Something I've never done before: gone to a Chinese Church

So February is a great month because I'm going to be doing two things that I've never done before. This is the first one and it was great. I love China and Chinese people, and I love Jesus, so these two things went well together. Here's how it all went down.

One day Angela was at Target and met two Chinese girls. She got their info and asked them if they wanted to hang out on Friday night. They said that they couldn't hang out on Friday because they had church (not a bad reason) and then they invited her to come with them. Knowing that I also love China and Chinese people, she invited me to come along with her, which of course I did.

As I have said before, I love China and Chinese people. I think it's amazing how God has created each culture differently and uniquely and at the same time in His image. Whenever I have been in China, the people are so kind and hospitable and just want to help you. They are more of a community based society than individualistic like here in the US and I think it's such a great picture of who God is.

The first time I went to China, I was walking around with one of the guys that went with me, and by walking I meant wandering because we were totally lost. We ran into some guys who noticed us carrying our map with lost looks on our faces and came over to try to help us. Then they brought their friend who knew a couple words in English to try to communicate with us, and then he was practically pushing us into his car so that he could take us where we needed to go. We had no idea who these guys were and they didn't know us, yet they were so willing to help us despite that. It's beautiful. God loves us and while we were still sinners sent Christ to die for us. Maybe giving complete strangers a ride in freezing weather isn't quite the same, but they still showed us love and kindness and had a servant's heart, asking for nothing in return.

So being in a room full of Chinese people warms my heart and fills it with joy, and even more so than normal when we are all singing praises to the same God. One of the coolest moments of the night was during the worship time. Most of the songs I didn't know, but I did my best to practice reading Chinese and sing along. Then we sang Amazing Grace. A song I know very well and have sung since I was a kid. Now I don't know this song in Chinese, so I sang it in English while simultaneously everyone else (except Angela :) I'm pretty sure she was singing in English too) was singing in Chinese. And then I realized that this was what Heaven was going to be like (except way more people of course). One day every tribe, tongue and nation will be worshiping and praising God together. In every language! How cool is that. So once again God changed my life and with a song that I have sung a million times before. It was awesome.

The night was also very interesting in that, when it was time to study the Bible, we all broke up into smaller groups. Now, I know some Chinese, but I wasn't confident enough in it to try to go to one of the Chinese groups, but lucky enough they did have one group in English, which consisted of mostly middle schoolers. Talk about fun/interesting/crazy/way more tangents than I've ever had in my Logos group. 1. I'm glad I'm not in middle school any more. 2. Was I really like that when I was 13??? 3. Wow. Really that's all I can say. It was a lot of fun. Angela and I definitely got a lot of laughs (especially when Vicki said that David never needed to study or be worried about anything because he is Asian...and the poor 10 year old got to read all of the long verses with big words). So Chinese Church was great, and I'll definitely be going back.

I feel like this post was a little all over the place, but oh well. I'm definitely enjoying this "do something new every month" resolutions, and be sure to check back after Valentine's day for my 2nd new thing I'll be doing this month.