China Adventures - Part 2

Once we left Guang'an we quickly found ourselves in a more rural China. The impossibly dense urban environment quickly fades to farms, mountains, and muddy brown rivers. It seems as though the cities are packed beyond conceivable capacity which gives way without much transition. There are no suburbs or city outskirts to speak  of, the city stops and rural China begins. We received a warm welcome in Guang'an and enjoyed meeting with the leaders and pastors. I was invited to preach on Sunday morning and had a good time doing that. It was difficult to get used to preaching through a translator. The cadence is stilted a bit and you essentially end up delivering a sermon of one-liners. I think overall it was a good experience. There were not that many people in church that Sunday because of a midweek holiday. If they took to the midweek holiday they had to make it up over the weekend and go to school or work. So that particular Sunday was more like a weekday than would typically be the case. Nonetheless there were still quite a few people there in church and it was fun to see their smiling faces. We also had a good time teaching the lay school classes. The entire church structure heavily relies on lay leaders. Many of them are uneducated, or slightly educated, farmers who work hard for a living and volunteer their time as church leaders. They preach and lead worship at preaching points.  Pastors make the rounds and visit the preaching points, which are connected to larger city churches, as they're able, but the lay leaders really do the heavy lifting week to week.

We left Guang'an for Xichong and stayed there for three nights. We were able to visit with many of the leaders we saw last year. The church that we worshiped with last year, the cotton warehouse turned sanctuary, is in this are and we were able to visit there as well.  We visited some rural water projects the ELCA is considering sponsoring.  Both projects seemed viable and likely to receive funding. The were both projects at would increase irrigation water supply for rice farms. The projects would directly benefit two small towns that rely on rice farming. The villagers live in houses around the farmland and work together cooperatively in the fields.  They were very excited to see us and in at least one of the villages it was claimed we were the first westerners to visit. In fact the further we get from the major cities, Beijing or Shanghai especially, the more of a spectacle are. In a city park in Xichong we were looking at some of the monument artwork and drew quite a crowd. It started small, curious folks just gathered around to see what we were looking at and quickly we became the focus of attention. Before we knew it we had an entourage of around 100 people, maybe more, following us around the park. Some wanted to say, hello, or shake our hands, most of them were content to quietly gawk at our presence and whisper quietly to their neighbors. Again, one of our Chinese friends remarked for many of them it was their first time seeing a westerner in person. It was a strange feeling to attract such a crowd.

Xichong is not the hottest tourist destination but it is a beautiful place to visit and I really enjoy this city. It isn't as big or difficult to get around in as some of the bigger places we've visited. The churches we've visited are all excited to see us which is fun. We visited a small start up worshipping community that is trying to find a permanent place to worship. They rent a garage-like space and gather there. A group of them came to see us on Thursday and most of them walked around an hour to get there to see us. They numbered around 300 that afternoon.

We stopped and visited with the church leaders at the church we worshiped with last year and ate a wonderful lunch they'd  prepared. They are working on a new building and the old cotton warehouse sanctuary will be demolished by the end of the month. They hope to have their new facility completed by Christmas. The architectural renderings they showed us looked beautiful. It will be a large building with a spectacular view of the rural farming hill country. When I get back home look for pictures.

As I write this I'm on the bus headed to Chengdu. I've probably forgotten a lot that needs to be written about but I'll work on filling in the story when I get back. I am just hoping to keep you a little updated on our travels so far.  We will be in Chengdu for two nights and I'll try to write more from there. Hope you're all well.