After an all night flight to Beijing, I was pretty blitzed, and headed directly to my hotel – a brand new Super 8 about a ten-minute walk from my friend’s apartment. The place is so new that you can still smell the paint – great place, and very reasonable. I think I must be the first foreigner they’ve had (they just got their license to accommodate foreigners), and they have gone all out to make me feel comfortable. No complaints here!

Anyway, I was delighted to find out that I can get online here again, right in my room. Can’t blog, however (the site is blocked), so I’m going to try to circumvent the system if I can. Anyway, I’ll have to put the pictures up later for Cambodia, but I think I can at least get text up. We’ll see. Yesterday I could get on Google to get my mail, but today I can’t (even though I can get my gmail on my Blackberry!) – it can be like that here.

The first day I was here, Tuesday, I wasn’t worth a whole lot, having not slept much at all on the plane. Rested most of the day, and then had dinner over at my friend’s apartment. She and her roommate have been working here about 8 years, and they are doing a great job for the Father. I’m here to supervise and evaluate, and hopefully be an encouragement as well. So, at dinner a couple joined us to talk about establishing fellowships here. They’ve been here almost as long as my friend has. They are really a great young couple – turns out that I know the wife’s parents quite well, and we all graduated from the same university. It was a nice time of fellowship on a lot of different levels. Got a lot of good ideas for future work here.

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On Wednesday, our friend played tour guide and we spent the morning going through the Forbidden City, which is huge. Incredible how so much of a country’s wealth can be spent on so few. It was an overcast day, so the sun wasn’t too bad. Even for a weekday, it was pretty crowded with lots of large groups all wearing colored baseball caps identifying them to each other. Lots of vendors were trying to sell us stuff, and offer to be guides. After awhile, that got annoying, and when one of them asked me if I wanted an English guide, I answered in Spanish, which made them confused, and then they pretty much left us alone! We finished about lunch time and headed off for a nice little place close to the hotel. Got a nice sampling of veggies, chicken and beef dishes, and bread, and then headed back for a rest. I was wiped again, and slept the afternoon away. In the evening I headed back over to the apartment, and my friend and her roommate treated me to some Vietnamese pho, a nice soup kind of like laksa. It was good. We then went over the seminar that I’m going to do on Sunday with some friends in the faith on music in church history. We had a lot of fun going over the material. My friend’s roommate plays the violin, and we had a nice time of playing hymns together, me on the piano, and all of us singing. With the windows open, I hope it was a blessing to those walking in the courtyard down below! It was pretty late when I headed back to the hotel. The weather is beautiful, not too hot or cool, and the evening walk is really nice.

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Today, we had a similar schedule, only this time went to the Temple of Heaven, which is by far my favorite spot in China so far, including the places I visited the last time I came a few years ago. The gardens around it are gorgeous, a refreshing relief from the concrete of the city, the smell of the grass, flowers, and trees a wonderful aroma. Walking into the park surrounding the temple you are met with sound – thousands of people gathering in groups of various sizes, coming and going at will as they sing, play instruments, play games together, and just generally are at ease. It was delightful. Choirs singing folk and national songs, dance groups of older folks who have organized themselves for exercise and fun performing for whoever will slow down and watch, people of all ages playing a hackysack-like game with a feathered cock or using paddles to swat a beribboned ball back and forth with great skill. Some even invited us to play with them. For the sake of international relations, we deferred – they would have thought Westerners to be even more inept than usual had I tried!

Once through that area of the park, we were able to enter the temple complex itself. It is amazing, much different than any other temple complex that I have seen on this or any trip. Unlike most other sites in China, where red is the predominant color, blue reigns supreme here. And, though the new explanatory signs take pains to avoid pointing out that this site (the oldest temple complex in China) was the site of monotheistic worship, which they now insist is a recent Western import, they couldn’t get away from it altogether, and the similarities of the worship here with Mosaic religion is unmistakable, including the colors, the sacrificial system, the layout, the rituals, the altars. After the dispersion, Jews came here in large numbers, and this system of worship seems to be a perversion of the true religion of the God of Israel. The god worshipped here was called the “God of Heaven,” and the emperor more or less served as the high priest once a year. Fascinating.

Anyway, after another delicious lunch of sweet and sour pork, stir-fried broccoli, and spring rolls, we did a little shopping at the Pearl Market before heading back to rest for the afternoon. Tonight we’re having dinner at the apartment again, this time with a gentleman from here who is interested in training for leading a fellowship here among his own people. I am greatly looking forward to that time of fellowship. Now, though, I’m going to try to get this posted, and then stretch out for a little bit. This trip is starting to wear on me, and I go in spurts of energy. Thanks for your prayers, and I’ll look forward to keeping you posted as the last few days unfold what they have in store.