They're Everywhere!

Coming into this Games I knew there was going to be a strong presence from the government/military.  I had no idea it would be this strong.  Everywhere, and I mean everywhere you go there is somebody guarding something.  Benches, trees, buildings, people, gates, statues, sidewalks; its all under heavy protection.  And its all hours.  They also stand on little padded platforms, I'm sure to give a little more intimidation.  This is not a naturally tall race of people.  What I would love to know is if they are around to keep the order of things, or to keep a closer eye on things.  This is a place to get very paranoid in, very quickly.  We've been told there are 250,000 cameras in Beijing watching the goings ons.  We've also noticed an incredibly tight firewall (The Great Firewall of China) that has limited our access to certain websites.  Most interestingly for me, it won't let me download any podcasts from Christian sources.  Luckily I had loaded up on podcasts before I came, but there is no getting them now.  I couldn't watch Peachtree's service the other day on the webcast because it was cutting off the stream.  

The other interesting and noticeable job here is the cleaning ladies.  This is the cleanest Olympic compound in history.  We have 4-5 assigned cleaners everyday, dusting and sweeping up spare wires and trash all morning and afternoon.  Its like working in Disneyworld.  You know you drop something and a minute later when you turn around it magically disappears.  But this is what is so fascinating to me...The cleaning ladies and the military soldiers are trained to be robots of work.  Don't ask, just do the same thing day after day after day.  No show of personality, just go about your business.  However, when we have interacted with them, when no one else is around you get glimmers of hope, sparks of personality, smiles.  When I go by the military soldiers who all are 18-19 I would say, if no one is watching I will greet them with purpose, and they change their stare and smile offering up a small greeting themselves.  When we are in our Switching Center room, we have TVs on, that right now feed various news broadcasts.  Sports are shown on some of the Chinese stations, particularly Olympic warm-ups for the basketball and soccer teams, and when no one is around the cleaning ladies will watch eyes bright and fixed upon the action from behind us.  

To me its been a reminder that no matter what restrictions you put in place, no matter what cultural scenarios you set up, we were all created in the image of God, and so that ability to still find hope and excitement in the very mundane still exist.  I certainly have been reminded of the freedoms I have living in the United States.  The freedom to choose a job, the ability to make the wages I earn, the ability to worship freely.  I think its easy for us to think we were the ones that made all the success in our lives happen.  But what if you were born in China?  What about Haiti, or Malawi?  It probably wouldn't matter what you did, you would be stuck in a situation that would be extremely difficult to get out of.  Many of us have been very blessed, in order to be a blessing to others.  I have really been reminded of that here.