I’ve had so much on my mind, I may have to write a few posts tonight. First of all, I wanted to share – or at least try to explain – how the air smelled this morning after church. It smelled like China. You know how certain smells stick in your memory, then out of the blue – wham! – it hits you at some random moment in the future? That’s what happened today.

Our church is out in the country, with a corn field across the street, a cemetery behind the parking lot and a cow pasture on one side. It isn’t unusual to smell “country” smells from the pleasant flowering plants to the less-than-pleasant odor of manure. Today, however, was something that I couldn’t quite zero in on, but when I stepped outside the building after church, I instantly took a deep breath and then another – it smelled like I remember China smelling.

There was something distinctly agricultural – perhaps someone burning brush in the distance – and something else indistinguishable in the chilly breeze that brought me back to my fourth-floor efficiency apartment that overlooked a ravine on the outskirts of the Shandong Institute of Economics. I stood in the parking lot for a minute and just breathed, trying to remember what it was that smelled so familiar.

I never did put my finger on it, but I enjoyed the flash from the past and a moment to appreciate where I’ve been and where I am. All the time … God is good!