I'm Home!

I have been home for a little over a week now, I just have been lazy about blogging. I got home on Tuesday, the 8th and went home with my family to Tulsa. I spent a couple days at home and then on Friday I went back to Oklahoma Christian University with my brother Nathan to visit with my friends who I hadn't seen during my three months of traveling. I not only got to hang out with friends which was just awesome I also played DnD which I hadn't played in 6 months or so. Taylor my friend in Alpha wasn't going to be in his room that night and was kind enough to let Nathan and I crash there so it was really good.

There is one other thing that is going on with my life that I would like prayer for, I need more of God's grace, strength and wisdom. I also need to continue to live Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." It is the verse that God gave me when I was 18 as my verse to live in my life. I still have not got it down after 3 years, but God is still working so that is good.

Also I will hopefully finish uploading my pictures on my Picasa, then I'll start putting them on facebook.

If you want to see some of what God has done in my life while I was on PACrim look at my previous post.

How my faith changed during my travels

First a little background.

I was born and raised in a Christian household; I grew up with Christian parents and went to church on Sunday morning. When I was four years old, I asked Christ to come into my heart and be my Savior. I was not baptized until I was ten years old.. In my life, God has always been working and looking back, I can see His hand in my life. I also saw Him do a major work in my life when I was about eighteen years old; it was like a complete renewing of my life.

At the beginning of the trip, I was struggling in my relationship with Christ. I was having a hard time hearing God’s voice. It was a spiritual low. It was hard because of how powerfully I have seen God work in my life in the past and I know what He is capable of doing. Despite my knowledge, I was as the man described by Paul in Romans chapter seven verse fifteen to twenty-four. In that passage, Paul says, “I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead I do what I hate.” (Romans 7:16b NLT) I was trapped in the same sin and I knew that Christ had the power to release me from my sin.

In that time of darkness, I had brief glimpses of God’s power. I still saw Him working in me and through me. I honestly marveled at the fact that God could and would still use me. I was wallowing in my sin. It was like getting clean water out of a muddy stream. It was a miracle; there was no reason that I should have had God working through me at all. For example, when we were on the train from Beijing to Xi’an, the Lord gave me a verse. That verse was Jeremiah 29:11. It says in the NIV, “I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” I wrote the verse down in the back of my journal because I felt like God wanted to teach me something about it. Before I had written anything else on the page, Kamery came into my compartment. She was very upset about something and I felt like the Spirit told me to share Jeremiah 29:11 with her. God was able to use that to encourage her. After that, everyone in my compartment had a time of worship and God really refreshed and encouraged me personally; I believe it was the same for the other people as well. I know at that time my life was far from where I should be but God was still at work.

Right after our time of worship, God gave me an allegory about how Christians and I, in general, are like a pen. He is the writer; we are the pens. I will not go into the details of the allegory but it gave me a deeper insight into how God uses me. I was surprised at how God reached out and was talking to me even though I had not been spending enough time with Him. I had barely read my Bible and I had even been forgetting to fellowship with God in prayer. God has His plans and I am glad that little things like us humans do not get in His way.

With all that I had seen and all that God had done, one might think that I would jump to spend more time with Him. Still after China, I could tell I was not in line with God’s will for my life. One of the biggest hindrances was in the area of my personal thoughts; they were not as they should have been. Philippians 4:8 says, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worth of praise.” My thoughts were of sinful things. I was like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time; I was a whitewashed grave. Outside I looked fine but inside I was dirty.

It was easy to be just like everyone else. I am with a Christian group and it is easy to ride on the Christianity of those around me. God really started to get through to me while we were in Ibaraki. I was living with a host family and was not with the group as much as while we were in China. At first with my “freedom,” I started to go the wrong way. Not being around the group made it was easier not to keep God a priority. However, the other thing that happened with the host family was that I got computer and internet access, so I could talk to my friends back home. Talking to my friends back home actually was actually a huge blessing and God was able to use them to help me get back on the right path again. That has been a huge challenge of this trip. I have not found many people that I consider really close friends. I like the people on this trip and I consider everyone a friend but I do not feel comfortable sharing about what is going on spiritually with anyone. So having my close friends to talk to again and to share with again was a very beneficial for me.

I remember this one evening during our time in Ibaraki. I walked home almost every day. It was a half an hour walk so I had some good times of prayer and meditation while walking home. On this evening, God gave me another allegory about the current situation in my life. He showed me a picture of a tunnel going into a mountain. The tunnel was like my relationship with God; the deeper into the mountain I tunneled, the closer I got to God. A problem about tunnels is sometimes one has cave-ins and the same area needs to be cleared out again. This happens when the tunnel has not been reinforced properly. I realized that in my own life, God had taught me and worked on me but I had not properly strengthened the tunnel that was dug. The tunnel had collapsed and I was reclearing the same area. The tunnel needs to be properly reinforced with God’s strength and power.

The other thing I had been wanting was for God to step in and just do something big. As part of my allegory, He showed me another thing about tunneling. One needs to make sure that the tunnel is stable before one uses dynamite to blow away the big chunks. I wanted God to use dynamite but I had not strengthened myself so that I would be ready for God to do a big work. He also showed me that while I am working, He is there beside me and for every rock, I chip away; He has chipped away at least twice as many. I felt a renewing of purpose and a clearer tunnel and some of the rocks chipped away-between Christ and me. I thank the Lord that “He is at work in me, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13)

Everything that happened in Asia (well most of it)

Finally…
I am horrible at keeping my blog up to date. I am very sorry about that, but in my defense my trip has been very busy, I have barely enough time to do and see everything.
First I want to say that I have pictures up on http://picasaweb.google.com/sheppard.tim.c (there are several hundred pictures up.)
So this update will be much more of an overview of what I have done rather than a day by day record.
So last time I wrote an actual update was in Beijing China. A LOT has happened since then.
In Xi’an China we danced in the fountains in front of the Wild Goose pagoda. That earned us the title of crazy Americans. We also saw the remains of the Bampo village, which is the oldest remains of a village that has been discovered in China. It is believed to date to 4500BC. In Xi’an we saw one of the wonders of the world (I don’t remember if it is ancient or modern, I’m guessing ancient, if you care look it up on Wikipedia). We saw the Terra Cotta army. It is impressive, but none of the soldiers were found whole, they had to be reconstructed, like jigsaw puzzles. We also rode bikes on the city wall. It is taller and thicker than the Great Wall, although a lot shorter in length. The ride was about 8 miles, verses the 4000 or so miles of the Great Wall. We also met with students from XPU (Xi’an Polytechnic University) they send some of their students to OC to study in the USA.
From Xi’an we took an overnight train to Shanghai. Shanghai was quite a change from Xi’an. Shanghai is a modern city, with the currently second highest building in the world. We saw a lot of cool sites and some worthless ones. (If you ever visit Shanghai do NOT bother visiting the Bund sightseeing tunnel. It would not be worth it even if it was free. It’s like an Acid trip, I think; it is just worthless and strange.)
Shanghai did have a lot of other amazing things to do and see though. Jill, Jordan and I went up the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC). It is the second tallest building in the world and has the highest observation deck in the world at 474 meters (1555 ft) high. It was quite a view and worth the money to go up. We waited up there until dark and got to see the city at night with all the nights. It was a beautiful sight. (I’m pretty sure I have a picture or two of it.) We also went to the Shanghai museum; I spent over 3 hours in there and still did not see it all. At the end of my time in Shanghai I met with our family friends the Lazos, and had supper with them. I rode the subway back to my hotel and as I walked back from my hotel I bought an ice cream bar, not an unusual event, but I only spoke Chinese to the lady I bought the ice cream from. I was happy as that was my last day in China.
From China we flew to Japan. I’m going to sum up a month in Japan in a couple paragraphs so things will be missed.
We flew into Osaka, and then took a train to Kyoto. We spent a couple days in Kyoto. At Kyoto our group saw a palace, a kimono fashion show, and the Golden pavilion. Also on our last night in Kyoto we went to the Ninja restaurant. It was epic!
One of the days we were staying in Kyoto we took a train to Hiroshima. In case any of you do not know your WWII history that is the site the first a-bomb was dropped on. We visited the memorial and museum. It is hard to describe the feelings I had as I walked through the museum and saw the destruction done by the bomb dropped by the country I live in. It is something I will not soon forget. We are all brought up to think that our country is “good” but that is a hard idea to fit with what I saw in the pictures. Now the city has been rebuilt and other than memorial dome, park and museum one would never know that most of the city was destroyed in a matter of minutes.
Next we took a train to Tokyo. We had a few days to explore the city. I visited the Edo museum, which tells the history of Tokyo since before it was called Tokyo up to the present. A few of us went up Tokyo Tower on our first night to see the lights of the city. Jordan and I did the Alpha arms outside the imperial palace. We walked the electric district. I really enjoyed it there, shops full of computers and other electronics.
Finally, we headed to Ibaraki to meet our host families. For most of the month of October we would be living with a host family. My host family was the Akiyamas. The mother and father lived at home and their two children are away at college, the older one is an ME grad student.
While I was there I enjoyed my time other than some of the classes at Ibaraki Christian College (IC). We had several weekend trips which were a lot of fun. One of the weekends we went to a place near the beach and enjoyed Japanese style BBQ. Another weekend we visited Nikko. It was one of my favorite places in Japan. I really enjoyed the natural beauty. While we were there our whole group went to an onsen, a Japanese public bathhouse. I think we are the first PAC rim group to have all gone. At the bathhouse men and women are divided and clothes are not worn. It was a new experience, but relaxing to soak in the hot pools. Also at Nikko we saw the lake there and a beautiful waterfall. I have pictures of both of picasa, no pictures of the onsen ;)
I did return to Tokyo for a weekend and met an old family friend, Bin. He showed me around the city. We visited Tokyo University, one of the oldest and best schools in Japan. We visited Meiji shrine, one of the most important shrines in Japan, as they used to worship the emperor there. We also went up the Tokyo municipal building, the highest point in Tokyo. That evening he took me out to a nice restaurant, it was rated in the top ten in the world back in the 90s. On the way back to Ibaraki I was not paying attention and missed my stop and got off one late. It was ok though because I was able to take a local train back to my stop.
It was a sad thing to say goodbye to all my friends at IC but all good things must come to an end. It was off to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, it’s a big city and it might be my favorite city that I have visited. There was a lot to see and do there. The first night there we went to an interesting place, Modern Toilet, it doesn’t sell toilets. It sells food. It was actually very reasonable and tasty. The next day we went to actual Hong Kong Island, because our hotel (the YMCA) was in Kowloon. We saw the sights, visited Victoria peak overlooking the city. At the end of the day we took the ferry back to Kowloon and watched the light show. It was the whole city and quite a show, you can see pictures if you want. The next day we went to see the giant Buddha. We took a bus there and then several of us took a sky rail back to the hotel.
There were about 10 of our group who went to Macau. It was quite a city, similar but different to Hong Kong. While we were there 7 of us went bungy (that is the British spelling) jumping. It is the highest bungy in the world, 233 meters (764.4 ft) high. It was 4 to 6 seconds of freefall. I enjoyed the rush.
Since this blog post is over 1,400 words long and I have cover most of what I did in Asia I shall create a second blog post about what I have done down under, in New Zealand and Australia.

A Pen

This was originally written in my journal on 9-23-09.

“Let the whole world glorify the Lord; let it sing His praise.” -- Isaiah 42:12

I was in worship and I felt like the Lord was talking to me about my pride. He told me that He created me with my gifts and that to acknowledge them is not pride, as long as I acknowledge that they are gifts from God. As I meditated on that truth, I picked up my pen. God showed me I am like a pen.

Even as I write this God is showing me more and more depth. So some what I see.

First a pen has a creator; it is made a certain way. When words are written with a pen it is not the pen writing the words. A person uses a pen to write words, if the pen was not given its gifts when it was created it could be used to write any words. The pen has nothing but what it has been given, it can do nothing except when its master picks it up to write. Without a creator it is worthless, without a master to guide it, it is useless.

So it is with each of us. We are given gifts by our Creator. Until we allow Him to be our master those gifts are worthless, unused. He must use our gifts to write His story. He fully understands our purpose, how best to use each gift and talent. He picks us up and uses us to write the most beautiful story.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” – Ephesians 2:10

At the Ninja Restaurant

A group of us when to this restaurant in Kyoto Japan, where all the staff was dressed as ninjas and they did a magic show at the end of the meal, it was awesome. 

Beijing, China (a few photos)

Beijing, China

So it’s been a while since I have updated and I’m no longer in Beijing and I’m now in Xi’an. But this post will be about my time in Beijing. I was there from Monday the 7th till Friday the 18th.

I know most people will not care but Facebook, Twitter and all blogs are blocked in China. So I have to do some fancy stuff to actually post this. Anyway back to the stuff that is more interesting to most people.

I think a chronological review of what I have done would make the most sense.

The 7th we just got settled and rested and had Chinese dinner that night, the food was an experience.

The 8th we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, for those who don’t know the Forbidden City was the home of the Emperor of China, it was built in 1421 and it was opened to the public in 1924. One interesting fact there are no trees inside the center of the Forbidden City because the Emperor was afraid of assassins hiding behind.

The 9th Lama Temple, Confucian Temple and a Tea House were the big events. The Lama temple had a 26 meter tall Buddha, craved from a single piece of wood. It was interesting at the Lama temple seeing the people at the Lama temple bowing and asking Buddha for help. I enjoyed the tranquility of the Confucian temple more; I wish we had more time. I would have liked to read, meditate and pray.

The 10th we went to the Summer Palace. It was built in the 12th century for the Empress to live in, surprisingly enough during the summer months. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Two of the famous things inside the Summer palace are the Marble boat and the Long Corridor. The Long Corridor has over 10,000 painting and it is 728 meters long.

The 11th Temple of Heaven, Pearl Market, Peking Duck, and English Corner. First we went to the Temple of Heaven which was built in 1420, as a place that the emperor would go once a year to pray for good harvest. It was impressive to see but also sad to think that so many people were deceived, they even sacrificed humans there. At the Pearl Market we saw how they extract pearls from oysters and I didn’t buy anything there, it was all very pretty but outside of my budget. Yum, that evening we had Peking Duck one of the dishes that Beijing is most famous for, it was delicious. After supper we walked to apartment complex where we talked with Chinese to help them improve their English. We used the story of the Good Samaritan as our discussion topic.

The 12th The Great Wall! So where to start, the Great Wall is amazing! We went to one of the four sections near Beijing. Quick facts, its 4000 miles long, can be seen from space, construction started around 200BC and it was designed to keep out the Mongols. I climbed/hiked to the top of the area we visited. It was an amazing view of the nearby mountains. Inside one of the valleys we could see there was a lake, God’s creation is spectacular! I’m not sure what else to say the steps were steep and uneven at some points, it was a workout but I enjoyed the challenge. That evening I had another challenge… but it was unexpected. I was planning to meet our family friend Honghai for supper. I did meet him and have supper with him and his family but it was an adventure trying to meet. I was staying at Capital Normal University (CNU) and they have 8 campuses in Beijing and two of them are very close to each other. Anyway to make a long story short he was at the other campus and it took quite a while to figure that out. In the end I had to borrow a cell phone from a Chinese girl at CNU and with her help Honghai and I were able to meet. I had Peking duck again, which was as good as the first time. It was a good dinner, a good end to a good day.

The 13th, Sunday. We were up at 7:15, too early. We took a bus to a government approved Three Self Patriotic Church, the service was in Chinese but there were headphones for English speakers with the translation of the service. The church seemed pretty normal by my standards; there were a number of foreigners but I think most of the people there were Chinese nationals. I’m glad to see so many Chinese brothers and sisters. After the government church we went with friends of our group to their small worship service. It was very small, but encouraging. There were only three Chinese there that morning although sometimes they have more. We sang several songs, some were in Chinese and some were in both Chinese and English. I was a blessing for me to be able to worship with those of different nationalities. God is so good. I spent the afternoon as all Sunday afternoons should be spent, napping. That evening we went to see the Chinese acrobats. For those who have seen a show by Chinese acrobats before many of the acts would be familiar. All the acts were amazing, but the last act of the first half of the show was my favorite. There were two guys inside this cage/wheel/thing. They were each inside a circle and the two circles were connected. In the middle of the two circles there was a connection that they rotated around. It was very impressive.

The 14th we visited a Hutong, a traditional home of the Chinese in Beijing. It is a walled area with a courtyard with buildings built into the outer walls. We had supper at one of the Hutongs, it was really good, I enjoyed all the dishes that they served. That evening a group of us visited bar street, I hung out and enjoyed seeing what some of Beijing does in the evenings.

The 15th, Beijing Zoo, Silk Market, and Snack Street. The zoo was really similar to most any zoo, it had animals. The big exhibit was the Panda bears. I’m not sure if Pandas are China’s national animal or not but the Chinese love pandas. So after to the zoo we went to a silk manufacturing place. It was amazing, the thread from a single silk worm cocoon is nearly a mile long. I didn’t buy anything although I saw a very nice silk jacket; it was about $200 USD. After supper I went to the “silk market” which is a huge building with vendors who sell all kinds of stuff. I bought several souvenirs and gifts for family. Since my family is reading this I will only mention one item, I bought my brother a Colombia winter jacket, it’s nice. After the silk market closed at 9pm we rode to snack street. They have some strange foods for sale there. Snake, Squid, Scorpion, whole fish, and stuff that you have no idea what it is. I tried some squid.

The 16th. Fragrant Hill, they call it a hill… I’m of the opinion that it is closer to a mountain, and that the fragrance you smell is the BO of everyone who has just finished climbing it. The climb took over an hour, the route I took. After I made it to the top I found out that there were more direct routes… After that climb I didn’t feel up to doing anything in the evening.

The 17th. It was a free day. I finished my paper for CNU, and rested for most of the day. I did watch Star Trek: A Voyage Home with Jordan and Jill. In the evening I packed everything.

The 18th, Friday last day in Beijing. We shipped most of our gifts and other packages home in the morning, then we checked out of our rooms. After that we had nothing to do till 7pm when we had to be ready to get on the bus to go to the train station. So first I went to the internet café. I video chatted with my family and Meredeth. It was fun to talk to people from home. I then went for lunch, Jordan, Jill and I went to a place we had never been to before, even though it was just down the street from CNU. It was good, and the best thing was it had menus in English. I had pork and mushrooms on rice. After that the three of us went to Wu-Mart and bought some food and stuff. Then we bought some ice cream on the way out. We walked to the park nearby to enjoy the ice cream. After we finished the ice cream we tried out the exercise equipment, it was actually pretty fun, and it felt good. I met Caleb at the park and he was planning on visiting the Olympic district and going inside the Watercube and Birdsnest. I decided to go with him and Brett. It was amazing to see the inside of both structures, definitely worth the 80 Yuan.

I think that is all for now, it’s late here in China and I need sleep.

Next time, train ride to Xi’an, fun in the fountains, Terracotta warriors, and more.

Also what I miss most, my family and friends back home.

Prayer that the team would have good health some of the people are not feeling up to their best.

God Bless, Tim

Leaving

Tomorrow, the 5th of September I am going to board a plane to travel to China. The thought is slightly scary because at the same time I'm not worried, I'm absolutely sure that God has good plans and PAC rim is part of His plans for me.
Three things I want to do while I'm on PAC rim:
1. Spend more time with God, both in prayer and scriptures
2. I want to exercise and hopefully come back in better shape than I left in
3. I want keep a good journal of my experiences.
I covet prayer for all of these things.

So more mundane information.
The send off dinner was earlier tonight and my whole family drove over from Tulsa, plus our foreign exchange student came with. It was a good time with family, the food wasn't great but the ice cream afterward was good.
My suitcase is packed, it weights ~39lbs, which I'm happy about because it is less than 40lbs which was my goal.
Well the flight leaves tomorrow at 4pm and we leave the school a couple hours before that to get all checked in at the airport.

I think that is all for now, I'm going to hopefully get some sleep tonight

Faith of a Child

God is working.

(I started writing this a couple weeks ago.)

This morning in Church while I worshiping I noticed the little girl (she's about 2, I think). She was smiling and happy. I thought how simple her world is, she understands that she is safe because her parents will protect her. In church she understands that there are good people, because she can tell that from the body language of my parents. She trusts them completely.
I felt like God said that I need to trust Him completely, like she trusts her parents. Not because of what He has done or will do but because of who He is.
"I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
--current writing--
anyway to wrap up my old thoughts. God deserves our complete trust, because He is amazing.

Hello World

So I couldn't decide on the title for my first post, I debated between "Hello World" and "DON'T PANIC." Hello world was what came to mind first which is why it's the title. (also props to people who get the references, especially don't panic)

Anyway I suppose I should say something about me and why I have finally decided to get a blog.

I have been thinking about getting a blog for awhile, but I wasn't sure what I would blog about. One of my friends suggested that I blog about my study abroad trip next semester. That really is the "straw" that broke the camel's back. I'll probably end up blogging about all kinds of things, after I get back. I think mostly it will be what I'm passionate about, which mainly is God and computers (there will probably be other topics) but at this time I expect most posts will be in one of those two categories.

So for the next three months most posts will be about my travels, I'll be in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand , and Hawaii. I'll try to link in pictures and stuff.

you know I should probably come up with should clever and witty way to end my post but I can't think of one, so I'll end with this quote
"There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God." Bill Cosby

Goodbye World (at least till my next post)