It has been a long time since my last blog and in the time it took me to blog again we changed countries! We went from Thailand to China, and what a shift that was!
While we were in transit, we spent the night on Shanghai train station and we realised that it was Sunday the 19th - and everywhere were posters advertising the F1 race in Shanghai, today! We couldn't believe it and so we decided to go and see if we can watch some racing! We got to the train station and saw just one other tourist. We ran up to her and asked her if she knew how to get there. She said that she was also on her way and that we could try and find it together. After a bus and a taxi we got to the stadium, but we had no tickets! We tried to buy tickets there, but it cost about R 900 per ticket, outside the gate and we weren't even sure if they were real! So we stood infront of the gate and prayed! People immediately started coming up to us, asking if we had tickets! We got tickets from people and we were able to go in and sit on the main pavillion at the winning line! it was amazing and we so enjoyed the blessing!
In Thailand we were so used to the friendly people and landing in China we just saw people who are busy and ignore you when you greet! That was in the city, but when we reached our small town the people stared at us as if we were from a different planet!
People were afraid of us and thankfully they had the courage to sell us food! (Ok so maybe I'm exagerating a bit...) We were just taking it easy in the hotel, studying the Bible and just spending time with God for the first few days and then we went camping. Looking for a open piece of land in China is a bit of a challenge! We eventually found a level piece of ground, but it was where a farmer wanted to plant some beans later on.
We stayed there for three days, but it was very interesting! The first night we where laying in our tents and just pretending that we wherent there when they came to look at these strange foreign things in their field with flashlights. The next day we whent hiking and when we came back, the farmer was there and he was busy filling up holes for us. He couldn't really understand what we were doing, but we managed to communicate to him that we didn't have money so they brought us home for dinner!
After that night the children started playing with us and the locals started to like us, we even had 3 dinner propositions after we had made dinner the next night!
We went back to the hotel and enjoyed our next couple of days with the locals! Saturday the local baker, we named him "Oom Koekie", invited us for dinner! We didn't really understand what he meant, but we managed to gather something about his parents house for dinner! So we said yes and we got in the taxi with him. Two and a half hours of driving later we realised that his parents lived quite some distance from us! We had a great time with them and they fed us until we could eat no more and then they brought out more food!
We had to stay there the night and the next day we had more food and good conversations! We came back to our hotel the next afternoon!
We had amazing fun and we even had time to see some of the other teams!
We arrived in the next city today and did everything we thought we had to do, but later the people of the hotel came and just showed us the door. We didnt know what happend, but luckly we had a contact in the town that can speak english, so we called him and he drove a half hour to come and help us! He helped us to get a new hotel, and we are settled now! We are looking forward to this town and all that is going to happen here!
As usual our budgets have been complicated with unplanned expenses so we are praying, and we hope every one at home will join us in the prayers for miracles! I can't wait to blog again about how God provided for us! Some of us are also having some problems with our health, so if people could help us to pray for our health!
I hope every one has a blessed time and I hope I can blog again soon, about amazing things God has done here!