Still Learning: Xiamen

The best part of our whole trip was the weekend we took off and went to Xiamen. It is an island just off the coast (still China). The views were breathtaking and sometimes if I didn't know better it felt like Southern California with the palm trees and ocean breeze. We were still in a third world country bound by political agendas but here in Xiamen all the hustle and bustle of China seemed to come to a stand still for us. This island contained about 1.5 million people. It seemed like a little town compared to the big cities we experienced. While here we traveled by ferry across to a neighboring island called Gulangyu. On this island no cars were allowed and all work was done by hand. The buildings were old and historical and the stories we heard by locals were at times hard to hear after years of persecution. The beauty of this old village island was incomparable to that of any other places we visited in all of China. The peacefulness and the serenity we found here were unbelievable. We walked around most of the island and finished our day with our only trip to McDonald's. We worshiped in a registered international church the next morning where Chinese were not allowed. The service ended with groups gathering for prayer. In our group we prayed with a Japanese couple, a Canadian woman with a Chinese heritage, a Canadian man, and a Liberian man. All people from different walks of life gathered in one place, in a country not our own, to bond together as Christians. It was a very moving experience for us both. We left that church service feeling very humbled and encouraged. And we left Xiamen to head to Shanghai, not wanting to really leave at all.