Hiking to Heaven

“I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me”. That song was truly put in perspective for me after a weekend of trudging through buckets and buckets of pouring rain, being amidst wild life, trekking through misty green foliage, and a climbing few thousand stair steps to the top of the most breathtaking mountains I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Every breathe I take in China continues to be an adventure of a life time.

This weekend was our first set vacation. An average day for me here in China is that I wake up in the morning and leave for the school at 7:30. After eating breakfast, the other teachers and I greet the kids and do opening activities around 8. We begin teaching at 8:45 until 10:45, rotating classes every 25 min. We then go outside with the kids and play with them for an hour. After eating lunch made by our amazing chef, Wendy, we head back to our apartment. Besides a couple of weekly meetings, making lesson plans, and having a culture class once a week, the rest of the day is ours. We only teach Monday through Friday so we also have every weekend plus 4 vacations spread out through the semester. This week we had Friday and the following Monday off so we headed to Zhangjajie by train.

The train was 5 hours long, but one of the greatest things about China is everyone is so friendly, and meeting friends makes our travels feel short. I’m not exaggeration when I say we make friends everywhere we go. Many people here, especially the younger generation, learn English, but it is very rare for them to interact or even see Americans. When they are given the opportunity to speak English with natives, they are anxious and excited to help. On our Train we met two recently graduated University students named Pajaro and Josephine. Pajaro graduated in English speaking and has been living in the UK for the past several months. She came back to China for a week to take some exams. Her and Josephine helped us get to our hotel and brought us with them to their university where we had lunch and took pictures. Pajaro also taught me how to say “I’m a foodie” in Chinese; so now when I try and buy the crazy food here, the venders won’t think I’m just a crazy, white tourist who doesn’t know what I’m buying. I just say “Chihuo” and they understand that I’m down for the adventure. Thank you, Pajaro. This little tip would have come in handy when I was at the market this weekend and wanted to try scorpion! The man selling it laughed but I DID buy one and I DID eat it. It wasn’t bad.

We woke up the next day to a huge rain storm. We each wrapped ourselves up in as many waterproof layers as we could get our hands on, and journeyed to the Tianmen Mountain National Park. The first bus ride up allowed us to see the bottom of the green mountains with the tips covered in beautiful, white fog. It was very mystic and we couldn’t wait to get to the base where we would walk 999 stairs up to heaven’s gate. We then rode a bus on one of the most dangerous roads in the world! The danger didn’t stop me from sliding down my window and sticking my whole head out the side of the bus to get a true view of the world around me. We arrived at the top to find we were literally in a dream. I’m not trying to sound poetic, it was white. Pure fog. We didn’t see the mountain. Anywhere. BUT, we didn’t let the rain put a damper on our adventure, so not seeing the mountain sure wasn’t about to get us down! We climbed those 999 steps higher and higher into the clouds, (now I am trying to be poetic), until we arrived at the top of the world. Or so we thought. From there we took about 8 flights of escalators. They were escalators because the length and steepness of those escalators would’ve given a marathon runner a heart attack if they had been normal stairs. Wait. I ran a marathon once. Yeah, I would’ve died. After a quick lunch break and the top of the blessed moving stairs, we found there was still more to see. We walked around the edge of the mountain for a couple of hours, gradually climbing higher and seeing more beauty around every corner. We met a man who hiking alone and spoke a little English. He became kind of like a tour guide for us, filling us in about a few cultural things. One of my favorite things to see was trees that every inch was covered by red ribbons with Chinese characters on them. The man told us they were peoples wishes that they were sending up to the Buddhist God’s. “Like a prayer.” I uttered. This man had no idea what a prayer was. The ribbons symbolize more of a wish than a prayer because they don’t have two-way communication with their God’s. This made me sad and also very grateful for the personal relationship I have with my Heavenly father and Savior Jesus Christ. At the top of the mountain was the biggest Buddhist temple I have seen so far. Again, it was so filled with peace.

My favorite day so far in this trip, though, was the next day when we saw the avatar mountains at Zhangjajie National park. I’ve been grappling about how I would describe this to all of you because there simply are no words. Every step I took I kept thinking to myself, “there is no way this can get any prettier.” And every step proved me wrong. After making it about half way up the mountain, I said out loud, “if this world that God gave us to live in is really less than heaven, than His love for us is more incomprehensible than I have ever or could ever imagine”. God made this beauty and He made it for us. He made it for me, and for you, and for every child that has ever lived and will ever live. I simply can’t wrap my mind around it. Reminder: these are my thoughts only half way up the mountain. A few hundred steps more and I found myself surrounded by wild monkeys! Seeing these sweet and silly creatures interact with me and my group filled me with pure joy! They were swinging from branch to branch and then landing at our feet, scoping out if we would feed them. We didn’t, but they did manage to snag some fruit from our bags. They are sneaky little guys! I could have watched them for hours. A few hundred steps more and I finally found myself standing at the top of Hallelujah Mountain: the tallest of the Avatar Mountains. As a group we worshiped God by singing together the hymn, “I Stand all Amazed”, and “How Great Thou Art”. I had such a fullness in my heart. I felt so close to my Savior. I never wanted to leave. We finally left but my heart has remained full for the experience of getting to witness more of the vastness of God’s love for me and for all his children.

On the bus ride back to the hotel I met the cutest little old man. Neither of us could speak one another’s language but his smile every time he turned around to see the American girls melted my heart. I waved at him and he leaned over to his wife and I saw him trying to tell her about the rings on my fingers. I held my hands out for him to see them better. He pointed at the different bands and jewels and gave me two big thumbs up. He really liked the gold band on my thumb. Through google translate I told him it was my grandmothers wedding band. He lit up and got very excited and even stood up to tell another girl at the front of the bus who I think was his daughter. This was a simple experience but I wanted to share it because I learned from this man that bonding through common interest is universal. I do not understand Chinese. He does not understand English. But we both love rings! We bonded over something so simple with no words. I love meeting individuals all around the world and connecting to them in a way that makes me feel compassion for them. It helps me understand a little better how God can love each and every one of us all around the world.

Tianmen Mountain

My Sweet...

Crazy...

Kids!

Josephine and Pajaro on the Train

At the University

Everyone else spent money on souveniers. I spent it on food. #Chihuo

Red Wish Ribbons 

Temple at the top of Tianmen Mountain 

Avatar Mountains

I think the monkeys have seen tourists, but maybe not white girls. 

Hallelujah Mountain