We safely arrived in Beijing and are now at one of the foster care homes near Beijing. Yesterday we went to the Great Wall which was pretty cool… we rode a ski lift to get up to the wall itself, because it runs along the top of cliffs…
Then we hiked around the top of the wall quite a bit…. many many many steps. Apparently the Chinese designed the steps to be very inconsistent so that if the enemy ever did overtake it, they wouldn’t be able to run or move quickly along the top of the wall because the steps were all different sizes… great defense for them… unfortunately it proved to be pretty tiring for us too!!
It wasn’t easy getting up to the top of that thing with my camera pack on but it was worth it once we (less than half of the original group) finally got there. The mountains are gorgeous and you can see for miles!
It’s crazy to see this wall, one of the most amazing and vast man-made structures in all history, just get swallowed up by the magnificence and magnitude of the mountains and landscape it sits in. It took man thousands of years to build something that doesn’t even hold a candle to something God created in a split second. It’s pretty humbling to take in.
After we had spent quite awhile up there… it was time to go back down…after hiking back to where the ski lift dropped us off… we had two choices… either take the ski lift back down (yea… riiiight…) OR take the alpine slide down. It was just like the ones you see in Colorado except it was a metal track… and wow you could really get moving on these… I snapped a couple photos on the way down… (that’s Caleb in front of me, going wayyy to slow 
Well…now I need to go pack up a little bit for our trip to Maria’s Big House. The grand opening is tomorrow and there is a lot to come together for it. Watch for updates with some images from the opening tomorrow!
9 Comments
Wow! Just Wow!
Thank you so much for sharing these magnificent shots! Praising God for your safe travels!
Wow!That’s absolutely amazing!Such awesome photos and the beauty of God’s creation.Glad God is moving so great at Maria’s Big House in China.You all are a blessing,praying for you all.Thank you so much for sharing.God bless!!
Stephanie G
Charlotte,NC
“It took man thousands of years to build something that doesn’t even hold a candle to something God created in a split second. It’s pretty humbling to take in.”
This really encouraged me this morning. Thanks dude. Hope you guys are having a great time.
This is a really great pic. It reminds me of a scene from a movie called ‘King Fu Hustle.’
Beautifully amazing. The pictures are fantastic! Thank you for sharing the events.
These are Amazing photographs!!! Thank you for posting these! My good friends are the trip with you and I am enjoying all your photos and posts to see what you all are up to! Safe travels to you as you come back soon!
Thanks so much for these amazing photo’s. I love China, so beautiful. I hope to return there soon. These pictures make me want to come now and just tour that beautiful land. Maria’s Big House is beautiful. I was taking pictures of our amazing sky yesterday……Love to you all for the wonderful work you are doing, may God bless each and everyone of you with more than enough!
Hey Austin,
I love all of your pics and your travel journal. It’s amazing to see all that God has been doing in China with SH and MBH!! Thanks for the journey. We are traveling to Beijing in March to adopt our daughter and we’d love to go on the ski lift/alpine slide. Can you tell us where it’s located and/or the name of it??? Thanks so much. Blessings, Ginny