Day 14 - Church and Peter's Tex Mex

This morning we went to the Chengdu ICF. Adele and Toni were able to enter the church with us because we got there before they were checking passports. The church is in the room on the third floor of a shopping center. The shopping center is rather dilapidated, I'm not sure it really is operating as a shopping center, since I didn't see any stores. It looks like they get the room all the time as there are bookshelves on the perimeter of the room filled with books. This is not nearly as rich as the Bejing ICF church or the Haidan church, they have a computer, but it's old and slow. Shooting was interesting as the screen changed several seconds after I clicked the mouse. There are probably a couple hundred people there, mostly white (I'd say American, but I don't know that for sure). The service was over 1 1/2 hours so by the end we were pretty hungry, Adele, Jarrod and I were sharing a protein bar in the back row.

After church we went to Pete's Tex Mex, it's filled with white people, the food is awesome and the portions are huge. Unlike American restaurants, they bring your food when it's ready, as opposed to bringing everyone's at once. I had Tacos Al Carbon because it came with guacamole (I think avocados are one of God's greatest creations), delicious. Dustin Laemmlen ordered a hamburger, there must be 1 1/2 pounds of meat in the burger. We were there for about 2 hours waiting for everyone to the their food. A couple from the church helped us get some Paige's and Jenny's chimichangas. The husband is an executive with Boeing. The wife was a kick, she said if it wasn't for Pete's and the ability to get iced tea, she'd leave her husband in China and go back to the states. We all ate so much and after having had so little sleep, most of us fell asleep on the ride back to hotel. When we got to the hotel, Doc announced that we had 5 minutes before the bus left again, I don't know how long we were actually there, I fell asleep again. Apparently it was 1 1/2 drive to the next church, we all slept the entire way. I was sitting/sleeping next to Tyler, and after I woke I said I really wanted a piece of gum since I slept so hard. He said he had some in his case, and while he could move his arm, it felt like it was not part of his body. We were all just that tired.

This church is even poorer, although they are building a church they are about a million Yuan short. We arrived at the church at 5pm, greeting us with hugs was this tiny Chinese woman - 83 years old. She was here during the cultural revolution and started the church. Doc's aunt - Miss Frankie is a missionary at the church. While we were setting up and the group was practicing we found 2 baby kittens; the ears are pointy so they are probably 8 weeks old. They were so frightened, they would cry when you picked them up. These are only the second cats I've seen In two weeks.

We met a young American from Tennessee named Jason that's visiting China for two weeks. He's only been here for 2 days but he already misses home.

The church was so crowded Kevin B, Jeff, Teresa and I went outside to allow people to sit inside. The group sang for about 90 minutes, when they sang "Praise the Lord", i started demonstrating how Dan Sharp made us dance up the aisle at St. Andrews when we sang the song. Because all the windows were open to let in air (it's warm today), people were watching me dance, so I stopped. Teresa noticed that when someone got a phone call, she just hung her head out the window and took the call (we saw that happen twice). One of the puppies came over to the church, it was a fluffy little black puppy, so cute.

About 20 minutes before the concert the power went out to the building, there were a bunch of guys poking around with screwdrivers, it made Teresa nervous, about 5 minutes later all the poking must have worked, the power came back on. During the concert, the power went out again, Jeff and Kevin went into the next room poked around and the power came back on. The building is held together by cables crisscrossed. Probably wouldn't meet our building code.

I've decided the real generational divider isn't music or even language, it's skinny jeans. Most of the college kids wear them, both guys and gals, even those that shouldn't.

We are finally back at the hotel, 15.5 hours later - tomorrow is the panda reserve - I'm so excited!