Time passed all too quickly and as it did I continued to think of my experience in that training center and thought about returning. McFBC was planning a trip to a country in Asia outside of China and asked if I would consider traveling with them part of the way and then fly alone to the location of the training center in China. My assignment would be to teach from the Bible for four days at the first center and then have a day to be moved to the second center to repeat the lessons. After four days at the second center I would be brought out for a one day special assignment and then would fly back to the city where I left the others and join them on the return trip. If everything goes well, this may become an opportunity for me twice each year and for longer periods of time. This is an important assignment that comes with some risk, but it is one that I long to be a part of.
As details of the trip were being worked out and documents put in order I realized that short term mission trips are one of the best ways to experience God because it takes you out of a familiar environment and places you in one that may be quite different culturally. Being confined in one of these training centers in close quarters with about twenty young people one third of my age is a good example. They did not speak a language I understood, ate food that was very different from my normal diet, and living in a rather primitive environment, provided ample opportunity to stretch my experience with God.
On this trip I would travel with the group to Bangkok, Thailand. They would continue on to teach at a pastor’s conference further into Asia and I would travel alone to Chengdu, China. I was not expecting to experience any problems as I had all the necessary documentation and it was a non-stop flight with someone assigned to meet me at the airport in Chengdu. It should have been an easy flight, but easy can sometimes become a learning experience. Computers in the US didn't adjust for the International Date Line and as a result my ticket was not for the correct day. With no flights scheduled by the airline I was flying with to Chengdu that day, I was forced to fly to Guangzhou, China and then on to Chengdu on a partner airline. Circumstances required that I purchase the ticket in Guangzhou for the additional leg and have the cost billed to the airline in Bangkok.
As I walked off the plane in Guangzhou, I saw a person holding a sign with my name on it. The airline had graciously called ahead and told them to help me through the process of securing my ticket for the last leg of my flight. For the next 40 minutes I was led through the process of securing that ticket, going through customs and getting to the partner airline boarding counter. As I waited for my plane, I needed to figure out how to get in contact with somebody in Chengdu to pick me up. My cell phone would not work in China, but fortunately, I was given a cell phone that worked in China, by a member of the group I left in Bangkok. It was a working phone, but I was facing two problems: I only knew one name on the contact list and the numbers were all local numbers for Chengdu. Out of desperation I searched for an English speaker who could help me. I finally found a person who could help near a phone store. I got the area code and called the only person I knew on the list, but no answer. At this point I picked a name at random and dialed it. A person answered, spoke English, and was in fact waiting for me at the airport wondering where I was. I explained the situation and made arrangements to be picked up by him when my flight came in. What an example this was of how God provides.
I finally arrived in Chengdu on the evening of the scheduled day, got to my hotel to get some needed sleep because late the next day I would enter the first school. I would be in for four days to teach, using an interpreter, for seven hours each day. The fifth day would be a day out of the school allowing me to get cleaned up, rest, meet with particular people and enter the next school for a repeat four days in and one day out before going to the airport to spend the next 21 hours on three airplanes and 10 hours in airports waiting for connecting flights. It was a long hard trip home, but worth every tired minute of it.
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