Trip to Jiangyin to see Pastor Mary

On Tuesday (April 7) a lot of the good things lined up in the right way facilitating our trip to Jiangyin to visit with Pastor Mary. We had last seen her in Wilmington and were excited to visit her church. Ironically Jiangyin is where our son-in-law has his factory, General Cable, so we were able to hitch a ride with him and then, after he got to work, continue with his driver to the center of town were the church is located. It was really wonderful to drive into the downtown section and see the steeple and the cross, standing out among the urban landscape.
The church is located in an inner square and approached through a gate. It is a tall and imposing structure with a large sanctuary. The cross hangs high on the wall in the front of the church with an oval of chairs below for the choir. When we arrived we were ushered up five of six flights of stairs to the church office located on the third floor of the four story structure.

Pastor Mary arrived shortly later and nibbling on strawberries and grape tomatoes we talked about our trip and our pleasure to be able to visit the church. Two other church officials were also present, the pastor’s secretary, Fingin Huang and Ya Ping Dan who we recognized as one of the visitors to Wilmington last spring. Ya Ping is a business woman who owns a large factory in Huaxi where she has been instrumental in building a sister church.

We talked a bit about Easter and found that the choir was going to participate in a large service at a near -by church…old people were going to fill in for the choir at their church.

We asked how the search for the training school was going and found that they had a series of sites under consideration that we could visit.

The first was in a newish building with options for using the second and third floor. The space was about 75 by 60 which seemed adequate if the walls were not weight bearing and could be refigured to accommodate a training program that needed at least one room big enough to handle the anticipated 120 students. A second need was for a living area able to accommodate six people. The space was in a lovely part of town on a wide street with parking out front.
The second site was less attractive, older and more like a motel than an office building. It had narrow rooms and would need major renovation. We cast our vote for the first building and then were off to lunch.

Lunch is not the correct word, feast would be better. We went to the Times Hotel in the center of town, apparently where Ernie, Alex, Lucy and Fred were entertained on their visit here last year. The hotel had a picture menu but we yielded to our hosts to make the choices and good choices there were, with the possible exception of cold chicken feet and a smoked beef offering that looked a little like pick up sticks and required knawing on the bone to extract even a minimal morsel. 12 courses later with everyone smiling and toasting our raised glasses and headed out to the vans to visit the church in Hauxi.
Our touring was not difficult as we were transported in Ya Ping’s new Mercedes Van complete with leather upholstery and retractable roof

The Huaxi church was a complex that included a beautiful church building with a separate building next door housing a dining hall, church office, restroom facilities and Sunday school.

As we started our farewells’ Pastor Mary insisted that we make one more stop, a tower in the center of town where we could see all of Huaxi. We agreed and followed them to the Huaxi Golden Tower Hotel. The hotel is a temple like structure with twenty four floors and a tea room and observation deck on the top. From this vantage we had a birds eye view of the whole valley.
Feeling warm in spirit and pleased with the opportunity to extend yet another link in our century long partnership with the Christian Church in Jiangyin, we hugged our hosts and headed back to Suzhou.