A FEW YEARS AGO, MY FAMILY AND I HAD A WONDERFUL Opportunity to travel around the world for an entire year. During this trip, my wife, two young daughters, and I wound up visiting 34 countries on six continents. One of my favorite countries we visited was China. Although we only spent a short time visiting Beijing and the Li River by Guilin and Yangshuo, the experience managed to captivate my heart and imagination. The people we encountered were all wonderful, colorful, and, in many occasions, helpful. Wherever we traveled, we felt very welcomed and loved.
Although it's easy to paint a blissful, romantic picture of our stay in China, it certainly wasn't without its challenges. One challenge we faced was the exchange of counterfeit money and the sale of counterfeit merchandise—an issue that seemed to be prevalent throughout China. My family and I quickly learned that it wasn't easy to tell the difference between a counterfeit and a real bill when we were handed a counterfeit 50 yuan banknote by our taxi driver upon arrival in China. A few days later, during a site-seeing tour, a tour guide told us, "If you don't want to be fooled by dishonest merchants selling their counterfeit wares, you must first learn how to recognize the real article, and then decide whether to buy or not." We later learned that most merchants learn to tell the difference between genuine and fake bills or use a special scanner. After these experiences, my family and I soon realized we needed to be alert not only to the exchange of counterfeit money, but also to the sale of counterfeit merchandise.
As it turns out, these lessons proved more useful than initially expected. One night toward the end of our stay in Yangshuo, my daughter Robin woke up with stomach pains and severe nausea. I began to comfort her with passages from the Bible such as the 91st Psalm, and sang some hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal. Seeing her fears diminish, I quietly prayed on my own. I strove to see my daughter as God made her—as spiritual and perfect—and I argued in my prayer that sickness was not from God and could not touch God's creation.
