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!