Mayday MAYDAY!!!!

Its hard to believe that May is already here. As some of our friends make ready for the journey home, we are strapping ourselves in for the next and final two and a half months here. Truth be told, this corner of China has been pretty quiet lately(aside from the occasional random fireworks, or random wedding next door). Warm weather, however, has finally decided to grace us with her presence, and no one here is complaining : )

Sunday night was the first annual Movaci Coffee Shop Talent Show, for which I was asked to be a judge. There were some people there with really good voices, but i think the highlight of the show, for me, was a Chinese student who sang Edelweiss from the Sound of Music. Unfortunately, i don't think she would have cut it as one of the Von Trapp, but she liked the song a lot so it was cute.They even made me sing a song without accompaniment or forewarning, so i got to show off my talent as a devastating trainwreck : ) It was a good time, though

Life continues to go, and we all continue to grow. We have seem to caught a second wind after our trip to Beijing, and spirits, for the most part, have been high lately. The warm weather definitely helps too. We all miss our homes and the people back there, so i hope you all feel loved. Feel loved!!!! Despite in some ways being ready to go home, we are also ready to finish this strong and keep getting everything oout of it that we can. Thank you for all your love and thoughts!

Easter

The past 2 weeks have been rather amazing. First there was Beijing (read all about it here). However, the big event here in Shenyang was most definitely Easter. Every Friday we our coordinators have an open-house, allowing students to come to his home and spend time with his family and with ourselves. Usually we simply play games, have snacks, and generally spend time together hanging out. However, the past 2 weeks, we have spent time talking about Easter. The time leading up to that particular Friday was full of anticipation, both on our part, and on the parts of the students. Our coordinator reported that students were constantly talking about Easter in class, asking about what it meant and who Jes*s was. Of course, being unable to talk about such things in an English class, our coordinator continued to invite them to come to his house that Friday. After that, he kept getting calls from students, asking if they could bring friends. The numbers continued to add up. Finally, due to the small size of his apartment, our coordinator had to start asking students to not come, and promised that instead they could come the next Friday.

And so the first Friday arrived, and we found ourselves cramped in a small apartment with over 40 students sitting around on the floor. And together, we all watched the Easter movie in enraptured silence. Afterwards, we opened the floor for questions. And what amazing questions we received.

The next Friday, many students were unable to attend due to the fact that Shenyang was held in the grips of an intense wind and sandstorm. However, that night was particularly powerful. I had the opportunity to lead that night, fielding questions and explaining things, which was one of the coolest opportunities that I've had yet while here.

This is what we came for.

Requests:
- More opportunities akin to the above.
- We are making some close friendships. We need help from the Gardener as we continue to plant seeds.
- Oh yeah, we have midterms this week and next. Can you say, G*D HELP US.

Praises:
- Beijing was AMAZING.

For Richer or Awesome...r

Like the Good Book says, "There comes a time in every young man (and woman)'s life where he (or she), must stay in a ridiculously large hotel room." For us, that was this weekend :D Walking into the "room" where the girls would be staying, my first reaction was "Holy Crap!" followed by an equally giddy "Ho-ly Crap!" and ended with a moment of speechlessness (but with an implied, third "Holy Crap"). To say this room was large would be an understatement, for, nay, this was not even a room. This was a Hotel Apartment...in a five-star hotel!

Now, I don't want you to judge us, lest ye be judged; so allow me to explain the circumstances surrounding our grand fortune. About a month or more ago, we found out that the weekend of the 28th of March, a Workers Encouragement retreat was to take place close to the center of our (hopefully once spring arrives) beautiful city. Our good friends asked if we wouldn't mind volunteering our services to the childcare department aka: Be the childcare department. We were more than happy to offer our services, and were told to have some activities prepared for the weekend.

Arriving at the hotel, we noted how very grand this little American chain hotel was, when we were informed that this was not the hotel we would be staying in. Intrigued, we followed our friend around the corner, past a starbucks (can I get a halleluia!?), to our home for the weekend. Greeted by five, friendly-looking stars next to the hotel name, we knew we were in for a treat. Margaret had gone ahead of me and Judit and was already freaking out about the room, so we rushed upstairs, discovering along the way how very underdressed we were haha, and entered the girls' 12th floor apartment.

Specs: 2 Master Bedrooms; 2 Master bathrooms, each with a bathtub; an extra guest bathroom; washing/drying machine; kitchen, complete with oven, microwave, refrigerator/freezer, sink, glassware, plates, cutlery, and a knife set; a living room that doubled the size of the place; numerous walk-in closets; and three televisions.

So enough about the room (more to come later ;D), let's talk about what we actually did there. The first night, we thought we'd get the kids split into teams, with Margaret and Chad leading each team, and Judit and I being the official "Judges" for the weekend. With the Teams Judah and Gideon formed, we began the weekend friday night with a Scavenger Hunt! After a good hour of feeding clues and asking questions of the teams, we ended our time that night with a good ol' dessert party.

We were really excited about the kids we had. They were very well behaved (for the most part) and gave us a lot of respect. And because of that, we were able to have two tons of fun, it was awesome! We watched movies, went swimming/hot tubbing, played giant dutch blitz, and the whole time, each team was earning points from me and Judit based on a number of different and very...official criterium... The incentive for getting points was that at the end of the weekend, the winning team leader would get to pie the other leader in the face! Trust me, that was more than enough to get our group of 6-17 year olds motivated. In addition to all the fun and games, Margaret and Chad were able to have a couple of really good "sessions" with some of the older kids. A lot of good talks came out of those times, as Margaret will be the first to tell you.



By the end of the weekend, we were exhausted shells of our former selves. The kids were awesome, but with our bodies lacking sleep and/or caffeine, we were ready to be done. We said goodbye to our young'ens, got some phone numbers, made threats if we weren't visited or called, and sent them off, knowing we had been a blessing to the parents in helping them to enjoy and take full advantage of their weekend. We felt really blessed, ourselves and had an amazing experience throughout it all. It was a good feeling, to say the least. As Mister Rogers used to say....
It's such a good felling, to know your alive
It's such a happy feeling, you're growing inside
And when you wake up, ready to say
"I think I'll make a snappy new day!" (snap sna...okay, yeah you get it)

side note: The breakfasts at this hotel were amazing! Holy Shazbot! There were lines of food, like bacon and eggs, japanese pork steak, sushi, au gratin potatoes, sausages, an omlette bar with a chef who made whatever kind of eggs you wanted with like 12 different toppings! There was fresh fruit, breads, CHEESES, croissants, yogurts, juices, coffee. And here it is, the holy virgin grail of all the splendor of this breakfast:
There...were...cereals........!!!!!!!!! And Milk!!! Good lord, people, you have no idea how much you miss cereal until you have gone four months without it. Advice to everyone reading this: Appreciate your cereal, love it, never take it for granted, hold on to it and never let it go...until its empty...but just remember, there are many little things in life that, while they seem little to us when we have them, tend to leave an awfully big hole once we are deprived of them.

We miss all you guys!!!

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

A Near Brush with Death

So there I was. Standing on the edge of the cliff, my footing very slippery, two pieces of high-density plastic composite strapped to my feet, and no real way of getting down other then to just slide off the edge. As my adrenaline soaked brain struggled in vain to remember what harebrained idea had lead me to this predicament, my feet started to slip, and gravity grabbed hold of my body in its tenacous grip. Awwwww CRAP....

On Monday Ty, Marge, and I (Chad) went skiing with a Chinese friend at a place just outside of Shenyang. Please realize that none of us had much previous experience with skiing, and I, at least, have all the natural coordination of a wounded duck. Arriving at the slope, we were greeted by a single hill, which, while short, was pretty sleep and very fast (I'm sure my friends living in the Rocky Mountain area would very much disagree with this conclusion.) And so, being that I'm a strong believer in learning by experience and falling, quite literally, flat on one's face, I decided to just go to the top and figure out how to get down. 

I should mention here how one gets to the top of the mountian, being that there was no ski lift like we are used to in the States. Instead, everyone gets in a line, and after pushing and shoving to the front (this is how ques work here in China), you need to grab this long pole that is attached to a wire. At the end of the pole, there is a little round circle, which you place between your legs. The wire is constantly circling up and down the hill (much like a ski lift wire), and the attached pole pulls you up the hill. Simple. Just make sure you don't fall down on the way up, thus getting in the way of everyone coming up behind you. 

After making my way up the hill (and yes, I did "fall off the lift" later on in the day), I found myself on the top of the hill with no clue how to get down. Pushing off, I would go a few feet, pick up speed, try to turn, loose control, and fall over. I performed this dance roughly 3 or 4 times until some blessed Chinese boy (my thanks to you, wherever you may be) took pity on me and demonstrated how to go down the hill in a roughtly controlled manner by putting my skis in a V pattern and just going down. It worked. By that I mean that I was able to just start heading down the mountain, trying to slow down, until I reached some critical mass of speed at which I was pretty sure that falling would rip a body part off, so in stark terror I just flew down the hill and didn't even pretend to have any ability to turn or slow down. But I made it. And got on the lift again.

I am quite proud to say that by the end of the day, both Ty and I were able to fly down the hill at speed, twisting and turning past obsticles, and were, in fact, quite bored with the hill. As for Marge, well, I'll leave it to her to tell her story. I recommend facebooking her. 

This past week was a good one. We were able to get out and have some fun, and we were able to experience some Chinese culture by going to a lantern festival. I won't try to express what that was like, you'll just have to wait for picture. And yes, I fully realize that we are well behind in pictures. 

Now tell me that the title of this post didn't make you want to keep reading. Sorry parents for the brief heart attack. 

A Very Important Thumbs Up

Hospitality is a word that often gets thrown about lightly and for many different purposes. This weekend, we discovered hospitality in a way unlike anything we had known before.

Background: This past weekend was a BIG one in the small country of China, for every year, around this time in January, the Chinese celebrate Spring Festival aka Chinese New Year(the traditional Lunar Calendar is a bit slow, haha). This is a time when over 300 million Chinese travel home to be with family and celebrate a great past year, and, hopefully, a fabulous upcoming year. Entire cities are closed, fireworks reminding you of D-Day are set off, but above all, you are together as a family.

Our Story: For the past couple of weeks, we have had a student, Lisa, living with us in our main apartment, with the girls. In return for our hospitality, she invited us to experience some of her own hospitality. Before we knew it, Margaret, Judit, Chad, and I were hours away from our city and in a small farming village surrounded on all sides by mountains; Spring Festival was a day away, and we were about to meet the parents...

Our Story (Part Deux): What followed was three days of meeting family, extended relatives, and friends and classmates. Each time we went to another house to visit, we were greeted with smiles and more peanuts, oranges, and sunflower seeds than you could shake a stick at (I honestly thought about trying). Constantly asking if we needed any more of anything, our hosts made sure each and every one of our needs were met. One of Lisa's uncles pretty much forced me to wear his coat to go outside and use the bathroom, even after I assured him I was quite warm and didn't need it (for some reason they didn't understand English so well out there...huh). We were never allowed to help with dishes, though I was able to in a sneaky way :), and helping cook was right out!...so instead we asked it we could "learn" how to make Jiaozi (dumplings), again we had to be very clever. Haha that turned out to be a fun time, from being ashamed of our one dumpling that took us 2 minutes to make, to taking 15 seconds and even getting the thumbs up from Grandma(coolest old Chinese lady ever)! I made sure to have Lisa tell her grandmother that I thought I made better dumplings than her...Grandma got a good laugh out of that. A lot of nothing happened there, but at the same time a lot of something happened. There are many stories from this weekend, so feel free to ask one of us some time :)

The Road Goes Ever On and On: This weekend we learned that hospitality is not just opening up your home for someone, it's giving of yourself, all you have, even the coat off your back, to someone you've never met, who doesn't even speak the same language, and expecting nothing in return other than for them to except everything you give them. That was an amazing lesson learned.