Village Expedition

Ummm, I’m seriously so blessed to get to have just gone on an amazing trip with my family only to get home and go on a once in a lifetime trip.

(If you didn’t get to read about my Hong Kong trip I wrote about what we did and you can read it by clicking here.)

I have talked quite a bit about my friend Lawrence who I met shortly after moving to Xian. For the past year and a half that we’ve been friends we’ve always talked about going to his hometown together. I hoped I would be able too, but wasn’t sure if the opportunity would present its self. Well it has.

Tomorrow I will be leaving Xian with Lawrence to travel to his hometown for the next 5 days. And as Lawrence and I discussed this trip it became apparent to me that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary trip. Most notably, I will be the first foreigner EVER to visit his hometown. Ummm… can you say incredible? I will also get to sleep in mud and dirt homes on traditional Chinese beds (which is a dirt and brick bed that you put coals under to warm it up) We will hike more than 8 hours through the mountains (more on that in a minute) and I just found out that we (Lawrence and I) were invited to a Chinese wedding while we’re there. Again, can you say incredible?

It goes down like this, we will travel by bus north for 8 hours to get to the town my friends parents live in. We will take a day to hang out with them and for me to get to look around their town and what not. And as Lawrence and I chatted about this he told me “I would love for you to meet my grandma”, to which I replied, “I would love to meet your grandma Lawrence” (she’s 87 and has never met a foreigner), he then informed me that it would be a two hour hike through the mountains to her village to meet her. I assured him that I was really excited to get to meet her and that the travel would not be a problem. Then he says this to me “I would also like you to meet my uncle who’s mentally handicapped”, I again told him I would love to meet him and he proceeded to tell me that to get to his uncle’s village we would to need to hike another two hours past his grandma’s village. I seriously can’t be any happier! We will spend a day in each of those villages.

THE BEST PART! My friend and I got to go and buy school supplies for 50 students and some sports equipment and books for the local school! We decided to do what we could to serve and bless the local students (this area is a very poor area) and so Lawrence and I bought; notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, rulers, some candy and then put them all in individual bags to distribute to the kids. Then we were able to get; a basketball, soccer ball, badminton equipment, and a couple jump ropes for the school as well as some books for the library. We hope to bless and inspire these kids to doing their best!

The best quote when preparing for this trip was when my friend told me “You need to be psychologically prepared” (in regards to going to his village), which worried me a little. Well I will write more when I get home.

Till then,
The petersons