post-mission part 1

mission trip to sichuan is finally over, or i should say it was over for almost a week now. many things have happened, and now i regret that i didnt write everything down because i cant recall all of them. God definitely worked faithfully throughout the trip, magnified and revealed His presence with us at all times through many different unexpected situations. how about a brief recap of the trip?

so the first camp that we went to started on tues 8/3 because we spent so much time traveling in the first 2 days plus the difference in time zone. so on tues, we finally got to the camp site after 3 hours of car ride with many constructions from the earthquake back in 2008. though new infrastructures are being built, you can tell that many are still living in poverty, many are still living in the shadow of horror from the earthquake. when we got to the camp sites, all the kids had been waiting for us for a while because we got stuck in traffic. we didnt know it was supposed to be on top of the mountain, and the only way to get there was through super long staircase. with our heavy luggage, it was so tiring and time consuming to bring everything up. fortunately, lots of the kids and staff helped us with that. when we finally get there, we were told that we had to live with the kids, and the rooms are all the way down the mountains. so again the staff were helping us to bring all our luggage down.

when we get to the room, i was somewhat expecting those kind of living condition, but it was super humid there, bed and blanket were wet-ish, toilet was a hole, bathroom place was in the same place with super dirty wall, bugs were everywhere. i guess it was a typical rural chinese place. after that, we had dinner with the kids, and the cafeteria was on top of the mountain, which means we had to walk all the way back up to the mountain again. we had a opening ceremony/introduction after dinner, and all of us were too tired after that so we just went to sleep and tried to get enough rest for the next day, though most of us were experiencing jet lag and didnt sleep too well.

the next 2 days of teaching went smoother than most of us expected. because lots of them dont know english that well, they were attentive to what we have to teach them, though it was somewhat difficult to communicate with them for some of us who dont know any chinese. throughout those 2 days, we had to come up with a performance for the talent show for the kids on the last day. my group of kids ended up having a mini-skit where one of them will be the teacher and rest will be students and talk about their gains from the summer camp itself, then finishing off with singing amazing grace in both chinese and english. because we were the only group that used english only throughout the performance, we ended up with first place, where the gifts were the Bibles that we brought to China.

in between the 2 days before talent show and the talent show itself, many other things happened and taken place. after the first night activity, which was just watching movie, we had a meeting with the staff there. and that was when we found out that the kids didnt know much or some have never even heard about the Gospel. the staff encouraged us to find opportunities to open up with the kids, even openly talk to them directly about this matter is fine too because its up in the mountain area.

the second day, we had a session where couple of us share our testimonies with all the kids. i must say, i learned something new from their testimonies, mainly about their past lives, things that i never knew about and i never asked. it was eye-opening, because i didnt realize how little do i know about my friends, about their past, about their testimonies. i didnt realize that we have never talked about things like that before. i felt ashamed that i didnt know about those things, that i wasnt a good friend to them, but im glad that i learned about such things from this mission trip. on top of that, one of the staff, who is actually an evangelist, gave a message to the kids, and asked them if they wanted to accept Christ as their personal Savior. about half of them made that decision to accept Christ at the end of the message, which was really awesome to see, though its another story whether their decisions were genuine.

after that, the power around the area went off for some odd reason. i happened to be sitting outside of the common area with vincent, doing our journal writing duty while others were taking shower. it was nice actually to have all the power went off, i was able to see the beautiful sky filled with stars without any disturbs from the light bulbs. it was peaceful and amazing to see the creations of God and being able to think about the grace that God has brought upon us because of His love for us. "what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:4) i recommend that you to find a secluded place where you can gaze at the sky if you ever have the chance, away from all the technologies that have been drawing our attentions away from the creations of God, and just to marvel at our almighty God through His creations.

on the final day, after the talent show, we had our commencement ceremony, followed by our picture-taking time. it was encouraged to see that many of them have already developed bonds with us, created many relationships with us, even though it has only been 2 days. many of them expressed that they were glad and blessed to have us there, to teach them, to bring God's love to them. this camp ended with many laughter and thank-you's. it was a blessing to see how blessed we have been in the US, how blessed we have been to even have education, how blessed we have been to have people who cared about us, how blessed we have been to have place to worship our God and to openly profess our faith. to me, the most impacting blessing is to be able to share God's love with those who are in desperate need of it, to be able to be used by God, to be able to witness the amazing work of God. thats something that cant be found in other things beside mission.

to be continued in part 2....