Finally in China

So, many of you readers will know that Ross and I had planned to teach in China before life threw us a curveball and we ended up spending 2011 going through surgery, chemo and radiation. Our dream of visiting China has now come true. We did not come to teach, but to learn, so we joined an Avalon/Globus tour and couldn't have been more pleased with the results. We began in Beijing on Oct. 4, then went to Xi'an, Chongqing, on the Yangtze for three days through the Three Gorges, then to Shanghai and finally Hong Kong. It has been a glorious three weeks, and I have had to pinch myself several times to convince myself that I am actually here. This is a trip of a lifetime, one I will never forget, and I am so lucky to be here.

The first time I pinched myself, on the Great Wall of China. It was also one of the few days the sun shone.

The terra cotta warriors in Xi'an were as magnificent as I had imagined they would be.

99 steps to the top!

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Our colourful tour guide at a stop on the Yangtze.

Shanghai night on the Bund.

Making a silk duvet.

Vicki Qin was our terrific tour director. She became a daughter to all 19 of us.

Seeing Hong Kong in a typhoon. This was a level three, and we were told not to worry until it got to level eight.

So tomorrow we go home, well satisfied that we have experienced the best China has to offer. A dream has been realized.

I don't get it

As I write this I am sick at heart. This afternoon, I received a phone call that our church had been broken into, some things stolen and some damage done. The person calling had done all the necessary things, called the police, the insurance firm, cleaned up the mess and boarded up the windows before he called. But I had to see, so I went. What I saw broke my heart.

No one would call John Black a beautiful church. It was built in an era when lightly stained wood and high ceilings were avant guarde. There is very little in the structure itself which is an adornment, especially when compared to the churches and cathedrals we have seen in other parts of the world.  So what was done does not destroy beauty so much as it destroys comfort and calm.  The one stained glass window visible to the outside, a depiction of the birth of Jesus installed to commemorate the 75 th anniversary of the church, was damaged when a pole from a street sign was hurled through it. It is hard to see how much damage there is because plywood now covers most of it. Plywood also covers one of the office windows.

So tomorrow, most of the people who come to attend the service will be shocked mostly because they will not be expecting what they see. I had to go tonight to prepare myself, to be ready for what is there. I had to try to work through the " why" of it all before tomorrow. In spite of the advance warning, I will not be at a place of understanding by tomorrow morning. That day may never come.

We try. We try to be good neighbours, we welcome all the groups that use the church building, we are thrilled that the daycare is here and wants to expand.  We welcome anyone and everyone. The only way I can make any sense of this is to think that it was random, senseless, fuelled maybe by a drug or drugs that made the people responsible less than rational.  To think otherwise, to even consider that it was an intentional, deliberate act is too hurtful.

John Black has been a church in this community for 102 years. It will continue to be so.