Homeless in the Xi'an Airport

We've made it to Thailand and now have Internet access on my iPod touch so I wanted it share one story of our journey so far and how He's taken care of us. I wrote it on my iPod so the formatting may be off and there are probably more typos, but enjoy!::


Turns out if you get up at 4:15am to make it to the airport in time
for your flight, and you find out your flight doesn't leave until the
next day, they still won't let you get on the plane. Yes, ...somehow
that happened to us. All of our plans were written down and based off
of this one schedule, but somehow when we made the schedule the date
was wrong. Our hostel is booked for the next city. Haha. So we got our
flight changed to instead of 7:30 am to 6:20 pm. So today we lived as
homeless guys in the Xi'an airport.

It started off by finding nice cozy massage chairs to sleep in until
they woke us up and pretty much said pay or leave 15 min into our nap.
We went exploring to find a seat or some breakfast and somehow ended
up at the staff only cafeteria. We realized it as we were watching
them all pay with cards and suddenly realized they all had a uniform
of some sort on. We thought, "eh, what's the worst case...we lose some
face? We'll give it a try." So we motioned to one lady if we could pay
with cash? She relied no, but then bought us pourage with her card and
ended up getting us a full Chinese breakfast. Super sweet Chinese
Angel. (I got a picture with her and he other ladies).

 Next it was upstairs to sleep on a bench for 10-15 min at a time.
Went on a walk, found a nearby KFC and we took our homeless selves
there for a bit. But we got some good G time in and went on a little
walk. Jordan and I got to spend some time clearing up somethings and
pr-ing together so it worked well. After a 4 hours or so we went back
and finally checked in...to find our flight delayed another 40 min.
Good news was when we went back to our gate at the new time there was
a huge commotion and arguments over who knows what. I checked the
angry peoples tickets and thankfully they had a different flight
number.

At the same time there was a shoving match going on for the freshly
delivered meals (I suppose due to the delays- I don't know but we
pushed our way in and got one too. It was like bringing
food/shoes/anything out in Africa, people just went crazy. But some
Chinese student helped us get some, so we were blessed with our second
free meal of the day.

Finally getting on our plane (which was delayed another 30min) and I
saw one guy over on the side sitting down with his head on his knees.
I felt like I should go check on him (who knew if he spoke English,
but I've used that as an excuse too much lately) so I sucked it up,
got out of line and went to talk to him. No reply at first, he just
blinked. Then blinked again the second time I patted him on the
shoulder, he jerked up and yelled "thank you" in Chinese and ran off
to board the plane. Dude was out like light bulb, had fallen asleep
while waiting.

The flight happened, found our bus to yet city center. From there we
tried to hail a taxi, to no avail, then got directions and advice from
a random girl about taking the subway instead (found out later she was
drunk but yet she still gave good directions and had impressive
English.) Subway stopped 7 min before we got there so we headed for a
bus stop.

There we met 2 really nice guys who tried to help, one spoke Chinese
and the other came to help when he realized we didn't. Another man
pitched in to help and got much more involved when he called his
friend/girlfriend to talk with us in English to ask if we wanted to
take a taxi with him. Long story and more confusion but the man (Alax
- an insurance salesman for New York Life) and Edward (the second guy
to kick in in English - whose also a pharmesutical rep) decided they
would walk us to our hostel which was bear where they lived. Turns out
to be a 30 min walk with one pit stop at a McDees for one of our
friends who had perhaps a bit too much to drink. They walked us all
the way to the door (at 11:30pm) and then made plans for lunch or
dinner tomorrow...maybe with his company (I think the New York Life
company anniversary -but we don't have dress clothes)... and/or dinner
at his house... I dont know really. We'll see what He has in store for
tomorrow.

Finally, into our hostel mixed room with a girl named Emily who is
studying art and film and another guy Lou3 yuan4 who is just visiting,
and a guy from Mylasia. We also met another American in our hostel
whose teaching English in the south.

Needless to say, we finally made it to ChengDu, He has blessed our
ignorance over and over again and is setting up some really cook
opportunities to share Him and Love His (soon to be) people. It's
amazing. I can hardly wait for tomorrow...or stay awake. But I just
thought I'd share another adventure in China.

Abram

Abram