Post-China plans: Home sweet...

Colorado?!

It's finally official, so now I can officially tell you the exciting news!  I've accepted a position with the same organization I'm currently with, but now I'll be working at the U.S. headquarters; Fort Collins, Colorado, here I come!!  I'll be a Candidate Counselor, which basically means I'll be recruiting, training, preparing and coaching new teachers to do the same thing that I did this past year in China.  Father has given me such a passion for the work He's doing in China and He's laid it on my heart to help further His work through my new position.  I'm so unbelievably excited to get to join the awesome team in Fort Collins and walk alongside new teachers as they prepare to serve in China!

I've never been to Colorado, but I've heard only amazing things about it!  Where I'll be living is surrounded by hiking, mountain biking, white-water rafting, kayaking, mountain climbing, snowboarding/skiing, and basically any other outdoorsy activities you could ever possibly want to do!  I'm SO stoked :-)  The start date is August 27th and I hope to move out there 1-2 weeks earlier to get settled in.  I'll be back in Maryland on June 26th (only 12 days away) and I absolutely want to see everyone I possibly can before moving out to Colorado!  Here's even more great news: about 30% of my job will be traveling around the States, so I'll be able to visit friends and family all over the country!!

Thank you all so, so much for all of your support, encouragement and Thoughts this year!  I'm really excited to get to share this next part of my journey with you, as well!

Kids say the darndest things (part 2)

Kids say the darndest things part 2!  Here's just a sample of some of the adorable things my Chinese students and friends have said/done during the last couple of months.

Since my students know very little English, I've been teaching them a lot of vocab words. While I was working on sports vocab with one class, they were repeating what I said to work on pronunciation.  I started to say "volleyball" and then realized that I skipped tennis, so it came out something like "volley-er-tennis"... and then 36 little voices immediately began their repetition: "volley-er-tennis, volley-er-tennis, volley-er-tennis..."

Soon after teaching the sports vocab I got to teach Easter lessons, both the sacred and secular history.  Part of the secular lesson was on family traditions, one of which included an Easter basket.  When I reviewed the traditions with them and pulled out the basket, one of my students yelled out: "Easter basketball!"  So close.

I just finished a unit on transportation, which included some pretty hard words like: "helicopter" and "ambulance".  As much as we've worked on those words, my students still haven't quite gotten them down.  The last time I showed them a picture of a helicopter and asked what it was, one boy yelled out: "Harry Potter!"  At least it sounds pretty similar, right?

There was another pretty tricky transportation word, but for a much different reason.  My students have a hard time with the "p" sound and they tend to substitute it with a "t" sound; that proved to be very unfortunate when I taught the word "ship"...

June 1st was Children's Day (which I'll tell you all about in a separate blog post), so to celebrate the day, I gave each of my classes a party.  In one class we watched the kid's movie "Monsters vs. Aliens", and at one point in the movie a character announces that the alien problem is so significant that the president of the United States was called in.  My students immediately started screaming a chant: "O-BA-MA, O-BA-MA, O-BA-MA!"  Then this white dude walked on scene, and my students flipped out!  They were seriously devastated that the "president" in the movie wasn't Obama.  I try to not make any kind of generalizations about an entire country's population, but my teammates and I have found one exception in China: people here LOVE Obama!  In all seriousness, almost everyone I've met here knows at least two English words: "Hello" and "Obama", and almost every time I meet a new person, one of the first things they want to talk about is how great Obama is.  It's the funniest thing!

Yesterday, one of my students was standing next to me while I was preparing for class to begin.  He's one of the sweetest kids out of my 288 students and he's also really shy.  So yesterday he leans over and whispers to me, "Teacher, you are so smelly!"  I assumed that he'd made the common mistake of using the word "smell" when trying to say "smile", something that a lot of my students have done.  I pointed to my smile and asked, "I am so smiley?"  Then he shook his head and gestured wafting my fragrance to his nose and said, "Smelly. You are so smelly!"  By that, he meant that I smell really nice, but he still has me rethinking this perfume...

Couple shirts are a huge fad here.  They're sold everywhere and have all kinds of funny/disgustingly adorable/offensive sayings.  The two shirts are typical slightly different but compliment each other or else don't make sense without the other one.  The other day I was walking to the produce market and saw the greatest couple shirts ever.  For the first time, I was the one that stopped someone and asked to take a picture (foreigners are frequently stopped by Chinese citizens and asked for pictures/English lessons/phone numbers/or just followed around and videotaped).  Here's a picture of those adorable shirts:

And now it's time for some Chinglish!  This is a picture from a subway car.  It says, "Open protective cover and remove unlock-pin spanner to realize manual door-open in case of emergency".  Got that?

"Open protective cover and
remove unlock-pin spanner to
realize manual door-open in case of emergency"

Just in case you were wondering...

Four weeks from today I'll be back in the States!!  How crazy is that?!  So here's a little look-see at what's in store for my final four weeks in China...

Friday (June 1st) is Children's Day.  Our school will spend the whole weekend celebrating with performances by each class from grades 1-6; that's around 60-65 classes/performances that we get to watch!  Actually, I'm really excited about it, cause these kids put on the most adorable performances ever!  They'll all be decked out in costumes and make-up (yes, even the boys), and the kids have to practice even more than community theaters back home do before a show.  1/3 of the classes will sing, 1/3 will recite poetry, and 1/3 will perform short plays.  Oh yeah- my team was asked to perform a dance, so we choreographed a dance to the most popular English song in China... "Baby" by Justin Beaver.  I'd made it years without ever hearing that song in its entirety and now I know every word and a choreographed dance to it (don't worry, there will be a video)!

June 15th is our last day of teaching.  Before then I'm throwing goodbye parties in each of my classes, and I'm sure I'll be an emotional wreck!  Man, I'm going to miss those kids so much.

During the last week of teaching the school leaders and government will host banquets in our (the foreign teachers) honor.  Those usually turn out to be pretty interesting experiences that make great/awkward stories later on, so get excited for those to come soon!

After that I don't have any plans until June 24th.  Maybe I'll do some traveling, or stay in Taiyuan and spend as much time as possible with everyone here, or head to Beijing early, or maybe even do a combination of all three!  Then June 24th-25th I have debriefing in Beijing with all of the other 1st year teachers that I had training with back in August.  I'm not really sure what debriefing will entail, but it's supposed to help us adjust back to Western life and prepare us for what to expect when we go back to the States.

That brings me to June 26th.  Most of us will take a group flight from Beijing to LAX; we'll leave here around 2pm and arrive in LAX at 11am the same day, three hours before we left Beijing!  Finally, I'll fly back to the East Coast and arrive late that night.  My parents and Tim and Tracie will be there to greet me- I couldn't ask for a better homecoming!

So that's the plan for my next/final four weeks here in China.  As sad as it will be to leave, I'm getting more and more excited about going back to the States as it gets closer.  I can't wait to see you all!!!

I'm so not ready for this.

Tomorrow marks the 50-day countdown!  50 days until I leave China and return to the States.  

50 days until I get to see my family and friends and have the comforts of home again...
Sadly, I have to remind myself that I should be stoked about going home; to be honest, I'm terrified.  I've been told that it'll be harder to go home than it was to leave, that everything will be different from what I remember, that the home I'll be returning to won't be the same home that I left, and that it'll be a bigger culture shock to go back to the States than it was to come to China.  When I came to China, my life back in America was basically put on hold, but everything and everyone else kept moving forward.  I'm truly grateful that so many of you have made such huge efforts to include me in both joyful and painful life events.  I've heard about a lot of really exciting changes for my friends and family: engagements and weddings, new babies, moves to exciting places, new jobs, and life dreams being realized!  I've also heard about a lot of devastating changes: deaths, divorces, unemployment, terminal diagnoses, and difficult life-altering decisions to make.  It's heartbreaking that I haven't been able to be with you to celebrate joyous occasions or to grieve through crises; hearing about those things, instead of experiencing them with you, makes them seem somewhat unreal and I keep telling myself that not that much could have changed in just a year.  But not knowing what I'll be returning to is only partly what terrifies me; I think the even bigger part is knowing what I'll be leaving.

50 days until I have to say goodbye to everyone and everything that I love in China...
At some point in the past 9ish months I've come to view this place as my home.  My teammates have become my family.  My co-teachers, local university students, the volunteers at Taiyuan Teens (China's version of Young Life), and other foreigners have become my close friends.  My students have become some of the greatest joys in my life.  It's heartbreaking to know that I might never see most of these people again.  I've (mostly) learned to embrace an entirely different way of life and it has become my reality.  It's hard to comprehend that many of the things that are such a huge part of daily life in China will suddenly feel irrelevant once I leave. 

I'm terrified of going back to the States and being completely overwhelmed by how different everything is.  I'm terrified of feeling like I'll be intruding into the lives that kept moving forward while my life was 17,000 miles away.  I'm terrified of wondering if I'll belong there anymore. 

Embarrassingly, that was the end of my update and I almost clicked "Publish" to share with the world my rant of self-pity and lack of trust in Father.  Graciously, Father stopped me and reminded me of some of His truths:  

50 days until I get to see Father's provision in entirely new ways!  Have I seriously been complaining because I'm worried about what I'll face when I return home?  Don't I believe that He will guide and protect me through all trials, big or small?  We're told that "everyone born of Father overcomes the world." 
50 days until I get to follow Father to the next part of our journey together!  Didn't I tell Him that I would follow Him to the ends of the earth, to serve wherever He chooses to lead me?  Did I only mean that if it was to exotic places among unreached people?  Shouldn't that also mean to my hometown, among my neighbors, even in my home Fellowship among Brothers and Sisters?  
50 days until I get to serve Him among my home community!  We're told to "share with His people who are in need."  Isn't that why I'm going back, to get my M.Ed. in Counseling so I can work with disadvantaged people?  No matter where in the world we are sent, He will always provide us with opportunities to serve His children. 

Thank you, Father, for constantly providing such a faithless daughter with Your grace and mercy.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve You. 

The Chinese version of Field Day!

I remember being in elementary and middle school, when the most exciting day of each school year was Field Day.  We'd all get to spend a 1/2 day outside playing games, having friendly competitions, winning prizes, and hanging out with friends; it was a completely carefree day when you could just be a kid!  Well, China has Sports Day, which is kind of like Field Day if Field Day was on steroids.

On Thursday and Friday, the school that I teach at held "The 12th Spring Games of Primary Part of SMBS Show of Cohesion of Class Spirit and Style of Athletes", or "Sports Day".  But this wasn't the same carefree day of friendly competition that I remember from my childhood.  Sports Day here is an intense die-hard competition that the students have spent hours a day over the past month training for.  It's the kind of thing where students can get into some serious trouble if they don't do well.

So Thursday began with an opening ceremony and, oh my goodness, the things that our 6-12 year old students can do would put any American high school marching band to shame.  The performances that these kids do are incredible!

The games and races they have are pretty intense, too.  Some of the typical races are 100M, 400M and relays.  They also have races where you have to carry tires or other people, slowest bike race, some kind of team hamster wheel-type race, 4-legged race, Dragon Race, and Caterpillar Race.  Some of the games are Chasing the Pig, various jump roping competitions, shot-put, high-jump, long-jump, some kind of balloon-catching competition, and a hula-hoop competition.

Even with the high-stress atmosphere everyone had an amazing time!  After 9 months of teaching these students, that was the first time I've seen them act like kids.  I got to hang out with each of my classes throughout both days and actually got to interact with some of my students on a personal level. 

The girls and I made bracelets, braided hair, taught each other various hand games, and they taught me how to make those cool string-design-things. 

The boys taught me how to make various origami shapes and tricked me into trying disgusting foods, we arm wrestled (I actually won a lot!) and I taught them several practical jokes that any "good" teacher probably shouldn't  ;-)

Hanging out with my students and getting to build relationships with them during Sports Day(s) has by far been the most amazing part of teaching in China!

Kids say the darndest things

So, yeah, it's been more than a month since my last update and I’m really sorry about that.  On the bright side, though, this post is going to be packed full of a whole lot of awesomeness!  So much has happened during the last month that you would hate me if I wrote about all of it and actually expected you to read it.  Instead, this post will be about all of the adorable things my students and Chinese friends have said/done recently.

Yesterday, I informed one of my classes that they have an exam next week.  Since they don't know the word "exam" I said in Chinese "kǎoshì" (exam); the entire class broke into applause and were cheering and simply couldn't believe that this white chick from America just spoke Chinese!  There is no other place in the world that students would applaud after hearing they have an upcoming exam.

I played a review game with my students and included some pictures of my family in the PowerPoint.  I pointed out my dad in one of the pictures, and a couple of the boys said, "Woah, he is SO cool!" and "He is rockstar!"  Here's the picture that deemed my father a rockstar:

One of the words I'm teaching my students is "restaurant".  For some reason they have a really hard time with this word.  When I showed them a picture and asked what it was, I got all kinds of responses, but my favorites were: "ru-ru-ru-ressienot", "eating shop" and "eat hamburger store".

March 5th was my co-teacher's birthday.  I handed her a card I'd made and she asked what it was for; I said, "Today is your birthday, yes?"  She explained that Chinese people celebrate their birthdays on the Lunar New Year, which I already knew, so I clarified, "It is the day of your birth, yes?"  She then said, "sān yuè wǔ hào" (March 5th).  I very humbly replied, "Jīntiān shì sān yuè wǔ hào" (Today is March 5th).  This was followed by a very long pause, then she looked over at the calendar, did some math on her fingers, and a shocked look appeared on her face, "OH! Today is my birthday!"

Last week I completely lost my voice.  I wasn't able to teach a couple classes because I couldn't speak above a whisper and when I attempted to use a microphone the class, including my co-teacher, couldn't stop laughing.  Later in the week I walked to class and a student stopped me in the hallway, placed one hand on her throat and the other on mine, and whispered, "Have speaking?"  When I replied, "Yes, I can speak.", she clapped and hugged me and kissed her hand then touched my throat again and escorted me to class. 

The teachers and their families eat in a cafeteria on campus.  One of my class masters has a toddler that she eats lunch with everyday.  This child is absolutely terrified of the foreign teachers, specifically the white female foreign teachers.  Every day during lunch, if we're sitting in the same room as this kid, he spends the whole meal demonstrating his disdain for us!  If we look at him, he covers his eyes or puts his head down.  If we make faces or try to play with him, he turns completely around in his chair until his back is to us.  Yesterday, no joke, he turned around in his seat for a full 10 minutes and refused to eat or talk or look at his mother until we left.  His mom and grandma have both tried to intervene, but even my teammate's co-teacher had to admit, "He is a very happy baby, he likes everyone... but maybe, maybe he does not like you."  If it wasn't so incredibly amusing, I think my feelings would be a bit hurt.

Today I tried an experiment.  I needed to go to the supermarket, but I was in one of those moods where I just didn't feel like being the foreigner-celebrity of Taiyuan.  So I decided to try a tactic that another foreign teacher at our school uses every time she leaves campus; I covered every part of skin and hair I possibly could, even though it was in the 60's and sunny.  Then I walked to Meet-All.  Not a single person looked at me!  It was like I was totally invisible, even when I went in the store and talked to a couple of people, no one knew I was a foreigner!  The difference between today and a normal trip to the store was the most astounding thing- I kid you not, typically every single person we walk by will pause and stare at us, several will say any English words they've ever heard, and some might stop to take pictures or a video.  Today: nothing.  I almost didn't know what to do with myself, I'm so used to being constantly on display.  Here's a picture of my disguise:

Oh China, you are certainly never boring :-)



288 Valentines and a whole lot of love

So Valentine's Day, or the more aptly named “Singles' Awareness Day”, was less than one week ago.  China’s version of Valentine’s Day is celebrated in August, so February 14^th wasn’t marked by an excess of pink and red hearts, roses galore, or advertisements suggesting that you only truly love someone if you buy them a big enough diamond.  It was really nice to get away from the commercialization of the holiday, and I probably would’ve forgotten about it entirely if I hadn’t been teaching a lesson on it! 

The lesson I taught was somewhat superficial, considering that it wouldn’t have been entirely appropriate to teach my non-English-speaking 4^th graders about the tragic history behind the holiday or about couples and romance.  I did teach them about love and how love can be shown to family members, friends, leaders, etc.  Then I helped them make cards to give to their parents whenever they get to go home next; it was a pretty fun lesson and I made sure to take a bunch of pictures to share with my supporters back home. Valentine’s Day came and went the same as any other day. 

The next day, as I was talking with my team about our best Valentine’s Day dates, it struck me that I’ve never not had someone special to celebrate the day with; I realized that this was the 1^st time I’ve been alone on Valentine’s Day.  Over the next several days that realization started getting to me, and I was becoming pretty discontent over not having the typical American lifestyle of settling down and starting a family. 

Then I started to write this blog update about my Valentine’s Day lesson; as I was deciding which pictures to post, I started really looking at the faces of my 288 students, and I saw their smiles and thought about their lives and felt their desperate desires to be loved.  My heart broke for each of them all over again.  Father struck me with a reminder that I desperately needed: the fact that I don’t have the typical American lifestyle isn’t something to be discontent over; what I’m doing here, living and teaching in China, isn’t some huge sacrifice that I’ve made.  I have this incredible opportunity to teach, to love, and to share Hope with His children in China!  This Valentine’s Day, I got to spend the holiday with 288 special someones that I desperately love and who desperately need to be shown love.  How could I possibly be discontent over that?  Now that I really think about it, this was the best Valentine’s Day ever :-)

These are some of the many children I have the privilege to love!

There should be a snooze button for reality

Well, I'm officially back to reality after six amazing weeks of Winter break.  I probably should have mentioned that I wouldn't be updating my blog during break, so I apologize to those of you who messaged to ask if I'm dead (I'm still very much alive, by the way).  A lot has happened in the last six weeks, so I'll try to just fill you in on the most interesting aspects.
 

In mid-January, I got to spend a week with two of my favorite people in the entire world (which I think I'm entitled to say now that I've been to the other side of the world); my dad and sister came to visit me in China!   

Dad, me, and Tracie on the Great Wall of China!

I played tour guide and took them all over Beijing; we hiked up and tobogganed down the Great Wall, toured the Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square, shopped at the Silk Market, saw a Chinese acrobatic show, ate a bunch of authentic Chinese food (including fried scorpion), had near-death experiences in taxis and on the subway, and went to the Night Market, the Beijing Botanical Gardens and the World Park!  

Tracie, me, and Erin eating fried scorpion!

It was an intense non-stop week and it was so wonderful to spend time with my dad and sister and finally be able to share the reality of my life in China with them (although we all missed mom and wished she could have come, too)!  

 When they left, homesickness hit me really hard, so it was a blessing that I immediately had to prepare for my trip to Thailand. 

Erin, me, and Lauren on the beach at sunset

Erin, Abbey, Sam, Lauren, and I traveled to Koh Lanta, Phuket, Thailand for a desperately needed vacation!  We stayed on the beach for a week and by the end of it most of us decided that we're definitely going to retire there some day.

I'm riding an elephant!

We laid out on the beach (and got ridiculously sunburned in the process), ate way too much food, got authentic Thai massages, went paddle-boarding and snorkeling, awkwardly experienced a fish spa, saw wild monkeys, rescued starfish, rode elephants through the jungle, got tricked into eating the hottest chili pepper in existence, had fire-throwing lessons, and met some of the coolest people I've ever met from all over the world!

After our wonderful vacation we journeyed to Chiang Mai, Thailand for our Annual Thailand Conference; my organization brought all of the teachers and their families, around 500 people, from all over Asia to meet together for one week in Thailand.  The conference was a time for us to fellowship with other Believers, see and hear about the work Father's doing all throughout Asia (I can't wait to share this with you when I get home!!), learn about potential countries of service, and to receive encouragement, support, counseling, and Thoughts for the struggles of our past semesters.  It was exactly what I needed for rejuvenation and preparation for this next semester- I've gained so much motivation and perspective for the next 4.5 months of my service in China!

I'm now back in Taiyuan and am getting really excited to see my students again on Monday!  I've missed those kids during the last six weeks; I'm so unbelievably grateful that I have the opportunity to be a part of their lives and I can't wait to see how Father uses the next 4.5 months to touch their lives and the lives of my co-teachers! 

Christmas in China (just a bit late)

Christmas in China was... different- not in a bad way- just different.  Previous teams had left a bunch of Christmas decorations, including a tree, and our supporters sent us all a bunch of Christmasy stuff, so we were able to decorate for Christmas!  A few weeks before Christmas, my team and I put up the tree in my apartment and decorated it while we listened to Christmas music; it certainly didn't look like the Christmases I'm used to, but it helped to give us all a bit of holiday cheer! 

We had two Christmas parties and both were so much fun!  The first was for local college students that we've gotten to know and become friends with. 

We made and decorated Christmas cookies with them, which was super funny; Chinese people use chopsticks for absolutely everything- even to frost cookies!   

Then my team and I put on a short performance of the Christmas story! I was Mary, and they thought it was hilarious when I walked out with a pillow up my dress, then gave birth to a boot wrapped in swaddling sheets.



The second party was for our Chinese co-teachers.  We mostly sat around and talked while eating all kinds of fattening foods.  We'd made a bunch of desserts beforehand and had a cake-walk-type-thing!  They absolutely loved it, and they were all running around trying to pick the best number to stand on in hopes of being picked- it was so funny!  After that, we put on the Christmas story performance for them, and they loved it even more than the college students had!

On Christmas Eve. we went to a Christmas Eve service at a local Fellowship.  ...it was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced.  There were dancing women in army camo outfits, 10 virgins doing some sort of a dance-off, women in ball gowns and men in tuxedos, secular Christmas music, and all kinds of other interesting things!  It was all in Chinese, so of course we had no idea what was going on, but it was definitely amusing!

For Christmas, I got to Skype with my family!  We read the Christmas story and opened presents via video, and it was almost like I was there!  It was so great to get to do that on Christmas morning, even though it was still their Christmas Eve!  Then my team and I got together for homemade brunch, exchanged secret santa presents, and watched Christmas movies all day!  I was so grateful to have a team to spend the day with, and it really helped all of us to not feel too terribly homesick!