Oh the Train 197/365

Ahhh, yes, the train shelves.  When God calls us, he doesn't always call us to be comfortable.  He loves to call us out of our comfort zone, because that is when he can teach us, and mold us, and grow us.  If we continually stayed in our own comforts it would completely show our lack of faith.  The train was the beginning of the faith journey of this trip.  It was this part of the trip, that I had to just let go and have faith.  Because while I love train travel in China, I had not done this journey before.  I knew we were not going to have English speakers to guide us, and we would essentially be on our own.  Before we even headed out for the train, I knew I needed to find food for my team.  There would be hot water on our train, and I knew we needed something we could fix with that.  I had been up most of the night because I was certain someone had opened our door (I know that wasn't the case, but at the time it had me up) Kelsey didn't sleep well either so she and I hit the streets of Beijing at 5:30 am to find some instant noodles.  I truly wish we had recorded me trying to describe what I wanted to find.  I finally impressed upon a guy that I wanted compressed noodles.  I was thinking, "Wow, he knows the word compressed, but does not know the word instant."  He gave me directions and he was spot on.  We then played charades with the shop owners to get enough for the team to have two meals, plus, seven bags of M&Ms, several bags of chips, and cookies of course.

Shortly after that, our driver, who wanted to be referred to as Uncle John at this point was fussing at my students because they were not ready to go.  He was a little flustered, but he calmed down once we were loaded.  He didn't want me to have to get the train tickets with my limited Chinese at the train station so he drove us to an agency that could print them so we wouldn't have to stand in line the try to communicate our needs there.  Thank you Uncle John, because let me tell you, the Beijing West train station is huge! We were the ONLY white people there, and boy did we know it.  We stuck out like lepers that had been thrown out of the city gates.  It was funny to watch the reactions of my students at being gawked at.  Kelsey looked up after a while, and said, "They won't stop staring at us, it's like they are saying to themselves, wow, unicorns really do exist."  Yep that about sums it up, we were like unicorns.

Once we got settled into our shelves, we all hung out for 10 hours.  I introduced pass the pigs.  They thought it was hilarious to throw around two little pigs.  They took lots of pictures of flying pigs.  At was at this point that I knew the ten hour ride would be just fine.  If they can be that amused over pigs, then we were set.

I was proud that we got everyone off the train at the right spot.  Or was it?  We walked to the exit and saw no reps from Bring Me Hope.  So we walked to the other exit, and again no one.  Back to the other one and out.  I decided it was easier to find sitting ducks then for us to keep moving, so we planted our luggage and they flopped on top of it.  I took one of the energetic boys and he and I searched around, we couldn't find a single English speaker, so then we resorted to trying to call camp.  No answers!  So, we sat.  I did freak them all out when I said, "Maybe this isn't the right station."  I stepped way back and compared the Chinese symbols on my train ticket to the bright red ones on the building.  I walked back and with the straightest face and said, "Bad news (after all that is how my Chinese friends started out all my news) we are at the wrong train station."  I wish you could have seen their faces.  At this point I am also thinking I can't believe parents actually sent their children to China with me! Bet you are wondering that too at this point.  The good news is we were found.  It only took an hour, but we were found.  We made it to camp after midnight and drifted off to sleep on our oh so comfortable beds. More on that tomorrow.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10