Living with Purpose

I have been thinking, recently about life here in China and how it is so different from life in America. It is quite different for so many reasons...they just do things differently here. It's hard to get used to the way they do things. If you want to do something the most efficient and effective way, don't come here! But, it is the way they are used to doing things and it works for them...I just have to get used to it. And I think I am doing okay with culture shock right now...only adjusting.

The main thing that is different is what we do when all 7 of us who are here are together just hanging out. He is brought up in conversation so easily. And because when we are around our Family, talking to our Father with these same people, that is what makes it so easy. I hope that made sense. Here, we are not so free to talk about things we want to talk about. But I want to talk about those things more now to everyone than I ever did in America. It has made me realize how lucky people are in countries where they can speak freely about such things. I am literally envious of those who can talk to the check-out lady at Wal-Mart, or the bank teller about Good things. This is a reality check to me, because I cannot and want to so badly! I am in this country and can't do what I want to do. But when I was in America, I was more shy about it. Things will be different. My mind set has changed and I am not as shy about such things. I want to continue to have conversations with my close friends and family about our Father and how wonderful he is. In so doing, I will let my light shine to those around me, not just in living by example, but by living with purpose. For those of you back home, I challenge you to take advantage of your freedoms. :) Thanks for reading, I love you all! And don't forget to think about me in China!

Christmas Time!

I have not been blogging in a while because of all the Christmas Festivities! We had some fun at our friend's house, Kyle and Rebecca! Kris, Michael, and Kevin came over and we all had a sleep over. When we woke up the next morning, we all opened our stockings that Santa brought us!! It was so fun!

As you can see in the picture below... Stan and I completed our Christmas decorations in our house. We did this a while back, and I meant to do this blog before Christmas, but ran out of time...so here goes. This picture is simply beautiful, I think! We have seen a couple of fake Christmas Tree's when we go to the store, but we thought it was even more appropriate to MAKE our own fake tree! It was a fun filled night! We began the night with some sandwiches while Stan cut out the tree from green construction paper. I made all the decorations! We watched 3 and a half Christmas movies and it took us around 7 hours to complete it! It didn't even seen that long, cuz it was fun! And it helped us with our Christmas spirit here in China! Here are some more pictures from the memorable night! :)

Thanks for reading! I love you all and don't forget to think about me in China!
P.S. Danny and Layna are leaving today to come see us!!! Yay!

A Trip to Anji

Stan and I were invited to attend a foreign teacher's trip to Anji, a small town in the mountains outside of Hangzhou. Our school was sponsoring the trip and it was an all expense paid trip. We went to the Bamboo Museum. I thought there was a lot of bamboo everywhere in China, but this place had A LOT of bamboo! Everything in the museum was made of bamboo...I'll share a couple of pictures.

Turkey bamboo!

This was a playground made of bamboo. Stan was giving it a try!

And then we got to see some cute Panda's! For some reason the one on the left was touching the other one's head. I found it funny. :)

A bamboo house!!!

Curvy bamboo!! Look on Facebook and you'll see more soon!

Then we got to the hotel and ate dinner. Then we had the rest of the night to do what we wanted to do. The hotel had an activity area on the 2nd floor. Chinese people love Ping Pong and they are awesome at it. Well, we gave it a go. We played with some officials of the school who came with us on the trip. I am sorry I don't have any pictures of them, but we had great fun playing Ping Pong with them! We decided to all play together in a group Ping Pong game where you run around the table and take turns hitting! It was so fun! The next morning, we went skiing. If you would like to call it that. Myself, I do not like to ski. Been there-done that-don't love it. Therefore, I don't do it. Everyone else did though, so I watched their things while they were skiing. I took a couple of pictures of the ski resort. I didn't get any good ones of the slopes, well, because I didn't ski. So if you want to see a video of it, go to Stan's page. It is much different than in America. If you've been skiing, you would know...:)

Here's the lodge. Not very big and you can pick up your gear right inside this room. The section to the left is where you get it.

There were many Chinglish signs I captured on this trip, and those will come in a later post! Looking forward to that one! Thanks for reading and I love you all! Don't forget to think about me in China!

High's and Low's

As you all may or may not know, Danny and Layna are coming here for Christmas! We were supposed to go get them at the airport tomorrow, but there were some complications with their flight and it wasn't looking good that they were going to get to come. So, needless to say we were feeling so many things yesterday when the unknown was lurking above our heads. I was nervous, sad, angry at the weather, overwhelmed and hopeful. All of those things just made my stomach hurt, and I'm sure Danny and Layna were having many of those same feelings. They stayed up all night getting together some things for us in China and then they made it to the airport in time to change their flight to come the 28th. I know they were just exhausted! We were so excited! For a little bit, it looked unlikely they wouldn't get to come and that was a crushing idea. Stan and I were so thoughtful about this and asked for it to be possible for them to come because we knew we needed to see family and we knew they did. We knew it would be good for both of us. I think I have been experiencing a tiny bit of culture shock, because even though China had nothing to do with the flight problems in the USA, I was mad at China. We knew their coming would be so helpful. So we were absolutely delighted and ecstatic when we heard they actually were going to get to come! And because of the flight change, they are going to stay 2 days longer! So, that's good news! Well, that's all...I just needed to regurgitate my feelings about today. Thank you so much for reading, and I love you all! Don't forget to think about me in China!

Catchin Some ZZZ's and Many other Things...

I was thinkin' the other day that I didn't get any sleep when I was in America. With a 8-5 job, and school it was quite difficult to get a full night's sleep. But here, in China I only teach 2 and a half days, so I get plenty of sleep and I didn't realize how important it is! I am going to write myself a note from the future, reminding myself about this moment (like Dwight on "The Office") hehe.

This blog is pretty random, just bare with me. Stan and I are going to a weekend getaway with the teachers from our school. Our Waiban is coordinating it. We are going to Anji. It supposedly is the bamboo capital of the world! But we are in China, and their is bamboo everywhere, so I don't really know how that is gonna work out. There is a bamboo museum we are going to as well. And we are going to go skiing too. Even though I don't like to ski, I think it will be fun! I'll let you know how that goes! We will be out of pocket for the next couple of days because of that.

Ok, I have a couple things to say just about being in China. When the 7 of "us" are all talking to each other, or if I am just talking to Stan after a long day of teaching Chinese students, I will articulate everything I say and put spaces in between words because that is how we talk to our students! It is so difficult to get out of that habit and just speak normally! So we all say to each other, "I'm not Chinese, I can understand you." haha! Here are a few phrases we al use, because they use them. I never used these phrases before in my life. Somewhere in their English learning years, someone taught them these phrases:

After asking a question, "Do you know?"
If needing to take a break, "Have a rest."
If I need to find a bathroom, I cannot ask where it is, they do not understand that. They DO understand, "Where is the WC?" Because of the strong British influence here!
And when I refer to garbage they don't understand that either, it is, "Rubbish."

There are also a few words or phrases we say because they mispronounce them. This is fun to do around our group of friends, but we get so used to doing it, sometimes we do it around our students, and that's not good. We end up being hypocritical because we tell them that's the wrong pronunciation, yet we say it that way! haha! Here they are:

"He is very famours." (famous)
"I like to eat deliciours foods." (delicious)
"Very very sank you." (Thank you very much)

You see, they like to add r's to things that don't belong, and they are almost afraid to put their tongue in between their teeth and make a "th" sound! So, we like to have fun with these phrases because it just makes me mad if I don't try to have fun! haha

Something else I have never experienced is Mosquito bites in December! I have 3 mosquito bites because a mosquito got into our apartment last night and had a feast! But it's December!! I don't understand it!

I told you this was going to be random...one more story: Three of my students did their presentations on America...2 of them were in the same class and were only 3 people apart when doing their presentations. Well they showed many many pictures of the capitol building and started talking about the President and said, "This is the White House, where Obama lives!" ALL 3 of them did that!!! It was soooo funny! I wanted to laugh because I was wondering where they got their information from...? I don't know, It's China! And that's all I can say sometimes. Well, I'm sorry this blog was so much all over the place, but I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think about me in China! I love you all!!

Teaching re-cap...kinda

Well, I normally do a teaching re-cap at the end of my teaching week and that is today! But I didn't do much with my students this week because they are finishing their presentations and it took most of the class period. One class, though, finished early and we got to play a game together. So, I will share with you a couple of funny things that happened. I told the class to get into their small groups I always put them in. I asked for a volunteer from each group to come up to the front, 6 people. They were all hesitant, not knowing what to expect. I told them we were going to play a game and I had 6 people up at my desk in 5 seconds! They love games! I explained we were going to play "Pictionary." I explained I would write down a word and have them draw the word on the board so their team mates could see it and guess what it is. The first team to guess, gets a point. I reminded them not to say the word out loud because their team will hear it and that is cheating. They all nodded their heads in understanding.

As soon as I wrote the word down, 2 of them said the word out loud! Uhhhg! "Don't say it out loud!" The class erupted in laughter. I gave them another word: "Christmas Tree." They all scrambled to get to the board except for one girl. She turned around and drew a tree on a piece of paper, shoved it in my face and shouted, "Christmas Tree!!" I said, "Not me! Draw it for your team mates!" She didn't get it. Luckily, one of the other teams had gotten it by then, only because they wrote "X-mas" and drew a tree below it! hahaha! I was laughing so hard. I didn't give anyone a point. Not one of the drawings looked like a Christmas Tree. Not one. So I picked up a green piece of chalk, drew a Christmas Tree on the board and said, "This is a Christmas Tree, (then pointing at their drawings)...Not this!" They erupted in laughter once more. It was funny! It might be one of those things where you had to be there, but I still thought I would share it with you! :) Well, I have some more things I want to share about China, but this blog would be too long. So, I will save it for another time! I love you all and thanks for reading! Don't forget to think about me in China!

Date Weekend

December 9, 2006 Stan proposed to me. It was the first full weekend in December and it was amongst a weekend of dates. Since then we have celebrated this every first weekend in December by having a "Date Weekend". Either I will plan it for us or Stan will and we take turns. It has been fun every year, but this year has been the most interesting because we are in CHINA! So, anyway this year we decided to plan it together, because it is all very new to us, this China thing. hehe... so we decided to stay at the Crystal Orange Hotel down by West Lake. This is in our city. We didn't want to go too far away, just a vacation away from our apartment. The hotel was cheap for what the set up was like!...

This is a view from the bathroom to the bedroom! Coooool!

This was "Sodo" our pet fish for the weekend! haha If you solved 3 sides of the Rubik's cube, you could get a free coffee. haha!

On Friday night we "saw the future," as Stan says it. :) We went to the Hangzhou Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. It was so cool! This place was huge! The Symphony was okay, but we were more impressed with the structure we were standing in, and the structures surrounding it. You will have to look at Stan's blog in the future to see the videos he got of this place!

After we got settled into our hotel we walked around the area and took pictures of the Christmas lights! I was so excited because we saw some really cool ones, and being in China, I didn't expect it! You will probably not be so amazed at these, but we were!

This is one of many Christmas pictures, but this was the best!

You can find more pictures later on Facebook!

On Saturday we ate at the Eudora Cafe and it was sooooooo good. My meal was a pretty small bowl of Penne pasta, shrimp, mushrooms, asparagus, and a "cream cheese sauce". It was quite possibly the best pasta which has ever entered my mouth, no lie. That is the slowest I have ever eaten a meal in my life! It was expensive for Chinese terms, but boy was it worth it! So, we finished our meal and headed down town to look for a movie to watch. We had heard the movie "2012" was playing in the theaters here and that it was in English only with Chinese subtitles. So we decided to do that. We got off at the stop we needed to and headed to where we thought the theater was. We got on some rented bikes and began to cycle our way down the road. Well, we made a wrong turn somewhere and decided just to get a taxi. We returned the bikes and hailed a cab. On the way to the theater, we saw some pretty Christmas lights. Stan said, "Get a picture!" So I rummaged around in my bag and in my pockets to get the camera. It was no where to be found. I kept searching, but it was gone. I was soooo sad! We had taken pictures of the food we ate and the huge building we were in the night before and all those pictures were gone! We retraced our steps and the camera was gone. Stan said he thought he heard something drop when we got on the bikes, so we went back...no camera. So we actually found a pretty good deal on one when we were waiting for the movie to start. That is why I have some pictures to show you today. Luckily, the pictures from this weekend are the only ones I had on the camera!

Now on to the movie... In China, you pick your seat for a movie. So we bought our seats and waited for the movie to start. The movie was suppose to start at 9:05 PM. We walked up to the ticket taker at 8:50 PM and handed her our tickets. She said we couldn't go in. They would not let us in the theater until 9:05 PM. There were people coming out of the theater at 9:04 PM. Then we filed in. Me and Stan were last in line and when we got to our seats they turned off the lights and started the movie. No previews, nothin. Only the movie. The movie was not finished yet...there were probably 5 more minutes left. Everyone started getting their things together and getting ready to leave! We could not even hear the movie for all the noise! It was so funny, they were all in a hurry. Well, that's all there is to date weekend. I laughed, I cried (over the camera), it was fun! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think about me in China! I love you all!

Teaching Re-cap

Well, it is Thursday afternoon and I'm excited to share what my class did this week. We are still completing final presentations, so the first half of the class is taken up with that. Then, I stole an idea from Kyle Hooper. He did the same thing with his class this week too! I explained who Santa Claus is and explained that children write him letters to ask for what they want for Christmas. I told my students I would like them to write Santa a letter! :) I thought this was going to end up being pretty funny, and some of them were, but it turned out most of them were pretty deep! I took the letters up after class. Here are some quotes from my favorite letters. These are quotes; word for word:

"Dear Santa, I wanna a small wood house, so that I can feel I am in the fairy world, I wanna wings so that I can fly."

"Dear Santa, would you be kind to make me fatter?"

"Dear Santa, How is everything going? As you know, Christmas is around the corner, I'm looking forward to your presents. I want a magic stick, and I think a time machine is my favorite. I'm waiting for your reply."

"Dear Santa, I wish I will meet my sole mate someday, and we both live happily ever after. I wish my prince show me the stars in the sky, and catch one for me."

"Dear Santa, I wish for a beautiful basketball, and I wish for a warm bed."

This boy's English is very good and I just love his letter:
"Dear Santa, This is the first time I write to you. You could not know how happy I feel that Christmas Day is coming. I need many things, more than you could imagine. But I believe you are a legend, so I could get anything from you. Alright? First, I'd like to have a big wallet so I can buy lots of food for all the poor all over the world. Second, a large box that is full of medicine so I can cure all the patients in the world. Please accept my request and give these things to me. Thank you, God Bless you."

It was a good week. Everyday has something frustrating happen in it, but days like these make up for the frustrating ones. Thanks for reading and I love you all! Don't forget to think about me in China!

Christmas Cheer!

For those of you who do not know, when I lived in the States, I had a bell which was attached to a string and I wore it from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas. This bell is called my "Christmas Cheer" bell. This year is a little different because we are in China. I forgot to bring my Christmas Cheer with me. :( Luckily, China celebrates Christmas to a certain extent! I was able to find a Santa hat and some bells that will be sufficient for some Christmas Cheer. But my dilemma is that I have nothing to tie around these bells. I am still on a hunt for some ribbon of some sort to tie around the bells so I can tie them around my neck! :) Here is a picture of the wonderful hat and Christmas Cheer!


I bought these items in preparation for the Christmas Holiday, a couple of days before Thanksgiving. Much to mine and Stan's surprise, we got a big package in the mail about a week ago! It was from Amber Ferrell! She and I were suite mates in college and she was a good friend of ours in college and still is! We were so excited because it was unexpected, and those are the best! So we opened it up and this is what we found!


Christmas hats! Christmas Tree Ornaments! Christmas Ties that sing! And a Christmas game!! We were so excited because we were just getting ready to decorate the tree (that will be a later post!) so we were ready to dive in! I didn't need the hat that I bought, because she sent us hats that were much cooler than the one I bought! Thank you Amber!! We love you and really appreciate what you did! It brought much happiness to us!!

Before I go, let me ask something from you all. I have been getting a couple of comments on here that are anonymous and not signed, but I do not know who you are if you don't sign it. I love all the comments! It lets me know this log of events of my time in China is not a lost cause! So, please remember to sign your name, then I'll know who you are!! :) Thanks! I love you all and thank you for reading! Don't forget to think about me in China!

Taken Advantage of...

My blog has many hats, but the main one is to remember these events which happen while living here in China. This one, I think is funny and so weird. Let me tell you what just happened to Stan and I. I am going to try my hardest to express to you in the best way what just happened. We just got back from the weirdest experience here in China. We were getting hungry, as you do around dinner time. So we decided to go get our regular 5 kuai worth of fried dumplings and 5 kuai worth of fried rice and share it. That's our default if we aren't feeling like anything in particular. Well, it was sounding pretty good to me tonight and the price was as well! Sooooo cheap! So, as we were leaving the apartment we got to the front gate and a student ran up behind us and said, "Hello where are you going?" We told him we were going to go get some food. He introduced himself (I can't pronounce it) and said it was nice to meet us (before we told him our names, but that's not rare) and walked with us until it was time for us to turn to go get our food. While he walked with us, he said he sold flowers. His English was not very good and it was difficult to understand him, but I think that is what he was trying to say. He gave Stan his business card and told him to call him if he wanted to buy me flowers. He told Stan he would show him the flowers if he wanted him to. Stan politely declined and said he would call him if he wanted flowers.

We got to our turn off the road and told him it was time for us to go eat. He paused and said, "Come with me, I'll show you." We told him again we wanted to go eat and were not interested in looking at flowers. He said, "No I will show you. Come with me to eat." Oh! Ok, I understand...but we really wanted some dumplings and rice...well ok. Is what we were thinking. I thought it might be a good thing and we might make a friend. So he brings us to this really expensive restaurant just around the corner. We have never eaten there, but you can always tell when it is expensive. He told us he had eaten there earlier this afternoon. So he ordered for us. The first thing he ordered was 46 kuai...that's 41 more than the dumplings we were going to eat! So we said, "No! Too expensive!" So he ordered us some things that were less expensive. He ordered for us, but did not eat! Ok, I'm thinking this is so weird. He continues to explain his flower business. And shows us a "9.5 kuai" number on the card. But I did not understand what he meant. I asked if that meant the flowers were that much and he nodded his head. Then he asked if he could ask his girl friend to come join us. Well of course, we said. So, in comes his girlfriend and she introduces herself as Lily. He says Lily will one day be his wife and she laughs and rolls her eyes...yeah. So she sayd, "Guess how long we have known each other." We guessed 2 months. No. 2 weeks? No. 2 days? No, 3 days. And the boy thinks he's gonna marry the girl, who obviously does not agree! So throughout dinner, it would have been silent, had Stan and I not carried the conversation. He did ask us if he could come home with us to America when we go back. So, that was painfully awkward.

After dinner, he showed us the card that said "9.5 kuai" on it again and asked us if we wanted to see the flowers. Again, we politely declined and said it was time for us to go home. He took us up front to pay for dinner. It took a long time to get the check and they were talking in Chinese. So we could not understand them. Then we get the check, and it is suspiciously around 9.5 kuai more than it should be, by our calculations. Hmmmm, we pay anyway. And we say good bye to them. I looked back as we were leaving, and the boy was going back inside the restaurant...probably to collect his payment. We think maybe he had some sort of deal with the restaurant to get people to come in. I don't know. All we know is that we got taken by a Chinese guy!!! Won't happen again! It was definitely weird and awkward! LOL I wanted to remember that, and I hope you got a laugh! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think of me in China! I love you all!!

A Fun Weekend

I just got back from a fun filled weekend in Shanghai with my friends! Michael Bowen told me I'd better make this blog- let's see what was that? Oh yeah, "funny, touching, and totally unexpected". I hope I meet his expectations. I even have pictures and videos as visual aides! I will begin with "funny": As we were going up the escalator from one of the Subway stations, there were some cute little boys in front of us and they thought it would be fun to ride the hand rail up the whole way. They were so cute and having so much fun! Yes it was a little dangerous, but their parents were right there. Then, MY little boy decides it would be fun to do the same thing! It was so "funny"! I had to record it happening! The other little boys didn't know what to think. I'm sorry this video is sideways, it's the only way I could get it all! I think they were just enjoying themselves, as was the other "little boy". ;)

Now on to "touching": After having a horrible thing happen on Thursday night with the college girl getting hurt by the car, it was so nice to get away out of this city and explore a new one. Even though we have been to Shanghai before, it was a whole new experience because we did lots of different things! We were able to get our minds off of the situation in Hangzhou. I think it was important for us to get out of that element and refresh ourselves. It was very nice to be around friends! We got to meet with some family from Singapore on Sunday morning for the weekly meeting. There were some Chinese people there too! It was great to meet with them and know we are all connected around the world, no matter what language we speak. I hope this was "touching". It was to me. :) Here is a video of an adorable Chinese girl who was there with us on Sunday morning. You will want to take her home with you like me, Kris, and Rebecca wanted to!

Now for totally unexpected: Me, Kris, and Rebecca were introduced to a glasses market. It was insane. I had no idea this place existed in the world until only recently. It was amazing and we all got new glasses for really cheap! So cheap, I got two pair! haha!! I paid 350 RMB for TWO pair of prescription glasses! That is about 50 USD. I was so excited! I had heard about this place from Callie Mitchell about a month ago and wanted to get some before I left China. Well, I hoped it would happen this weekend, but did not think it was likely because not everyone wanted to do this! Well, it was "totally unexpected" that we would be able to go and get TWO pair of glasses! I was so excited!! I have a video and a couple pictures of me in my new glasses! The video is just a fraction of the entire place! Enjoy!

Number 1 pair of glasses.

Number 2 pair of glasses!

I hope to get more pictures and videos on Facebook soon! Thank you for reading! I love you all, and don't forget to think about me in China!

I Can't Write about It

Hello all. I am going to only link Stan's blog, "Tragically Helpless" for my blog because I am very sad about something. Normally when I am sad or upset about something, it helps me to write about it, but I just can't right now. It's too sad. If you have not read Stan's blog, please do. I apologize this is so short, and I've never felt like this before: not wanting to express my feelings, but I can't. Click here to view Stan's blog. I love you all. Please do not forget to think about us and our situation at our school right now. Thanks for reading.

Teaching re-cap

I just finished my 12th week of teaching in China. I did something with my students that I did as a child. My students are still doing their presentations for half of the class, so after the presentations, I explained The ABC game to them. I explained we were going to write a short story as a class out loud. I explained I would start the story with the first word "All" and they needed to begin with a word that started with the letter B. The next person started with C and so on. We went around the room and they had a blast with it! They loved it! A few of the classes did not do so well, but others were very creative and made long sentences that made sense! I was so happy when that happened! Here are two of the best stories we wrote as a class:

"All boys can do everything for girls, however, I just keep loving my Nate. Other people quarrel really silently tonight. Usually visitors worry. X-men, yesterday zipped apple butter. Cows don't eat fresh grass, however, I just kill leisurely. My nephew often plays." We went around the room 1 and a half times with this class. Nate is a boy in that class. I whispered in the girls ear sitting next to him to chose his name as the word for the letter "N". haha! They thought that was hilarious! After class, Nate told me he felt like a victim and laughed and said "Bye bye teacher". If I had said that, I would have been mad, but he thought it was so funny I had picked on him a little.

This is the story from the class I just finished today:

"All boys cry. Different elephants fight greatly. Hot ice-cream just kills love. Many notes open power quickly. Real secrets towards USA. Volunteers wait. X-men yet zero. Apples become cake dangerously. Eat fruit gladly." Like I said, some classes did better than others, and some struggled at certain parts. But I think they did pretty good! They are so fun to be around and this week was no exception! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think about me in China! I love you all!!

Mind Bender/Amazing night!

I write this blog for two reasons. As you can see in the title above, it is split into two equal parts. You can figure out the rest. :) I realized the other day that I look directly at the ground when I walk. I mean, I was walking to our cafeteria the other day to get a drink and I looked up. I didn’t even recognize the buildings around me and in front of me because I always walk through there with my eyes looking at the ground. If someone showed me a picture of that place, I wouldn't be able to tell you where it was located. I started to notice I did it everywhere. It's weird to notice something like that about yourself because you thought you knew yourself well enough and then bam! You're in China and realize you walk everywhere with your head down. Well, it's not exactly like that. haha, I think I came up with an explanation to this phenomena. Being a foreigner in China, I get stared at a lot. A lot! Our whole group of friends gets stares all the time, just because our faces look so different. I realized I was looking down as to not be embarrassed by the stares right in my eyes. They are not bothered by staring. They do not see it as rude or jerk their eyes away when you make contact with them. So, as to avoid the awkwardness I feel, I look down. I figured this out because after I noticed myself looking down at the ground while I walk, I changed things. I walked with my head up, looking around at everything around me, and I remembered the feeling of awkwardness when my eyes would meet a Chinese person's staring right back at me. It was strange though, because I changed the way I walked and held myself, unconsciously. I didn't figure out why until that famililiar feeling came back. The mind is a fascinating thing.


Tonight we had a lot of our students over to our house to help them with their spoke English. Our friends, Kyle and Rebecca Hooper came over and it was a group effort! It was wonderful. We had refreshments for them, coke and sprite, but they did not partake in them very much, because it is winter and they must drink warm things, not cold. (Room temp.) Anyway, it was so uplifting and fun! We played a name game and answered some questions about ourselves as American's. We got to know they whole group and gained some friends. We shared a wise saying with them. This wise saying came from the wise King Solomon. It goes, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." They liked this saying and repeated a Chinese saying which was similar to it. We had them act out a scenario in which this would apply. They had fun with it and so did we. We challenged them to tell someone about this wise saying and to try to follow it in the coming week. We invited them to our house next week, and they seemed excited. :) We are very excited about this and can't wait to gain more friends. We know He was with us. Please keep this activity, which will happen next Tuesday night at 6:00 China time, in your thoughts. Thanks for reading, I love you all!