Thoughts...

While walking back from a Study on Sunday night, I was happened to glance into the open windowed kitchen of one of the many apartments in our complex. Inside stood a woman cooking. My view kept wondering up the 6 floors of the building, many of them had lights on and people moving around inside. I turned in a circle, the apartment complex I was standing in was composed of around 10 buildings just like the one I was looking at, and there are apartment complexes everywhere. What does a person do to stand out in a country of over 1 billion people? 

My thoughts didn't stop there.  Here I am living in the most populous country on earth, and its mostly Atheistic.  The majority of people here are not on the "eternal path". The second most populous country, India, is mostly Hindu. Again, same problem. So here we are stuck with a world of over 6 billion people, and if we are really generous, we can probably figure that 1 billion of them are saved. That leaves 5 billion people... 

Kind of sobering. And so I found myself talking to my Father, asking what this means. I admit to entertaining a secret hope that our doctrine is incorrect, that somehow we will find more people on the other side of eternity then we expect. Yet, if not, 5 billion is a huge number of souls, hopes, dreams, and individual stories on the wrong path.

And so my thoughts continued on to the next great question. Above and beyond that, I'm a citizen of one of the most blessed nations on earth, yet over 4 billion people live on less then 3 dollars a day. Another thought, We spend so much time in the US debating abortion (A worthy debate, no doubt), but yet we ignore the roughly 25,000 children who die each day due to extreme poverty. Kind of depressing line of thinking, I admit. However, it begged the question in my line of conversation with the Father, OK, so what does this mean for me. What would you have me do?

The next day, I asked the same question of the team. Although really, its a question that everyone has to face at some point, and (if my own life is any testament) its a question we have to keep coming back to as we evaluate our current path. Some people, perhaps the majority, ignore it totally. Another group of dedicated M's and human rights workers pour their entire lives into that question. Yet what about those of us that are not called into any specific vocation in that direction, the average person. What does that mean for us? An interesting question, and one that the team has been struggling with as we ponder on what is next for us after China.

Requests:

- Chinese classes are now if full swing. Yeah, if you know anything about the Chinese language, you might be on your knees for us every night with tears and fervent petitions. Just Kidding. 

Kinda.

- This weekend we will be watching children for an M conference in our city. One of our major goals is to continue to be a blessing to the long term workers here.

- We have been meeting a lot of students, and have become rather close with a few of them. We hope to plant some seeds.

Thanks:

- We just reached the halfway point of our time here in China today. Wow. We're all healthy, we've become rather comfortable here, and we enjoy living together. Enough Said. Hallelujah.

Ohhhh Back to School, Back to School...

Well folks, its finally that time of year. School is back in session, and students have returned from dying of boredom to dying of stress. Thus, the circle of life is complete (Lion King; Disney, 1995).

The week jump started Monday morning with, what we've come to call, a "Well That Would Have Been Nice to Know" moment. As we walked in to the Foreign Affairs Office at our University, we were all super stoked to meet our Chinese teachers, which we had been told was all that we had to do on Monday. After talking with our liaison, however, we were informed that classes actually started that very morning, not ten minutes in the future. "That would have been nice to know," we all thought as we headed to our first class of the day.

Now before we progress any further down the rabbit hole (Alice in Wonderland; Disney, 1951), let me explain the hierarchy of Chinese proficiency. The highest level of Chinese aptitude is called the A level; next comes B1, B2, Cs 1 and 2, D, E, and F. This year there were not enough F students, so it was decided to put E and F together, forming the most basic Chinese class available at the university. Now we may continue.

Once we had entered the heated classroom (Praise the Big Man!), we sat down, and a short aptitude quiz was given to us. The teacher would ask us a couple questions, have us read some pinyin and characters and if the person was good enough, they moved up to the D level class. Needless to say, none of us four were worried about being "that" good. However, the teacher made her way over to me and Chad, had us stumble through a couple questions, read some pinyin (poorly), and read, maybe...2 characters. After which she told us "D Ban" (D level), and motioned for us to leave the classroom.

Confused, to say the least, Chad and I followed a couple other students to the next floor to the D classroom. As we entered, we witnessed the teacher laughing, joking, and carrying on conversations with the students. Now this in itself is not a bad thing...it was the fact that it was all in Chinese that made us super nervous, and all the more confused.
"Why were we sent up here?" we asked each other multiple times, mainly because we could never come up with an answer. After about 30 to 45 minutes of understanding NOTHING in the most stressful class I have ever had in my entire nineteen glorious years on this planet, a friend in the class helped us explain to the teacher that we did not belong in the D level. Much to our relief, we were able to rejoin the E/F class with an invitation that if our scores were really good after two months, we could rejoin the D level class. Yeahhhh, about that....

Thus ended our "First Day of School Fiasco." And we were more than happy to be done with it! Tuesday was much better, as we began to settle in to our permanent classroom and start the actual learning process. Our class is diverse to put it mildly, with 2 men from India, a guy and a girl from Russia, 2 Korean girls, another American girl, and us four crazy cats. After our third official day as Chinese students, I'm somewhat optimistic about the future. Although, we'll see what tune I'm singing in another week or so : )

Requests:
-That our studies would not become a hindrance to our more important goals
-Wisdom as we develop relationships with students
-Knowing when to say no to the numerous requests for our time and energy
-That Chad would continue getting the 13+ hours of sleep that he requires to stay beautiful
-That our important packages and letters would arrive safely and intact
-A friend will be having surgery this next week and would seriously appreciate your thoughts

Praises:
-School has started and our heads haven't exploded yet!
-We've been making many new friends lately
-Warm weather is slowing making its way into the city
-Frankly, nothing really that bad has happened to us since we've been here, which is really cool

Fun Ending Story: So yesterday, Marge, Judit, and I got on the bus to go home from school. The bus driver saw us, noted that we looked American, got out his cell phone, and started playing "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. We thought that was pretty hilarious.

Oh and up top is just one of the signs that keeps us safe daily as we ride the bus. Enjoy