Mission Journal Day 2

Well, I just woke up not too long ago. I thought I would have slept longer due to the 24 plus hours I was awake. But, I feel rested and the jetlag probably won't get me. I am sitting here watching the sunrise above the mountains in Hong Kong. The sun just peeked over the mountain and is turning the mist over the bay into a beautiful array of pink, orange, and purple. The water is calm and the many birds are singing.

I can't complain when the winter weather is 55 degrees F in the morning and a nice 70 during the day. My goodness. My God! How great is He! This earth is incredible. Maybe I should write down what happened in the last 15/30 time warped hours before I comment on the bombardment of other amazing things going on at the present time.

We left Chicago on our nice 747 plane. The seats were nice and the leg space was good ("more than any other airline"). After a savory snack of 1.2 oz of bagged goodness and a ginger ale, we watched half of the first movie. The plane decided that our imaginations would be greatly challenged if we had to assume what the first portion of the movie was.

Anyway, Jason was next to the window and would notify us when something cool was going on down below. Our flight essentially went right over teh top of the world. Seeing the frozen Russian land from 32,000 feet was incredible. I want to go there now as well.

The plane ride consisted of watching roughly 7 movies on a 13 inch TV. The projector in our section was broken despite one flight attendant's attempt to get it going by hitting it first with an empty Aquafina and second a small rubber mallot. She only suceeded in scaring the crap out of those of us who weren't paying attention.

The flight time was passed by, once again movies, as well as my newly found interest in Sudoku puzzles. This goes without mentioning the gourmet meals where "if the first choice was unavailable, the ultimate meal could be enjoyed as they were both equally delicious". Makes me wonder why they bothered with two in the first place.

So I stayed awake the whole time and when we landed in the beautiful airport, I was ready for bed. We met Doug and Zack and took rental vans to the Baptist Theological Seminary in Hong Kong.

On the way, Jon Goodyear and I as well as Drew Henricks marveled at the architectural genius of the HUGE apartment complexes and the thousands upon thousands of people packed into the sky. We drove across the worlds largest suspension bridge yet were more fascinated by the endless supply of apartments. Doug told us that the complexes held up to 20,000 people and have bus depots, salons, grocery stores, etc. in the bottom.

This way of life is so foreign to me. Well, we had a short meeting and then proceeded to pass out for the night. Here I am now once again soaking up the beauty of this place and thinking about the cramp that may soon form in both my right hand as well as my forearm simultaneously. It should be a good day. Let's bring in the New Year with a prayer.