Sunday in China

Lucky for you all, I start these posts too late at night so I am too tired to say much.

But let me just say this, I GOT TO GO TO CHURCH IN CHINA THIS MORNING!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I can't even tell you how much it meant to me. 

Nothing excites me more or gets my passion fired up than the spreading of God's word. 

THAT is what life is about.

And to experience it in THIS country, for sooo many reasons, is just incredible.

The church we went to this morning is one of the few registered churches.  Therefore, no Chinese citizens could attend.  For people who even looked a little bit Asian (and there were a lot), they had to show a passport (from another country) as they walked in the door.  We were also told to bring our own passports just in case. 

 In each Province in China, they have their own "religious bureau" who determines the exact "rules" for the registered churches.  In the Guangdong Province that we are in now, the registered churches are not allowed to have paid staff. 

 We've been learning a bit more about the underground churches too.  You know, there are just thousands and thousands of them here.  Some of them are sooo hidden and some of them meet more openly.  We were told that there are sooo many that the police just can't keep up with the persecution of all of them so they try to make examples of just a few of them.  Although you never know when the police in your jurisdiction could choose your church to target.  And the different police jurisdictions also just have different ways and ideas of how to deal with Christians here (some harshly and some just ignore them)....there is no standard.

 The one thing that I have heard consistently here is how the underground church is flourishing.....alive and well......lively......spreading rapidly......

Seriously, the Christians here just light up when they speak of what is happening here.

 And I just can't help but contrast that with how people speak of the "American Church".  We have a country where we are FREE to worship, speak about Jesus, read His word, teach about him....and what do we have, the opposite of flourishing.....apathy.

And here you have a country where it is against the freaking law to evangelize and Christians are killed for their faith....and what do they have, a Church that is "alive and spreading rapidly".

hmmmmmmmmm.......

Really just freaking incredible to be here and hear what God is doing in this place.

And SUCH a gift to experience corporate worship amongst these people.

After church we got to go out to lunch with another missionary family who lives here.

Then my mom and I went to the Jade and Pearl Markets while the rest of the gang stayed back to relax.

Then tonight we braved another local Chinese restaurant.

Really, I could write a novel to you about our food experiences.......

but tonight we may have found a winner.

 After about 15 minutes of trying to explain to the staff what we wanted to eat, we finally got some delish food.  (think NO ENGLISH and me doing lots of body gestures and practically going in the kitchen to show them what we want)  They make their own noodles here.  yuuuuuuummmmmmy!

 Jor and Luke have been such sports with the food here. However, they have started begging for McDonalds every night lately.  I am pushing them to keep eating the crazy Chinese food with us!

 Maybe in this picture you can see how small the restaurant is?  It was a bit scary, but it was really yummy.  These hole-in-the-wall restaurants only have chopsticks.  hee hee.  I think it is funny.  I don't think my mom finds the humor in it.  ;)  But she is being a good sport too.

 Pretty standard here that if you want to have a napkin then you better just hop up to grab some toilet paper from the wall. 

 Ah, we are having so much fun.  Trying to soak up every moment of China we have left. 

Then after dinner we had our, now routine, night swim before bed.  

So nice.  And so fun.

 Two cheesers!

 And finally, we end our nights with our McFlurrys.  

We are going to have quite few things to recover from when we get home!

Only 2 more full days. Monday and Tuesday.  Then Wednesday we head for Hong Kong and fly home on Thursday.  We're gettin there.