Giving It Over

I love how God so beautifully resolves conflict. We worry and stress, get angry and cry, but in the end, He's got it all covered so there's no need for any of that. He's so good to us. 

That's what this week is all about for me: Learning to give it all away. Last week, I was monster-kayla and everything was a huge deal. But this week, I have consciously decided to give it all back to Him and look forward with the joy & hope He so graciously gave me. This week I choose joy. (It's amazing how much a little picture can inspire you toward what you know is right...)

And I know that He knew exactly what I needed to read yesterday:

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."

"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away, but the word of the LORD endures forever."

1 Peter 1:13-16, 24-25

Lord, You never let go of me...

Your perfect Love is casting out fear.

Even when I'm caught in the middle
Of the storms of this life,
I won't turn back
I know You are near.

Lord, You never let go
Through the calm & through the storm.

If my God is with me,
Whom then shall I fear?

What?

I want to write about how I made homemade Oreos the other day.

I want to write about how much fun my six-year-old cousin's birthday party was.

I want to write about my anticipation for our upcoming adventure to Universal Studios.  

I want to write something encouraging.

But my heart isn't in it. My heart hasn't been able to write for a while. I keep falling into this deep rut. I can't shake it. 

Even just trying to get that post out about Shangri La was painful. Nothing I wrote captured what I wanted to and I just couldn't flow or bring it all together. It just kind of flopped out like a dead fish. And that is not how I intended to encapsulate China. It was an incredible adventure, deserving of an equally incredible post. But I failed it. 

I think I'm still processing everything we experienced and because of that I'm just feeling so lost. I don't know how to process. It's hard being home. I can't explain it. I'm so happy to be home with my family (whom I love so deeply), but at the same time I don't feel like I'm really here. I see the selfishness of American life and it makes me want to throw up. I see the selfishness in my own daily life that I can't really escape and I feel the same revulsion. I have to go to work 5 days a week on a depressing schedule that runs me until 8:30pm and I  must deal with people who get upset over stupid little things, constantly trying to suck me into their pettiness. (Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful I have a job - a very good job, at that.) I keep getting irritated so easily by minor things and - as much as I hate to admit it - I want to cry all the time. I have so many things that I have to do or the world falls apart and I feel like I can't breathe. 

But it all feels so selfish. In China, we spent almost every day meeting new, like-minded people and working alongside them. We saw how devoted they were & how amazing their mission was. We took van and bus rides to visit people we barely knew. We drank yak butter tea and swallowed sour yak cheese just to get to know these familiar strangers, whom we instantly loved because He loved us first. I got the opportunity to share His love with an incredibly kind and unassuming Tibetan woman & our only common ground was our same age and our brand new friendship with two amazing M's. On our journey, we met people from all over the world and worked together for the only Purpose that matters. 

People have mentioned reentry after a missions trip to me, but no one really explained to me what would happen. They said it might be hard and you might have feelings of this or that. Half the time, I can't even figure out what I'm thinking or feeling. Maybe I wasn't fully listening. Maybe I was too confident in my own adaptability. Whatever it was, I just don't feel like I was prepared for this. How could I have been? 

Shangri La

We spent about a week with our friends in Shangri La. And let me tell you, the place has been beautifully named. The mountains, the wide open spaces, the architecture, and the wonderful people all create such an inviting atmosphere. The people of Shangri La were so kind and unassuming, even the ones we did not know. Once I saw an older man come up to one of my friend's children and ask if he could take a picture. Instantly, I thought, "Uh, no way! Not safe!" but my friend had no worries. She let him pick up the little girl, take a picture, and just go on his merry way. That would not happen in the US. 

On our first night there, it poured buckets. Looking out from our hostel balcony window, streams flowed from the sloping rooftops, sparkled in the lights from the nearby square, and landed on the cobblestone with a constant splatting noise. The raindrops were preparing the path for our adventurous hike the next morning so that we could squish through mud and avoid mucky puddles. But the rain also gave us an amazing blue sky interrupted by only a few puffy, white clouds. 

The countryside was gorgeous and well-worth the exploratory hike up Shangri La Mountain. Throughout our time in Shangri La, we visited many Tibetan homes and they were so kind and inviting. One of our van drivers lived near a friend we visited and, after discovering where we were headed, enthusiastically invited us over to meet his family while we were there! We had such giving hostesses in these Tibetan villages and they served us so lovingly of all their finest foods: Barley bread, barley powder, yak yogurt, yak cheese, home grown potatoes, and, of course, the infamous yak butter tea. 

What a lovely table she set!

Yak butter tea the quick & modern way

Yak butter tea, barley powder & a bit of yak yogurt - all mixed together! It tasted a little like chocolate, oddly enough...

On Sunday, we wandered over to the old town square for a bit of bbq. Do these people know how to bbq or what?? Yum to the tum!

Such an amazing time with so many stories. I've showed you a lot of the food because I can't share with you everything about the people because of internet safety. But what I can tell you is that there is some amazing work being done there for His sake and I am blessed to have taken such a minuscule part in it. Our friends working out there have the most loving and open hearts I have ever seen. At times I couldn't count how many people were in their home fellowshipping and I was amazed by this hospitality that took place in such a small home. They were unafraid and fully trusting in Him. My God is truly amazing. 

The Food: Kunming & Lijiang

Everyone in America wants to really know how the food is in China. Is it like Panda Express? No. In fact, I'm sure any Chinese travelers visiting America would find Panda Express insulting. 

My opinion: The food is incredible! I really could eat it (and use chopsticks!) all the time. I got pictures of most of the significant meals we experienced, but some were so delicious that I gobbled it down without thinking to take a picture! Noodles, rice, and vegetables really are a staple and, in Shangri La, it seems that yak meat is too. On the plane and in Kunming & Lijiang, we definitely had some exciting food experiences, and here are some photos of those.

This is not Chinese food:

This is simply airplane food. Definitely not my favorite eating experience, but doable. The bread had a sort of plastic taste to it, but the butter seemed to fix that. The rice was just fine (how do you mess up rice?), but the chicken kind of creeped me out. Hard to describe. China airlines was nice enough to feed us this strange tasting airplane food twice on our flight over, and once more on our hopper plane. So we were fed three times in an estimated 17 hours. The breakfast on our hopper plane consisted of some sort of seafood (for me) or chicken alfredo noodles with vegetables. It worked. 

Chicken & Vegetable Mission 

This was our first REAL Chinese meal! Our friend recommended this place to us in Kunming and, ignoring its  hole-in-the-wall appearance, the food was delicious! They brought out a little platter with unidentified vegetables and roots on it and you were to dump the whole plate and any spices you wanted into the broth, noodles, and chicken. I added their spicy chili paste and it was incredible! The cockroaches on the wall could not lower my opinion of this little restaurant. 

Do you think they gave me a big enough bowl?? Unfortunately for one of my fellow travelers, he ordered some seemingly simple chicken here and it came out cold and in weird chunks. But my other friends enjoyed their potato chips, white rice & fried rice, so it's full marks for the little Kunming restaurant!

Train Station Cream Bread

Before embarking on our 10 hour train ride to Lijiang, someone in our group picked up some tasty cream bread for a snack. Yum! It tasted like coconut bread biscuits and their tiny size was perfect for train snacking. Good find!

Peanut Drink

This cool little drink was like a sip of liquid peanut butter! Anyone who knows me knows that I am a peanut butter addict, so this was amazing. You can't drink too much of it because it's really filling, but it's so creamy & delicious that it's hard to resist. I wonder where I can find this in the states...

Chicken Rice Noodle Breakfast

Once we made it to Lijiang around 5am, we wandered out into old town for a while before experiencing a more traditional Chinese breakfast - noodles! And yes, this actually is chicken. It looks like beef, but it's little chicken cubes. Most of the chicken bits were yummy, but the noodles and the broth were fantastic. I never thought to have noodles for breakfast before, but I find it quite genius. This was another tiny hole-in-the-wall place, but it was very crowded and popular. Two little kids from another family shared one of our tables because there were so many shoved into the tiny restaurant. As you walked up to the doorless hotspot, a bbq  filled with roasting tofu and some sort of green dumpling dessert covered in sesame seeds greeted you. 

As a side dish to this wiggly breakfast, we were also served boiled dumplings. Dumplings - potstickers, dumplings, whichever you prefer to call them - are so delicious! I've always loved Americanized potstickers, but they were usually from a frozen bag and fried. Boiled fresh in China is much better (but the pan-fried ones we had later on in our adventure were just as scrumptious!). 

Hot Pot

Now THIS was cool. In the center of a giant, round table sat this boiling pot of broth and meat. Meat: Donkey & Mutton (lamb). The donkey tasted like beef and the mutton was a little squishy. I definitely prefer the donkey. As the meal went along, all kinds of fascinating vegetables were added to the pot. Taro, lotus, potatoes, elephant ear fungus (mushroom), bok choy, lettuce, and a few others. It boiled and cooked until the veggies were all tender. It was all delicious!!  

Each person was given a small bowl of this cilantro and walnut mixture. You were supposed to add some of the broth to it and then dip your meat and veggies into it. Cilantro makes everything taste better, so the combination was so flavorful. Definitely an experience to remember. 

There were many other foods we experienced in these two cities - Chinese KFC, Chinese Pizza Hut, Naxi fry bread, Chinese yogurt with mango - and overall it was a tastebud-tickling good time. Why can't American food culture be this interesting?