China, Destination X: The orange team attempted the mountains of China. After some careful preparations and lots of prayer, we took the step in faith...and headed for the mountains for an adventurous hike.

After a taxi drive of about 15 minutes, the orange team started the long anticipated hike into the mountains in the heart of China. Our plan was to camp out in the mountains for about three nights and return to our “Destination X town”. We started the hike with enthusiasm as we were very excited about camping& hellip;well, most of us anyway! It was a beautiful day, sun shining, slight breeze in the air, not too cold. After about half an hour’s hike we started to scout for a good camping site – one that’s quite flat, which is hard to find as we were already ascending the mountains. Our two guys, Paul and Herman, used their expertise to find us the perfect spot. We set up camp in record time and soon realized that we already have an interested onlooker – yeah, you guessed it, the local goat shepherd.  He found it very interesting, and bizarre I daresay, that we wanted to camp in the mountains.

 

After the camp was set up, we headed for the snow. We couldn’t wait to play like kids in the snow. We had snowball fights, played “catch-a-snowball”, made a snow angel and of course, Paul invented a new game: swimming in the snow! It was magnificent! And freezing! We filled our pot with snow, to melt and use for cooking, as we had a limited water supply. For those of you who have attempted to cook with snow…give us a break, we didn’t know that snow is so dirty! Since we couldn’t cook, we settled for bread for dinner.

 

We even had a nice campfire, just to enhance the outdoors atmosphere, and it was starting to get really cold. Just after we prayed together, sitting around the campfire, we headed for our tents. It was only 19:30 pm, but it was too cold to be outside any longer. 

The temperature kept dropping and dropping. It was freezing, well below zero degrees. I couldn’t sleep at all. I think I broke my own record of most clothing on at once:  3 pairs of socks, pajamas, thermal underwear, two jerseys, a jacket, gloves, a scarf and a beanie. I had a sleeping bag inner and a nice, warm sleeping bag. But my toes were still freezing the whole night. I have never in my life experienced that kind of cold – it was piercing, depressing, making you feel lonely and just giving up hope. Even though we were five people together, I have never in my whole life felt so lonely.

 

Dawn finally arrived and we crawled out of our tents. Close by our tents were little bits of snow. It was so foggy that we couldn’t even enjoy a beautiful sunrise. Marisa and Paul went in search of a stream of water to use for cooking oats. All the water was frozen. We decided to use some of our bottled water for cooking – we just needed warm oats! We had another prayer session in out tent and decided to wait a few hours to see if the weather was going to clear up or not. We didn’t want another night like last night – and there was the possibility of getting snowed in.

 

We had our last meal in the mountains, warm noodles, and after lunch we eventually started the downhill hike. I was relieved to be heading for a warm hotel, but also sad that our camping trip only lasted one night. It was an amazing experience: hiking in the beautiful mountains, camping out in nature, hearing the silence of nature (except a few sounds from the goats on the mountains!) and just getting closer to God again by experiencing His creation in a different part of the world. Even the freezing weather during the night brought us closer to God. We definitely learned to pray throughout the night! Praying, talking to God and depending on God eased the loneliness and calmed us down. We then realized that we'll make it through the night...even if you have to go through a bit of hardship. With God  everything is possible.

 

The main thing that I learned from this camping trip is that no matter how prepared we are, or how well we plan our trip, God’s plan rules. We were prepared to stay for longer, but He had a different plan for us for the following days. I learned not to plan my own life, but to just go along with God’s plan for my life. His plan is definitely way better than my own plan. Our own plans and actions may lead to us getting “snowed in”. But He won’t let us get “snowed in”. And he will also rescue us when are snowed in, caused by our own avalanche.

 With hiking love,Elzet