It's been a little over 3 weeks since my last post, and I've been getting emails and Facebook messages asking for more updates and Thought requests, so I'm finally doing that! Actually, I haven't posted an update on here because I didn't really know what to say. I had this ridiculous idea that I should only post about how wonderful everything is and all of the great new adventures I'm having- that I shouldn't bore my supporters with the hardships of this journey. To be honest, the past 3 weeks, for the most part, haven't been great; I've been dealing with a lot and haven't had any fantastic new experiences to share with you all. But you, my amazing supporters, have been reminding me that you're not my supporters just to hear about the exciting adventures- you're also my encouragement and my Thought support, and you deserve to know about my struggles in addition to my adventures.
So this update is just an honest look at how things are going. At training, we'd been told that November would be our hardest month here in China and they were so right! We've moved out of the honeymoon period of living in China where everything is an exciting new experience, and now we're settled into our placement cities and schools, and are starting to see the realities of our environments a lot more. There's so much that I can't say about the things I'm experiencing and it's so frustrating that I can only share the basics with you until I come home next summer.
Some of what I will tell you about, though, are things that I haven't wanted to share but that I truly need Thought support for, so I'm setting aside my pride to share some of it with all of you. Like how incredibly stressed out I am about needing to decide what to do next year. Do I sign up for 2 more years with this organization and come back to China to teach and get my masters in TEFL? Do I look into going to a different country in Asia or even a different continent entirely? Do I move back to Baltimore and continue on the career path I was headed before Father called me to China? Do I move to the area that my family lives and finish my masters so I can work with abused or mentally ill children? I have absolutely no idea. I haven't felt led in any particular way yet, but I still have almost 4 months until I have to make a decision, and I'm trying so hard to give up that control!
Another area of stress: team unity. I won't go into any specifics, but I will say it's been really hard on most of us. Because of the things that have been happening in our team, my "fix-it" mentality has been in overdrive and I've been under immense stress because I for some reason felt like I had to find a way to bring everyone together and create unity. I've finally learned that I'm not in control of that and the only thing I can do is love my Sisters to the best of my ability, and leave the rest to Father.
The newest area of stress: homesickness. It's getting closer to the holidays and it's hard to not think about all of the family traditions I'll be missing this year. This will only be the 2nd time I haven't been able to spend Thanksgiving with my family, and it'll be the 1st time I've missed Christmas with them. I'm so blessed to have 6 teammates that I can spend the holidays with, and that we can openly celebrate Christmas here! But I'm still having a hard time not spending it with family and other important people in my life from back home.
In addition to those things, and the things I can't talk about, I'm also dealing with a lot of personal stuff. At training, we were told that everything from our pasts that we'd thought we'd suppressed would come to the surface; also that every fault we see in ourselves, and many we hadn't yet seen, would be shown to us. He's truly been using every day here to show me all the things that I need to change, give up, or grow in. I've grown so much in the past 3 months, and it's so sad that it took moving to China to see how far away from the character of JC I still am! Seriously, at least twice a week I have a new life-changing revelation about who I am, who He is, my walk, or His plan for me. It's exhausting! But I can honestly say that I've never been so close to Father or been forced to depend on Him as much as I have been since I began this journey.
So it's just been a hard few weeks. I'm hoping this hasn't come across as one long complaint, because that really isn't my intention. Everyone keeps asking me what they can be lifting up for me, and I feel like my responses are usually just the basics of stress, exhaustion, and relationships, but I know that you all deserve and desire more than that, so this is to share with you all some of the things I'm struggling with and need your support in. I'm so grateful to have your Thoughts and encouragement!
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! 
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! 
