Sunday May 27

Today, check out of the hotel was interesting and took an hour.  Every room that was checked out had to  be checked by hotel staff before finalizing the process.  We finally got on the bus with all our luggage and headed for the American Steak and Eggs Restaurant in the embassy district of Beijing.  Each embassy has a Chinese uniformed guard that takes his position very seriously.  They stand ramrod straight and they methodically swivel their heads from left to right and watch the street with keen interest.  It is almost a timed motion and looks almost robotic.  Once again, the directors we were supposed to meet and have breakfast with, called from another restaurant of the same name and we never did meet them.  They were going to try and meet the rest of the tream at the airport as they were checking in some 4 or 5 hours before flight time.  At this point, Matthew and I collected our bags from the bus and took a taxi to the 21st Century hotel and the adjacent theatre where the Beijing International Christian Fellowship meets and took in the English morning service.  We had to produce our passports at the door to enter.  Afterwards there was a welcome gathering for all the new people and we had a short stand-up reception where we met other first timers.  We met people from Zimbabwe and Nigeria and Korea.  Matty recognized a lady we had met and spoken with in the market and we introduced to her husband who had been a pastor in Brazil with a Baptist fellowship.  What a small world, even here in Beijing where there are about 18 million people in the city.  The suburbs and districts add even more to that number.

From the church, we caught a taxi to West Beijing Railway Station.  We had lunch at a McDonald’s there before finding our waiting room and getting settled in for the wait.