We hope to get to San Jose before they shut off the power generator at 10:00 pm on Saturday.

You can see it’s going to be a bit of a slog, but I think they’ll negotiate it well. They are doing exceptionally well, and the team spirit is still running high. Sure, we have our flaws, but it’s a great team!

I hope to have something for you by Friday or Saturday. After that, our connection to the outside world is going to get even more limited in the remote area we’ll be in. But I’ll do my best to keep you all up to date.

For the Nehemiah Team,

Tom

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