Two women (one translating) shared exhortations to the congregation. Then a young man in a plain white shirt gave a sermon on Isaiah 58. A bespectacled young man in a plaid yellow, untucked, short-sleeve dress shirt translates into English for him. The sermon is a continuation in the study on Isaiah. Some things mentioned ---
- True fasting is a matter of your heart.
- Genesis 2:1-3 suggests the Sabbath as a "fast" from work.
- Work not for yourself, but for God.
- Deuteronomy 28:1-11: The blessings of God.
An invitation was made to those who wished to follow Christ, followed by applause from the congregation. Later, a woman gave a personal testimony in Cantonese.
After service, we went to the bookshop to buy a Bible for the fellow Dad met at the barber shop a few days ago, but it was closed. During lunch, Dad started talking about his life and the Bible. Those who were sitting with us were very interested in his knowledge. Dad ended up talking himself hoarse for 3 hours. His group grew to about 10, with everyone eating up his words. Other groups formed at separate tables and even one outside. Two became "siblings", led by Dad.
By the time we got home it was around 7:00 p.m., having been through one of the worst traffic jams I’d ever been in during our time in GZ. Turned out to be a severely jackknifed flatbed truck just before the XM bus station. Because we’d got home so late, I didn’t make it to Bible study tonight. While eating dinner, we talked about our day and found out that the girls had their own adventure today.
L's story: Fellowship was fine as was lunch. Mom and J. and the girls met the C's (another family we have fellowship with at our university), and we all had lunch together. On our way home, we stopped by a Starbucks and bought a GZ tumbler as a souvenir. We took the subway to a bus stop, which would take us to the main campus with the intention of catching a cab from there. Everything was okay up until we got off the bus. The youngest two girls had fallen asleep on the bus, and in the rush to get them off at our stop, Mom forgot the Starbucks bag. She realized this just as the bus pulled away and started running after it. I had no idea my mother-in-law was such a fast runner. She was really booking it. J. and I had the three girls, one of whom was still sleeping. We decided to catch a cab and wait for mom....who finally gave up the chase. However, we had the brilliant idea of following the bus and seeing if we could catch up with it at the next stop and retrieve the tumbler. Mom sat in the front to explain to the taxi driver our mission....it was very much a "follow that bus" scenario. However, by the time we had explained to the taxi driver what we wanted to do, we lost the bus. We followed a path that I thought might be where the bus went, but after five minutes, still couldn't find it. Acknowledging defeat, we turned the taxi around and headed home. However, just as we took a turn, we saw another bus of the same number (76) come up and decided to follow it, since it would take us the route of our bus. So, we asked the driver to turn around again and "follow that bus" - which we did for a while. (No way could we have figured out that route on our own). As we were driving, we noticed several 76's going back and kept looking for the bag in their back windows, but we were sure they weren't "our" bus, since we weren't that far behind. Eventually, the driver got close enough to the bus to read the name of the end station and asked if he could go ahead and catch up to "our" bus. Before the words "no problem" were fully out of our mouths, he stepped on the gas and we were off. I don't think I've even driven this fast in a Chinese car....the girls (still only two) and all of us got into the chase and started looking for any 76 ahead of us. In a few minutes, we caught up with ours....and mom asked the bus driver through the window if she could climb aboard and get her bag. He was gracious enough to agree....so she jumped out and looked and couldn't find it. Encouraged by the bus driver, she looked again, but to no avail....it was gone! Someone had felt they needed it more. A bit discouraged, but with another adventure under our belts, we headed home. I'm not sure how much the taxi ride cost, but it was definitely way more than if we had just taken a taxi from the fellowship straight home. But if we had done that, there wouldn't have been the adventure and we'd have nothing to tell you - so, aren't you glad we didn't.... :-)
