Our first experience shopping by ourselves was, the say the least, interesting. The team had spent the last hour walking around the local supermarket, trying to figure out what cooking utensils we needed for our apartment and decipher what was in each of those spice packets. I think we were all quite tired when we were done, its easy to forget how much the simplest activities wears you out when you have to work within a different culture and experience, completely outside your comfort zone. Anyway, we had just worked our way through the checkout line and were attempting to leave the store, when Ty set off the anti-theft scanner at the exit. He was then forced to go through all the stuff in his bag with the guard and attempt to walk past the scanner again. It went off again. The next 5 minutes consisted of Ty going back and forth in front of the scanner, removing an article of clothing each time, and setting it off every time. All this was to the great amusement of the Chinese patrons in the store, by the time the guard left Ty go, he was down to his t-shirt and jeans, and was about to remove his shoes while surrounded by an entire crowd of onlookers. Every eye in the front of the store was on him, even the people standing in line checking out. It was, to say the least, hilarious. Welcome to China. 

I am happy to report that all is well in Shenyang. We actually just got back from spending the weekend in the city of Dandong, which is located right on the border with North Korea. We went there with some of our fellow workers in China, who are part of a band and were playing in a coffeehouse up there. It was a great experience, we got to see a section of the Great Wall and get a look into North Korea. From our view within a mountain on the border within China (and through the help of my telephoto lens) we had a chance to look into a village, which was rather like looking back in time. Oxen pulling carts, bundles of cornstalks, and rather abject poverty were pretty much the general themes. We made the trip with a Filipino man who is hoping to start working within North Korea within the next few years, and we stood by him on top of that mountain and took some time to talk with our Father, asking him to work within that country. 

The rest of the week can pretty much be summed up with English corners (times at the local coffeehouse where Chinese people can get together and speak English with each other and foreigners), teaching Christmas songs in a University English class, and generally getting used to the area of the city in which we are living, along with learning to deal with the extreme cold. Its hard to believe that we haven't even been here for a week, we are moving at such a furious pace that we seem to have been here much longer. We are all looking forward to tomorrow, when we are hoping to take the day off, sleep in, and work on settling in to our apartment. Its definitely been a great week, and we are all looking forward to the coming months! -Chad

We arrived!

This is just a quick note to allow everyone to know that we arrived safely. We are currently working on recouperating from our jet lag, and getting to know the area around our apartment. Its definately going to be an experiance, but I believe we are all very excited to be here. We will actually end up having 2 apartments, one of the guys and one for the girls, namely for sake of how it will appear to others. We'll take some time to update this later on, but as for now we are still doing a lot of exploring with the people we're working with here. More coming soon!

Getting Ready!

We're almost there. In only 2 more days, we will be jumping on an airplane, and flying over 20 hours to China (27 hours if you count layovers). While we may not be looking forward to sitting that many hours, not to mention the ensuing jet lag, we are very ready to begin our journey. For the entire team, this will be our first trip to Asia. For some of us, this is the first trip outside of the United States. Yet we are very excited to experience Chinese culture, and to attend University and start taking a stab at speaking Manderin. Keep us in your thoughts as we prepare to leave and take a very long trip.