Sunday in Dalian

We all met in the lobby at 8:30 AM and made our way to 3 different churches.  What was quite interesting for the day was that we all loaded up on a city bus and made our way to the different locations.  Ralph spoke at one house church.  He did a manna ministry event with them and they raised enough money for them to purchase over 100 pairs of shoes for children in Burma.  That was exciting.

Molly, Mildred Busch and myself made it to the house church in Dalian pastored by Peter.   I had the privilege to preach for Peter and his people.  We arrived about 35 minutes before the service.  I was a bit nervous going to preach.  It wasn't so bad and then people continued to come up the stairs.  They more they came the more nervous I became.  The service began and the congregation of about 100 began to sing along with their worship leader and other praise singer.  The second or third song that they sang was "God Will Make a Way".  God at that point gave me complete peace and took my nervousness away.  PTL!  He asked me to speak and sing so I spoke for about 35 minutes (Peter interpreted for me).  After I finished I played the keyboard and sang during their prayer time.  I'm not really sure if I went long enough because when I finished Peter spoke for another 15 minutes.  :)  The picture to the left is of me and Molly, Peter and his daughter Christina.

Molly didn't want to have any part of my preaching so she stayed downstairs and worked with the kids.  She was able to communicate with the children via hand signals.  She did really well.  She helped them work on crafts.  The teacher asked Molly during their Bible story time to read the Bible lesson in English.  Molly really loved doing that.  I found out later that Molly was really nervous that I could have been arrested for preaching.  (I found this out reading her journal of the trip.)  She didn't need to worry about that.  So far God has blessed Peter and His church and has smiled upon them.  Two young ladies from Peter's church took us to meet the rest of our group after church.

The other 8 in our group went to worship in an International ministry church at our friends house in Dalian.  God has truly blessed this group.  The people in this ministry are able to encourage one another weekly.

The Journey and the House Church

We woke up early on Saturday and caught a taxi ride to the train station.  (Similar to the MARTA system in Atlanta.)  From there we went north in the city and met Peter.  Peter is a Chinese national pastor.  He had rented four cars for us to take into the village to visit a house church. 

When we arrived we were blown away.  You see this looked nothing like a church building.   When the cars stopped village people started pouring out of the building to greet us.  They were singing a welcome song to greet all of us that were coming to be blessed by their church.  There was such joy on their faces. No question about it they knew who Jesus was and they loved Him.  There were empty wire spools that they were using as chairs.  They probably were no more that 12 inches off of the ground and the top that they sat on could not be more than twelve inches. 

After they finished their song they insisted that we sit down on some old furniture and chairs that they had placed around the room.  When we were seated they began to sing again.  The lady that was leading the music was beating a Chinese drum and there was a man playing a small set of cymbals.  It thought the lady would beat a hole in the drum because she was playing it so hard.  (Apparently she was the leader at this church.  Peter goes out and will preach for them I believe once a month.  This is in addition to his other ministries.  Peter tells me that the old women lead the church because they are afraid of NOTHING.  After meeting them I can believe that.)

Peter asked me to give greetings to the church and I did so.  Every phrase that I spoke they said, “AMEN”!   Chris spoke after I did and then the people sang for us again.  I loved it that the lady leading this time had a megaphone and she was singing through it.  (Remember the room wasn’t very large.  All together there was probably 65- 80 in the room including us.)  She was just a singing away and came over to our group and was like three feet from them blaring out her praise to God right in their face.  I chuckled!

We didn’t stay very long because our friends Chris and Annie that live in Dalian had other things planned for us on that day.  The people followed us out to the cars singing and clapping and thanking us for coming.

Peter stayed around and preached for the people.  I understand that they sang for one hour and that he preached for three hours.  The people are just longing to hear God’s word.  This is a date that is etched in our minds forever.   Remember the people of China that they stay strong in the faith.  Peter told us that November 1^st the arrested the pastor’s at the largest house church in both Beijing and Shanghai.  I believe that he would count it an honor to be arrested for the cause.  Amazing dedication.

We have it easy in the states.   Father please to let me life go back to ordinary status.  I don’t want to ever be the same again.

THE JOURNEY BACK IN DALIAN

Friday morning was pretty much a morning for us to catch up on some rest.  We hit the ground running when we arrived in Dalian from our 25+-hour trip from the states so a little rest was appreciated.

We were very thankful that we could use Skype on our trip.  That was such a huge blessing to be able to call home using that technology.

 

We went to the market and did some pearl shopping on Friday.  After that was over we went to Pizza Hut for lunch.  Let me tell you it was one of the nicest Pizza Huts I have ever been in and the pizza was DELICIOUS!

On Friday evening we met with a group of Chinese students that go to the University for a Thanksgiving get together.  It was so much fun to be able to interact with these students.  Some of their English names that they had given themselves just cracked me up.  There were names like Purple, Spring, etc.  We had Korean food and then we went upstairs and Chris spoke to them about Thanksgiving and the importance of that holiday.  How we would be thankful to God for all He has done.  It was also fun to be able to sing a song about God’s blessings. 

 

After the message was over we had a fun time playing games.  It all started out with BINGO.  They loved that game.  Anita Barnett won one of the games and walked away with a pack of Mentos.  I still not really sure if she cheated or not!  LOL!   We played ping-pong, Uno, cards and another game.  It was so much fun.  After the evening was over we hitched a taxi and went back to our hotel.  We had finished another day of ministry in the beautiful country of China.

Travel Video - Day 1 & 2

Video of our trip to China. (Travel Days)

FROM MOLLY'S JOURNAL - Day Four

Blog From Molly’s Journal on Day 4 of the China Trip

We got to go to a school and teach the kids English today.  Most of them in our class were 13 years old.  One of them said that their favorite singer was Michael Jackson.   (My dad then tried to practice his moon walk and it made the kids laugh.)  My favorite part was getting to jump rope with them.  Ashley, Nicholas, Molly, Mr. Jason and my dad all jumped rope.  Even Sarah did too.

After the school we went and walked on the bridge that separates the two countries.  During the war MacArthur wanted to march into China and take over.  President Truman not wanting that to happen gave the orders and had the bridge blown up.  Because of that MacArthur could not enter China at that location.  After we walked on the bridge we got on a boat and saw North Korea really close up.  Then we took a bus and went back to Dalian and cleaned up.  When we were all clean we ate supper with the General Manager of the hotel.  (By the way we had to walk from the downtown bus station.  It was a long cold walk.)

WE ARE HOME & STILL BLOGGING

We arrived in Pensacola at 1:45 PM today, Wednesday, November 25th.   We spent the night in Seoul, South Korea.  We had the hook up last night.  Our travel agent requested for rooms to be given to us since we arrived in Seoul at midnight.  They agreed to this and gave us six rooms and breakfast for 11 at the Hyatt Regency right at the airport.  WOW!  It was fantastic.  Of course we only spent about 7 hours in the room but we were able to rest and get a good shower before our trip.

We left Seoul at 10:05 AM on Wednesday morning.  That would be 8:05 PM on Tuesday night.  So todays travel only consisted of almost 18 hours.  Needless to say everyone is exhausted.  There are a few of us that have come home sick.  Please pray everyone gets to feeling better.

As you know by know I was not able to blog or do facebook when we arrived in China.  The government cracked down on social media sites this year in preparation for the 65th anniversary of the revolution.  Be watching over the next several days as I will be making post & putting up pictures.  I am also working on videos that I will publish.

So glad to be home!  We have a lot to be thankful for as Americans.

Dandong and the N Korean border

After we left the school we went to the "famous bridge" that overlooked the North Korean border. This bridge sat on the Yalu River. During the war Truman had the bridge bombed. MacArthur wanted to come over the bridge and take over Korea. He and Truman disagreed on that issue and Truman commanded that the bridge to be blown up. I also understand that the Chinese were going over the bridge in great numbers to fight with the North Koreans. Needless to say the bridge that was bombed was still standing next to the new bridge. It is a tourist destination.


We were able to go out on the bridge and stand and remember the people of North Korea. They are in great darkness and need to see the glorious light of the gospel. There is a lot of ministry that needs to be done there. The Father is working in various ways across that country through good organizations. Franklin Graham is able to get in there and minister. Even manna ministry (with our friend Ralph) is able to help work in there taking vitamins to the people.

It was so cold on that bridge. When we came off of the bridge they loaded each of us on a boat and we took a tour up against the coast line of North Korea. We were still in Chinese waters but less than 50 yards away from the North Korean border. We got loads of pictures and we will share them with you as soon as possible. The difference in the two cities right across from each other is stunning.

Finally it was time to eat. We loaded our bus from the school and had our first taste of KFC. :-) Finger lickin' good! The school leaders took us to the bus station from there and we loaded our bus for our four hour trip back to Dalian. That was an experience in itself. When we arrived at the station downtown it was too hard to get a taxi so we headed out on foot for our hotel. It was cold and a long way from where we got off of the bus. After almost a 45 minute walk we made it to our hotel just in time to freshen our faces and head downstairs for supper with the General Manager of our hotel. He treated the whole team to a lovely meal and they gave each of us gifts. By the time the night was over we were exhausted. Our first ministry trip of the week was over. Tomorrow would bring a new day!