Lemonade in China

No, I’m not talking about drinking lemonade in China (at least I don’t think we had any). I’m talking about MAKING lemonade on our Project Titus trip last June. That became a motto of sorts for our trip, mostly because within about one hour of our trip we found out that things weren’t going to go as planned. Here’s what I mean:

Five MLS students (Jeremiah Doehler, Caleb Rothfuss, Melissa Zager, Amanda Kelley, Noel Fletcher), my wife and I were in the airport at Detroit when that dreaded sign was posted on the board: DELAYED. Our plane was delayed in Chicago due to bad weather, which meant that we might miss our connection in Washington D.C. before heading over to Beijing. The helpful lady at the counter said that we could make the connection if, somehow, that flight were also delayed. She arranged a new schedule for us that would have us still go to D.C., then to Houston, and then over, in case we did indeed miss our connection.

Well, we did miss our connection. And our new connection to Houston wasn’t to leave for another seven hours. And, we found out that we wouldn’t be going over to China from Houston, either, but that we would be going from Houston all the way back to Newark, then over (and all of which would cost a day). Sounds disappointing, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s when you make lemonade. We went on to D.C., but rather than spend seven hours in the airport, waiting to fly overnight to Houston, only to leave at 6am the next morning for Newark, and then over to China…what you do is go into the city and see some of the glorious sights of our nations’ capital! This is an especially good idea when one of the students is from Germany and hasn’t seen the place (Jeremiah) while one of the American students likewise had never been there. Plus it set the tone for the rest of the trip, which thankfully was spent mostly in China

You might think that the rest of this blog will describe how we had to make lemonade time and again on the trip. Not so. We really didn’t have to make much lemonade once we got there. Things went pretty much according to plan from then on. The Lord blessed us with good health, fellowship with friends and with each other, and with soft seats for our traditional fourteen-hour train ride (sometimes you get hard seats)! We were able to see some fabulous sights in various cities, do some crazy things like rappel down an apartment building just for fun, and most importantly, see the gospel in action in a place where, well, sometimes you have to make lemonade in order to do that. I guess there was maybe one time amidst all the excitement when things did get a little sour…when it took us about four hours to get one from one location in Hangzhou to a gathering of friends in another. But..that, too, was an experience you just won’t get anywhere else.

There was one last stop where the potential was there for making lemonade: O’Hare airport in Chicago! There has been many a delay for MLS travelers in that place recently, including one overnight return from China two years ago. Well, we came close! The customs area was jam packed when we arrived because there were four other international flights that arrived at the same time. It seemed like we would not make our connecting flight to Detroit. And since Jeremiah was a German citizen and was here on a student visa, it would have been nice for him to have this certain form of identification as he went through customs that I had on my person as I went through the “citizen” area of customs! And so, after a couple of hours passed and after Jeremiah was detained for about one hour of that, he and I literally ran through O’Hare to get to the gate where our connecting flight was boarding, after being delayed itself just long enough for us to arrive with minutes (maybe) to spare. That’s right, we made lemonade!

All in all it was yet another remarkable trip to China. The group had an unforgettable time together and with new friends in a far-away place. With the gospel as the center of the entire trip and at each stop, there’s really only one word that summarizes the trip best: SWEET.