Bay-jing, Chi-na
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
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En Route To Thailand
It didn't look so great for me at first as I was dropped off at the airport in Portland, Oregon. My passport was scanned at the self-check-in line in order to get my boarding pass to San Francisco and then on to Chi-na and Thailand. Then right at the beginning of the check-in process ,
the machine prompted me to place my visa for Chi-na into the scanner.
The potential problem was that I never got a visa for Chi-na because
their embassy stated that I would not need one in transit if I was only
in Chi-na for a period of 24 hours or less. So the people at United
Airlines asked me to stand in another line and wait for their
assistance. They were very close to not giving me my boarding pass as
they stared at their computer screen, saying that the Chi-nese embassy
page was giving conflicting information on whether I needed a visa or
not. I assured them of what I had researched about it. Finally, after
two of the United Airline employees went back and forth, they gave me my
boarding pass to San Francisco only and told me I may have problems
with Air Chi-na once I arrived. I wasn't too shaken as I knew the Lord
had called me to make this journey, but texted people to pray
nonetheless. I got a chance to chat with a guy named Ryan from Portland
who sat next to me on the flight from Portland to San Francisco. Ends up
he grew up in a baptist church and was heading to South Korea to teach
English for a year.
.
It didn't look so great for me at first as I was dropped off at the airport in Portland, Oregon. My passport was scanned at the self-check-in line in order to get my boarding pass
.
After
getting to San Francisco, I went to the Air Chi-na counter and they
gave me my boarding passes to Bay-jing AND to Bangkok with no hassles.
It was a long 11+ hour flight. These days I have trouble sleeping on
airplanes so I just studied up on my Thai language aand read more about
the history of Thailand. I sat next to a lovely Chi-nese couple; Mr. Xu
and his wife. They had very broken English, but they proceeded to teach
me some Chi-nese. Another Chi-nese couple and their two year old son
sat in front of us. I was able to share some about God with them. It was
a great opportunity to shine the light of Christ with the Chi-nese.
.
We
finally arrived in Bay-jing. I nearly teared up as I set foot on
Chi-nese soil. I thought about the work done in years past by my
grandparents and great grandparents who ministered in Chi-na as
full-time missionaries. I thanked God for them, for the mighty work of
God among the underground Chi-nese church and prayed for the nation as a
whole.
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Made
it through their customs and to the gate where my flight to Bangkok was
boarding. It was only a 4+ hour flight to Bangkok. I sat next to a man
from Thailand named Chamnan. He spoke broken English and I practiced my
conversational Thai with him. By the end of the flight I was dead tired,
but had gained a new friend who gave me his phone number and address in
hopes to connect with me once I get a Thai SIM card for my Blackberry.
.
Jesse,
Lonnie, Katherine and the taxi driver were waiting for me as I made it
through customs and picked up my baggage. We then proceeded to the YWAM
base in Bangkok.
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Christian Young
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