ARRIVED IN SHANGHAI

We left the RV Wednesday morning at 3:30 a.m. to drive to the Sheridan Hotel to park our car in long-term parking and take a shuttle to the airport. We cleared security in plenty of time and waited to see if we could get on the 5:40 a.m. flight to Detroit. We fly on “buddy passes” given to us by Delta employees so we are on standby until the plane has boarded and then we get what seats are left. On this flight, it was oversold so we had little hope of getting on but we actually were called and got the last two seats on the flight.


We didn’t sit together. A couple on my left started asking what I was making. I crochet baby blankets to pass the time on planes and trains. One question led to another and finally I explained that we work in China. They wanted to know what we do and after a few minutes they asked what church sponsored us. When I said we were members of the Lewisville C of C, big smiles came to their faces. They go to Cedar Hill, a suburb of Dallas. We have not yet been to their congregation. We exchanged information and talked about various people we both knew. They know Colt McCoy who played with the Dallas Cowboys and is a member of the church. In fact, his Mom (Deborah Woodruff) and our daughter, Leigh Ann, were friends in high school. We were also very close to the rest of the Woodruff family as we attended the same congregation when our children were small.

The man to my right told me he lived in China for two years. I can’t begin to spell the name of the city where he lived. He builds Black Hawk helicopters so he’s been all over the world (India, Turkey and served in Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia). He married a Chinese girl and put her through university until she got her master’s degree. Then she took up with his best friend. He presently has a Chinese girlfriend in the U.S. who is divorced and has three girls in U.S. universities, all going free on scholarships because of their excellent grades. He is a Tea Party advocate and was quite vocal about the way our country is heading. He is angry toward our politicians and the political system we have at the present time. He didn’t care who heard what he had to say. The couple on my left joined in and agreed with him on most everything. I told him I agree too but I didn’t voice my opinion on things, because he was doing enough of that for both of us.

Speaking of interesting people, I met a lady in the laundry mat in Lewisville when I was catching up on my laundry before we left Texas. She started the conversation saying she had just returned from a trip to Israel. She began talking about the Jewish history, the Law of Moses and a bunch of stuff I knew nothing about. She said she left Christianity after 40 active years, but she’s a believer in some group that feels God never changes and the Old Testament law was not “done away with.” She believes we must keep all of the Jewish holidays (I asked her about sacrifices and got a mixed answer that was totally foreign garbage, so I don’t know how she gets around slaughtering a lamb for Passover). She said the New Testament in English is totally mistranslated and there’s no hope for anyone following it unless they study the Hebrew and the Torah and follow all of the laws of God. She asked me if I believed I would go to heaven. I told her “certainly.” Her comment in an exaggerated and rather unpleasant voice was, “Good Luck!”

She believes in the 1000 year reign of Christ on the earth and she thinks she knows when the end of the world will be. (I didn’t ask her if she was part of the crazy group that just predicted it and missed it, now postponing it until October). She picks what she wants from the New Testament and Old Testament but what she doesn’t want, she quickly says the translations are incorrect and preachers have misquoted and mislead all Christian believers. She is quite an authority on everything.

She was so totally off the wall with her beliefs so there is no common ground without her accepting the authority of the New Testament. I told her my husband was a minister and I have known many people who studied and knew the Hebrew and Greek languages and I have to put my trust somewhat in them knowing the background since I can’t personally learn all of this myself. In her opinion, all religions are wrong and everyone is lost besides her small group of believers. It was an unpleasant conversation for me. I think she thoroughly enjoyed showing off her knowledge and superior beliefs of what is true and acceptable by God. She acted as if she is infallible.

It’s just my luck to run into someone like her that wants to discuss religion (most don’t) and then is the type of person you cannot teach. When she heard that my husband is a minister, her eyes lit up and she said, “Oh, I would absolutely love to go head to head with him.” She thinks she could whip him down in a few minutes’ time. I told her he would not be interested. She wanted to know why. I told her it would be a total waste of time to discuss it further with her because she had her strong opinions and no one can change it. She said no one was trying to change anyone but why discuss it with someone like this. It’s like trying to study with Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses. I refused to let her think she had gotten to me and shattered my faith in any way but it did upset me somewhat to hear things like this, especially with this woman’s attitude.

Back to our trip. We arrived in Detroit on Wednesday morning and had lunch at Chili’s (no breakfast that morning). We had the rest of the day to walk and rest in the airport until the flight to Shanghai at 4:30 p.m. We had no problem getting on that flight and were seated in first class. The flight was fine and I actually slept 6 hours (restless sleep but nevertheless better than none). The two previous nights in Lewisville, we had storms that kept us awake most of the night.

Monday night’s storm awoke us about 1:30 p.m. and at 2:30 hail about the size of golf balls fell for more than five minutes. You should be in an RV and hear this sound. Lightning flashed across the sky continuously for more than an hour. It was not just the normal electrical patterns in the sky. It was huge flashes of light which looked like it would come from a camera flash. We had some gusts of wind that rocked the RV and then heavy rain following the hail for another hour. The second night we had a repeat storm about 10 p.m. but it did not have hail.

Our car is totally dented and there’s some damage to the RV. Geico Insurance told Ron to just go ahead and get the car repaired without having an adjuster come out. We will do that when we get back to Texas. Although the damage to the RV is not extensive, it still may cost a lot of money to make the repairs. It is mostly damage to awnings, the back-up camera, etc. They are sending an adjuster to look at it.

The Taylors (where we parked the RV) had windshields broken in their vehicles as well as dents on the body of every car and truck. The skylights in their house were broken by the hail and water and hail poured inside their house. They had a parked a fifth-wheeler camper next to our RV and it was heavily damaged. Power was out until noon the next day. The storm knocked out power across Lewisville and Denton with a lot of wind damage.

I’ve heard from Texans that everything is bigger in Texas. I know for certain that storms and wildfires are! I was a little upset with the forecasters not warning us about the storm Monday night. I watched the weather channel before going to bed and it all appeared to be in the northern counties and not expected in our area. On Tuesday night, they predicted storms to remain south of I-120 which would have kept us out of harms’ way also. A huge cell came right across Dallas and covered all of Lewisville for the second night in a row. Of course, by the time the storm gets close to us everyone is being warned but I like to know a few hours beforehand if it’s even a possibility.

Due to the lack of sleep two nights and only six hours of restless sleep on the plane, we slept about six hours last night. We had breakfast at the hotel’s buffet and I enjoyed everything on my plate. I skipped a lot of things but what I chose was very good. We even have coffee at this restaurant but it’s made strong.

I had a plateful of the following: a boiled egg, three kinds of steamed bread (one stuffed) and one more of a glutinous rice type. I had a piece of lean ham, steamed cabbage, bamboo shoots, steamed zucchini with small shrimp, cooked greens, two sweet treats (a light cake and rice with dried fruit) and watermelon. I could have eaten a second plateful of the same things but I try not to be a glutton. People ask what we eat in China and I tell everyone there are things I don’t eat (unknown meats or bacon practically raw) but the vegetables are really delicious. Not many Americans would like vegetables for breakfast but they are not half-bad! It’s all in the mind as to what is acceptable breakfast food. They had another table of cold salads and cold vegetable dishes but I never eat those. I don’t care for cold vegetables and I don’t eat anything raw. Even if vegetables have been washed in bad water, they are safe to eat after they are cooked properly. I don’t drink milk (unpasteurized) or cold drinks (which could be made from impure water). I’ve never been sick on the food. I hope I’ll make it this trip and still be able to say that again.

We have a day of rest. Becky Donovan, a girl from Louisiana, flew out of Houston and was supposed to meet up with us in Shanghai. Her flight took her through Narita, Japan. Ron and I went back to the airport at 9:30 p.m. last night to meet her and found that her flight to Shanghai had been cancelled. We have not yet gotten an email from her. We assume she stayed in the airport hotel in Narita and will take the one flight they have today to Shanghai. Lily, our translator and worker who makes our reservations, will arrive here this afternoon. Tomorrow, we all have flights to Nanning. We will spend one night in a hotel in Nanning and travel on to Tiendeng (home of John Connor Brown Christian Care Center) Sunday morning. They will delay the family meeting until the afternoon when we arrive. I will post more as I have news about the rest of our trip.