Desert Storm

Grace and peace to you all from G0d our Father and our L0rd and S@vi0r J-s-s Chr*s+.

I know this is coming a bit late, but my internet was down during the free part of my week this week, and I am publishing this as soon as I can.

I promised that I would fill you all in on the details of my vacation, so here goes.

David, my roommate and I, left our apartment early Saturday afternoon to go to the train station. It was very busy, and all the buses were overly crowded. We had just decided that we should go in a taxi instead when we managed to squeeze on the bus, even with our huge bags. We met up with some other FOC teachers going on the trip with us, and we left on the train to Zhengzhou.

We only had standing tickets for our first train, so we spent six hours on our feet, trying to keep each other entertained into the early hours of the morning. The train was so crowded when new people came on. Sometimes we thought we would be squished to death. But we made it off at about 1 in the morning, and we stayed the night in the hotel, where we met up with some more of our friends from Wuhan.

We spent the following morning in Zhengzhou, ate lunch, and then got on the train for our destination: Yinchuan, a city in Northwestern China. Our train ride was about 19 hours this time, but this time we had hard sleeper tickets. A hard sleeper provides you with a bed. It's fairly firm, and I guess that's where they get the name "hard" sleeper, but it was actually very comfortable for me. They stack three hard sleepers like bunk beds, one above the other, but they provide even me with enough room to sit up, so they really aren't bad. I got to talk to some of the other teachers on the way, and we played some card games, too.

We arrived in Yinchuan on Monday morning, and we explored the city a little. It is a much smaller city than Wuhan, with only about 1 or 2 million people. The air seemed cleaner, which was nice, but there were two things that defined Yinchuan for me. First of all, perhaps because it was a national holiday, we were the only foreigners there. In Wuhan, I can see other Americans or people from other nations on a somewhat regular basis, but in Yinchuan, all eyes were on us. What's more, I learned that the city has a large Muslim presence. I saw that street signs had Arabic in addition to Chinese and English. We explored the city for two days, visiting sites that our friends from Yinchuan recommended, including the city square, which had what seemed like a temple to Mao Zedong, who is absolutely everywhere in China.

Tristan the camel

After our time in Yinchuan, we went with some other FoC teachers to the desert. We thought that we were going to the Gobi Desert, but as it turns out, we went in the opposite direction, so we have no idea which desert we actually visited. I got acquainted with some of the other teachers that I didn't know on the 3-hour bus ride there. Once we arrived in the desert, we met our camel friends, the main attraction of our desert trip. We got on our camels fairly quickly, and many of us starting giving names to our camels. I named mine Tristan, after the knight of the Round Table, because mine seemed to have a certain lordly gait about him. We quickly realized, however, that riding on a camel for an hour wasn't as pleasurable as we had hoped. I should rather say that it was fun, but at the end of an hour, I was ready to get off because my legs were sore. In fact, the saddle rubbed against the back of my legs in such a way that it ripped the hair off my skin, leaving a large red rash in its place. I am, however, recovered, but I still don't have the hair on the back of my legs.

The desert was very scenic, for the most part, and far more bearable than I ever imagined as a child. We had a supply of water, of course, and our guides made sure we never wandered too far from the city (where they got our food), but we enjoyed the real desert experience. We played ultimate frisbee the first night of our stay, and we gathered around a campfire for devotion and songs. We drank beer and Chinese liquor (which is basically everclear) to keep warm, and we settled down for the night. I planned for it to be very cold at night, but unfortunately, I was still not warm enough. I woke up at about three in the morning, and I didn't fall asleep again because I was simply too cold. I finally got up at six to watch the sunrise, but it didn't come up for another hour after that. I spent my time shivering until our guides made a fire for breakfast.

The second day went pretty easy. We had breakfast, set out late, took a nap in the afternoon after lunch time, and enjoyed some writing in the sand. We didn't spend any more time on the camels the second day than we did the first, but I think the group in general had had enough of the camel riding and just wanted to enjoy the desert scenery. We decided to take some group photos (which can be seen on Facebook, courtesy of my roommate David Blumer), and that was when we saw the storm coming up on the horizon. We could see rain and lightning in the distance, which never reached us of course, seeing as we were in the desert, but the storm did make its way into our path. We had to tie down our tents well into the side of a dune to provide protection from the wind, which blasted sand all over our faces.

That night, we split our devotions into the men and the women. I can't speak for the women, but the men had a blast. We had little success lighting a fire by digging a deeper hole and using matches, but we managed to get the fire going with a makeshift flamethrower made out of a can of spray-deodorant and a lighter. We talked openly as men of courage, and I say with some confidence that we were all strengthened by the experience.

That night I discovered that our tent (I shared a tent with Olli, a young Chinese man from Wuhan) did not have a working door, so I zipped it up as best I could. Fortunately, we had been given more blankets than the previous night, and the air temperature seemed to be a bit warmer, but at the same time sand kept blowing in because of the storm. I think we all were trying to get the sand out of our hair and ears and everywhere else the following morning.

The next day we needed to head out early. The FoC teachers were splitting up again later in the day. Those of us from Wuhan had to catch trains. I had the opportunity to lead the devotion on the way back to the city. I used the words of Psalm 121, but I also noticed that just about everyone seemed too tired to pay much attention. Back in Yinchuan, we had lunch, showered off, cleaned up, and left for the train station.

Of the 10 of us Wuhaners, 8 stopped in Xian on the way back. Five of us (Kelsey Steffens, Hannah Klusmeyer, Lisa Nickle, David Blumer, and yours truly) stayed there for two days. We made good use of our time. We explored the city a little, but on the first day we visited the Terracotta Warriors while the other three (Lyrica Zhang, Nathan and Sarah Koerber) were still with us. There was a lot of history to see in a little time. The five of us who were staying for two days bid the other three farewell and stayed the night at a hostel, where we had some nice beer with a couple of young German men who were traveling in China.

The following day we visited a shop we had heard about from one of our fellow teachers in Wuhan, Stephanie Humann. There we met a lady named Helen who sold scrolls. We heard her story, which I will not tell here for security reasons, but needless to say we were overjoyed to meet her. I bought a couple of scrolls. One was so beautiful that I had to get it. It has the words of Psalm 27:4 written in Chinese, with the illustration of a man rowing a boat into the fog on a large river surrounded by cliffs. (I recommend you look the passage up if you don't know it off hand--I'd rather not share it here). All in all, I think the five of us agreed that meeting Helen, not seeing the Terracotta Warriors, was the highlight of our stay in Xian. We also walked on top of the wall in Xian and saw some sights from there, but then we had to move on to the train.

The ride back presented me with an opportunity. Lisa Nickle and I sat next to a young man whose English name was Alan. He was eager to practice English with us, and over the course of our time on the train (we were on for about 14 hours overnight), we got to share the message with him. I have no idea whether he believed or not; in fact, I very much doubt it, but perhaps we planted a seed that He will use on His time.

When David and I returned to our apartment, we found that the internet was not working, which is the reason this post was so delayed. There are many more things I could add now, but I suppose this will have to add them in future posts due to the length of this one.

Pr@yers go out to all of you. Please ask our Father to give His aid to our work here, to prosper and grow the flock of believers, and to give His workers patience, wisdom, and the courage to get out there and speak His message. Greetings to all, especially to the brothers and sisters from L*rd of Love!

The grace of our L*rd J-s-s Chr*s+ be with your spir-t.