Beijing Day 3

This day was Sunday so we went to the BICF Next church. It's layout is very unusual- There are sofas at the front, then behind them are tables with chairs, and at the sides are rows of 3 chairs. It's almost like someones sitting room. Our own Vine Band lead the worship and Ps John did the talk.

After the service they served lunch- a buffet of Mediterranean type food- and held a quiz. This is where I met Anita. We had to get into teams so I plonked myself down on her table. We also had a girl who didn't speak much English (Anita was translating to Mandarin) and another nice girl. There was this crazy guy called Gabriel leading the quiz and he was so funny! There was a music intro round and he got a bit carried away singing heehee. I had to leave 3/4 of the way through the quiz to go back to the Care for Children centre, where we were staying.

When we got back me and Lauren spent the afternoon making an awesome costume for Bosco. Bosco was playing a tramp who turned into Jesus for a drama in the evening worship. As you can see it's made out of bin bags, canvas and a table cloth. We covered it in mud to make it look really tramp-ish. In the evening the Vine held a worship event for anyone who wanted to come. Loads of people from the BICF church came, and of course there was all 45 of the Vine people, and others from Care For Children. Ps John gave a talk again, there was worship lead by the Vine, and a drama too. Jo was in the drama playing a self-involved teenage girl.

The drama went like this: there is a beggar in the streets and people are ignoring him- a pastor, a mother and her son, a teenage girl, and a business man. The business man throws $10 at him but carries on. The beggar comes into church but still everyone is ignoring him even though they are Christians. They are too busy worshipping to notice him. But the child sees him. And the child wants to talk to him, but his mother keeps pulling him back. Eventually the child runs and hugs him, after that the beggar throws off his coat and he is Jesus, so everyone falls on their faces. It's really, really moving.

After everyone went and we were all done cleaning up, boxes full of McDonalds were delivered. Yay! We were all starving by then. You should have seen everyone dive in to them hehe. Not long after that (and after a cluster prayer meeting) we were tucked up in our sleeping bags ready for a very early morning.