CHINA!

Now that I have pretty much readjusted to Central Standard Time and recovered from the jet leg after our 16-hour plane flight, I figured I should post a few things about my trip to China.

A team of nine of us from the college ministry at First Baptist here in Oxford and a couple guys from Richmond, Va., spent about a week and a half in one of the world's largest countries, a place where the economy is growing faster than any on earth and where the government embraces atheism. Our mission was building relationships with students on a university campus and sharing with them the true meaning of Christmas and showing them the love of Jesus Christ.



We spent a couple days in Hong Kong upon our arrival to get over the jet lag before heading into mainland China. It felt more like a Chinese New York City than a true place of China. We visited a gigantic Buddha statue, and during the bus ride there we spent about an hour having conversations with high school students from a school in the city. Between our visit to this statue and the Buddhist temple we visited in the mainland, it was pretty eye-opening in regards to the lostness of this region.

When we arrived in our target city in southern China (which I'm not allowed to name on public Web sites), we traveled to a remote village that was home to an English teacher from the university we were working at. They lived in conditions we would imagine resembled over a century ago, yet they were all content with their lives and were loving toward their families and visitors like us. The villagers spoke little or no English, and it was concerning to think about the fact that Coca-Cola has reached places that the gospel has not yet reached...

In the village, we got to eat some pretty interesting food, such as pork liver and pork intestines. That made the ride back to the city down and around the mountains a little nauseating. But we also were able to visit a couple of schools and teach them about the English language and about Christmas. I almost got mobbed while handing out pencils to little kids.

At the university we stayed at, which was near the city of Kunming, I developed close friendships with several guys named Isaac, Mickey and Ken, as well as a few others. We spent much of our time playing basketball, ping pong, snook (billiards), badminton and whatever else they could come up with. Those little jokers can play some ball, now. They may be shorter than us, but they are used to the high altitude and have lots of energy because of their high-carb diet. Most of these students are either Buddhists, agnostics or atheists. It is a vast mission field filled with millions of lost people that needs lots of workers.

I also had the opportunity to be a guest on the campus radio station one night and was able to read the Christmas story from the Bible and share our Christmas beliefs and traditions. It was pretty cool compared to the radio work I do here at Ole Miss.

In the end, we all survived the "squatty potty."

No doubt, it was a life-changing experience and God showed me a lot of things. There's not enough room on here to explain all that and tell everything else we encountered and learned in China. What a fascinating place. Just wanted to give a brief glimpse of our journey.

Click here to see a few dozen pics from my trip.