A Real (ACCT Certified) Ropes Course

Students were hanging on for dear life as they completed the first obstacle of the ropes course. Good thing they quickly settled down because there were eight more obstacles before the end.

Every fall, the school takes all high school students (and middle school students, just not at the same time) on a three day fall camp. The camp builds unity and community among the student body at the beginning of the year. With so many students coming and going, it’s great to get away from the books, hang out with students, and learn the new names.

This year we traveled to a ropes course. Amazing!

Getting there was a rush. Literally. With so much traffic on the way to the train station, we almost missed our train leaving Shenyang. Nothing like running 60 students through the train station hoping they would hold the train for us. They held it, and we held it together making just in the nick of time. Coming back you'd think we'd learn from past mistakes but we almost missed the train again. The second time was not because of traffic (we were a good two hours early) but instead we lost one train ticket and had to scramble to purchase a new one. (FYI, we found the missing ticket on the floor as we rushed to board.)



As for the ropes course, it was a real western style high ropes challenge course. Students first crossed a high wire with only a few rope holds, moved across a swinging bridge, stepped across swings, another rope bridge, balanced across a telephone pole, and finally a DNA bridge (think twisted, spiral bridge, by far the most difficult). Amazingly all but one student completed the whole course.

At other times, students played hillbilly golf, soccer, Frisbee, and found a pet hedgehog. We wanted to take the hedgehog home but didn't know if it'd be allowed on the train. If there's a limit of "less than 20 newborn poultries"¹ on a train, surely we could have brought home one hedgehog. They're about the same size, right? We didn't test our theory.

Even if the hedgehog had to stay behind, we all carried memories of fall camp 2013 back to Shenyang. My hope for each student is that from this experience we can build a great 2013-2014 school year.

_______________
¹ "China Train Baggage Allowance and Transportation." Travel China Guide. Retrieved from http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/baggage-allowance.htm

Mistaken for a Korean cartoon

Yesterday was national history day at school. National history day is an academic competition focusing on history in which groups of students compete in four different categories. All freshmen and sophomore students turned in projects for history class and the whole school was asked to dress up as an important (dead) historical figure.

I never thought I would be confused for a Korean cartoon character, but that’s exactly what students said when they first saw me.

Over the summer, we picked up some aviator hats from a vacation bible school and both Kanyon and I wore them to school to dress as the Wright brothers. I was Wilbur and Kanyon was Orville because he is lighter and smaller like the real Orville, who first flew the airplane for these reasons. Wilbur, being too big to fly, watched from the ground.



Students didn't first say that I was a Wright brother. They immediately thought of Pororo, a very famous Korean cartoon penguin. Pororo wasn't the only mistaken identity of the day. Some American students thought I looked a bit like Snoopy. Although the German student didn't think I looked much like the Red Baron that was the immediate response from many of the staff.

Pragmatism vs. American Baking

I’m teaching my aiyi how to bake. And she’s getting good. The other day she brought over a date cake she baked all by herself! After receiving the recipe from another foreigner’s baking class two years ago, she was so proud to finally be able to successfully follow the recipe. She’d previously tried to make the cake, but wasn’t sure how. After watching me make several cakes, she’s finally mastered two of the most important baking skills:

1. Preheat the oven. I think this is often overlooked in China because turning on the empty oven is seen as a frivolous waste of electricity. I now know how to say “If you don’t preheat the oven your cake will not rise!” in Chinese 
2. Mix the wet ingredients separate from the dry ingredients, and then combine the two. Chinese often know how to make dough for homemade noodles, dumplings and steamed buns; however, their method of “dump it all in and stir” doesn’t work well for cakes.

After watching all the effort of making cut-out Christmas cookies, she said, “This is so complicated!” So I said, “We feel that way when we watch you make jiaozi (dumplings). “ After pondering a few minutes, she came back with “At least with jiaozi, we can eat and get full. Your cookies are just for fun! Make them for fun, eat them for fun! ” Once again, I never truly understood the word “pragmatic” until I lived in China.

Tis the season for pumpkin bread

That was a lot of Chinese!

What happens when an American family hosts 5 Japanese, 4 Koreans and a Chinese teacher all the while using the Chinese language to communicate? Lots of fun! Last night, we hosted M’Lynn’s classmates to our apartment for a small Christmas party. The plan was to show them how to bake the pumpkin bread that M’Lynn had brought to class earlier in the semester.

Immediately upon arrival, our guests offered bags of gifts and presents for the boys. They received candy from Japan, a huge bag of cookies and more candy--even miniature candy canes! On top of that, they brought bag after bag of food including Doritos, orange juice, wine, snacks, and strawberry pudding Jello. I bet there was over 600 RMB of gifts brought and shared by all. Before this party, I really didn't know just how much the Eastern cultures love to show appreciation through gifts.

As we were all standing around the dining room table watching M’Lynn explain how to make pumpkin bread, some wanted to smell and taste the spices. Cinnamon was a familiar spice, but no one was quite sure about nutmeg. A Korean guy just had to taste it. Judging from his reaction, nutmeg doesn't taste so good by itself. We also served deviled eggs and the paprika on top was a big hit. Then, M’Lynn had to explain how to make deviled eggs. Since she didn't do any research ahead of time on that one, she was thankful the Koreans knew words like “pickle” and “mustard” and “paprika.”

The magic moment came when the cake was mixed, poured into the bunt pan, and then placed in the oven. Seconds later, M’Lynn returned from the kitchen and the cake was magically baked and ready to eat prompting surprised and excited “oohs and ahhs” from the audience. Such a great made for TV cooking show!

After the baking extravaganza, we all sat around enjoying the ambiance of the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree and listening to Christmas music. One girl really enjoyed relaxing on the couch. “My dorm room doesn't have one.” We assured her that she could come to our place anytime she’d like to sit on our couch. While watching Corbin sit in the middle of the room reveling in the spotlight, one guy said “I want to get married!” I assured him he’d find the right girl in time.

I love how much other people love our kids! Watching the boys have such a great time playing with our new friends was such a blessing. “Can I keep him?” a Japanese girl asked while holding Corbin. We responded that she could have him for a week. But, when they were all on the way out the door, Corbin thought it would be better to stay at home. (the conversation about her taking him for a week was in Chinese, but I think Corbin understood…)

Sharkbait, ooh-ha-ha

We first met Sharkbait as our students handed us a goldfish in a milk tea cup as a gift for our kids. Sharkbait once freely roamed the university pond but when the university drained the pond for winter, Sharkbait was in danger. The students found an empty milk tea cup and then a willing someone to help them catch Sharkbait.

Two years later, Sharkbait is still flipping around his fish bowl. He’s survived numerous copsticks-in-the-bowl attempts at his life. He’s survived two summers with Chinese fish-sitters. One summer he doubled in size after being fed live fish and algae.

When we moved to Shenyang, we didn’t know if Sharkbait would come with us or if he’d be left behind.

Not Sharkbait. He survived a Chinese taxi ride to the train station. Survived a 6 hour train ride from Harbin to Shenyang in a large water bottle. Survived the subway.

Now with fresh rocks in his fishbowl, Sharkbait is happily at home in Shenyang.

Introducing my classmates

Learning a language with people from around the world is so fun! Let me introduce you to a few of my classmates:

The desk mate
My desk mate is from Korea. She is 28 years old and is in China to get a Master’s degree. We speak mostly Chinese to each other, but she knows some English which helps when we get stuck! The other day she showed me photos of amazing cakes she made by herself. Wow…we have a strange thing in common! (she’s way better than me at cakes, though!)

The forty-somethings
Two “40 something” year old women from Japan sit in front of me. One is the mom of 3 kids and the other has one child. They are so sweet and excited to try to communicate with me. We have to speak Chinese because they don’t speak English and I don’t speak Japanese!

The newly-wed
At the table behind me, there is a young newly-wed from Saudi Arabia. She wears a burka which accentuates her gorgeous eyelashes! I love that wears a hot pink shirt and a fun watch and carries a cute pink bag to accessorize her outer layer of all black. Her English is great, so we have fun chatting in English when the teacher leaves the room.

The tall girl
Another Japanese girl in my class is excited that she is not the only tall girl in the room. She’s about 5’8” and towers over all the other Asians.

The Russians
There are two Russian girls in my class. I loved watching them argue with the teacher the other day as they tried to convince her that there is definitely NOT a desert in Russia. Haha!

The teachers (4 teachers, all Chinese, of course)
My teachers are all surprised to learn my age and then learn that I am married and have two kids. According to the modern Chinese pattern of a woman’s life, I should perhaps be just newly married and not yet have a child.

The young
Two of my teachers are young, unmarried women in their mid-late twenties. They seem to enjoy fashion as their outfits can be very trendy.

The old school
The other two are older women (perhaps in their 40s) and I know one has a daughter. She has encouraged me to have at least one more child.

Hidden treasures

This was my first fall camp so I didn’t know what to expect. I had only two things previous experiences to work from, boy scouts camping trips and fellowship camps. I figured fall camp would be like one, the other, or both.

In fact it was neither and both.

We boarded the bus together with the students and headed out of town. I’ve never been on a bus so quiet and well behaved. I’m used to the rowdy bus filled with varsity boys heading to the Friday night football game. Instead our bus was filled with kids playing Sudoku on their iPads or playing the alphabet game trying to spot English letters in the sea of Chinese characters.

We arrived settled into our three star hotel rooms and began three days of activities, games, sessions, and food all focused on one goal:

That they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of the Father, namely, the Son, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The highlight was definitely getting to interact with students outside the classroom (and finally learning all the students’ names). So much of our classroom time is spent focusing on the academics, I get little chance to really get to know students. Fall camp is that time. I get to know the students. I get to focus on something other than math. We played football, Frisbee golf, and ate together. For three days we didn't focus on academics. Instead, we focused on the heart, the body, and community.

The Body
The ropes course physically tested the body, especially as students tried to squeeze through the itsy-bitsy-too-small-for-even-a-cat holes in the spider web challenge. Or jumped from plank to plank 20 feet in the air. Or blindly formed a square out of rope.

The Heart
Daily session examined our hearts. How are we transformed and not conformed? What does it mean to love others? How can we prepare for the difficulties of life? How is the Son described?

Community
On the last night, we celebrated our community with a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. While I take marshmallow roasts for grated, they're just not that common here in China and they're a little fruity. You see, marshmallows here are fruit flavored, so choose wisely. I suggest a combination of banana and chocolate flavored marshmallows roasted together to form a marshmallow banana split.

As the year continues, I hope we continue to seek the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Storyboarding my life

For two weeks, students are busy working on a final video class project, Storyboarding my life.¹ As I prepared for the lesson (and taught it three times) I shared my life story and reflected on my life's purpose, theme, and direction. I was greatly encouraged seeing how the Father has directed, transformed, and renewed me. (Hint, my life's theme is Romans 12:2)

Here's what the students did and I encourage you to do the same with your own life. We begin at the beginning, what's happened so far?

PART I – CONTENT
First, I need to determine the content of my life storyboard. I do this by:

• Remembering important facts in my life
• Understanding them in positive and negative terms
• Applying “chapters” or “scene titles” to my life events.

The students created great timelines reflecting their lives' events in positive and negative terms. We had sticky notes everywhere. All over desks, in notebooks, in lines, and even in a circle. It was great to visually see their lives in yellow and blues, reds and greens, positives and negatives. I encourage you to create your own timeline. When you're finished, continue and look at your life's events and discern a theme:

PART II – ESTABLISH A THEME
Next, I need to perceive my life’s purpose to establish a theme for the story by:

• Analyzing what I consider or want to be the theme (purpose) of my life, especially in relation to my life content.
• Evaluating whether my life events communicate well or poorly my life theme. If there are incongruencies, what needs to change – my theme or the direction my life events seem to be taking me?

If you are visual, create a Venn diagram to illustrate these points. One circle has what you want your life to be about (ideal life) and the other circle has your life's events (reality). If these circles are quite different, there is a huge problem: Your theme doesn't match your life. Something must change to make these circles overlap more and more. What about you? How's your life's theme match your life? What needs to change?

Students struggled with this part. Many commented that they had never thought about their life's theme before. I encouraged them to look carefully at their life and discern their life's direction. Where's their life heading? Is their life going in the direction they desire? Does it match their life's purpose?

Then as a class, we discussed point of view and perspective. Who has the best perspective on your life to tell you if your theme (purpose) matches your life's actions. Is it a friend, spouse, parent, teacher? Or is it God?

Lastly, we examined where we are in our life's journey, our life's "plot structure."

PART III – PLOT STRUCTURE
Finally, I need to storyboard my life by laying out the basic plot structure. I do this by:

• Creating a discernible storyline; I fit my life content into either Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, or Conclusion.
• Pay attention to the climax’s relationship to my theme. In other words, what I consider to be the climax/turning point in my life should directly relate to what I consider the theme of my life. It’s possible my life has not yet had a climax.

I encourage you to live according to your purpose. In the end, who determines our purpose? Our Creator.
_______________
¹ This project is not of my own design. Many thanks to my former teammates for this great lesson plan and life lesson. It has been truly insightful for me.

Sun & Mountains

"Let's have an argument." our teammates said as we sat comfortably on the bottom bunk of a soft sleeper train returning home from our team retreat. We've become so close as a team we love to argue about things we are supposed to avoid. That's community. We argue in love challenging each other to think deeply. All the while having fun.

That's what this weekend was all about. We traveled together as a team to Yabuli, China's premiere ski resort. The purpose was simple, to reflect as a team on the amazing things the Father accomplished over the past two years together in Harbin and to get out of the city for fun.

So into the mountains we went using only the internet as a resource and a whole lot of Chinese help from teammates, we found The Villa. Owned by an animated retiree, The Villa is a two story house tucked into the mountains surrounding Yabuli. The Villa felt much like America with its open kitchen, breakfast nook, and covered front porch, but it also had lots of Chinese characteristics like hot water in only one bathroom. It was the perfect place for a team getaway.



Just a few days before, a teammate commented how funny it would feel to be in America together. Especially how strange it would feel to visit each others homes. For a weekend it felt like we did just that. We were in a home together as a team sharing chores, cooking, eating, and sleeping under the same roof.

We had plenty of fun too. We went up the gondola to the top of Sun Mountain and then took the alpine slide down. All 2,600 meters down the mountain. It was amazing! A quiet villa in the mountains for a weekend with the teammates that have become like family. Priceless.

There are plenty of photos from the weekend. Click here to see them all.

Sports Meet

Thursday and Friday our university celebrates "Sports Meet." As a colleague said, “It’s for sport lovers and a nice break for the rest of us.” Well, I’m a sport lover, so I know where I’ll be this weekend, I’ll be at the Sports Meet watching students strut their stuff on the track.

Freshmen students are required to participate. Participation in this case entails sitting in the stands as a department while wearing matching wind suits and fake red Nike hats cheering on their classmates in running events. Each student must choose an event to run. I always feel sorry for the last student to sign up. She's almost always stuck running the 1600m having not run in years. She labors around the track trying to complete the last three laps.

As I sit with my students, I watch Dennis, a freshmen student, proudly walk to his blocks for the 200m. We cheer loudly yelling “加油! jia you!” offering our best encouragement. A quick glance at the competitors and we all know Dennis has no chance in this race, but really, who cares? We cheer even louder know as the starter begins the race and Dennis sets off. I notice his classmates covering their faces laughing yet still wholeheartedly cheering as Dennis finishes a distant last place. We all smile, laugh, and share high-fives as we congratulate Dennis on a race well run and begin our cheers for the next student.

Being the foreign teacher at the event, I usually get all kinds of requests to participate in funny games. Two years ago I was forcibly recruited to participate in a basketball roll. That was simple enough; line up 12 people and roll a basketball through the tunnel form be our legs. The end person caught the ball, ran to the front, and began the basketball-tunnel-roll again.

So when students come to me requesting “come with us,” I squirm uneasily. “Come where?” I ask trying to squeeze more information about where I'd be going and what exactly I'd be doing having vision of basketballs, frisbees, or toilet paper toss. It was all in vain because before long I hear students chant my name urging me on. I must follow, so I stand and oblige.

Moments later I walk around the infield representing the Foreign Language Department. At the halfway point of our lap or honor, I'm suddenly the flag bearer. No more simply walking around the stadium, now I carry a large red flag in the swirling winds. Such an ill deserved honor. Who am I to be the flag bearer? I’m a simple American living the best I know how in China. Around the track I walk receiving all kinds of “hellos” and “how are you?s” from students I don’t even know.

All the while I’m thinking about the flag. It’s heavy, my arms are tired, and the wind won’t stop blowing. I try with all I’ve got to keep the flag high enough it doesn’t blow into someone’s face as I walk by.

Really, it is an honor to serve these students, even the ones I don’t know. And if by carrying a flag around the stadium I bring joy to the students, I would carry the flag seventy more laps. With a few breaks for my arms of course. :)

For even more photos, click here.

Why is it so difficult to leave?

This morning I read the weekly news roundup from a favorite website and clicked to read The New York Times article, “The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage.” It’s a good read, but oddly the article made me think about our upcoming move to Shenyang.

Our decision took over a year to make (probably about 18 months of self- torture reflection). At one point in the decision process we had a false start and turned down an offer to teach in Kunming. What were we thinking? Kunming has the best climate of any city in China. And the apartments were amazing. And huge! Our friends taught there. It’s the perfect situation, but we turned it down. Why?

First (and most importantly), the Father placed a deep conviction in my heart that Kunming was the wrong path. Second, consumer lock-in.

[Consumer] Lock-in is the decreased likelihood to search for, or change to, another option once an investment in something has been made. The greater the setup costs, the less likely we are to move to another, even better, situation, especially when faced with switching costs, or the time, money and effort it requires to make a change¹

It is still difficult now as we prepare to leave Harbin, decision in hand. We've committed so much to this relationship that leaving is nearly impossible. We were locked-in because setup costs are high. Although some of these costs are the same we’ll face with a new organization, specifically #1-2, these costs for Harbin combined to decrease our likelihood of ever changing jobs.

1. We left America to live in China.
2. We sold our cars and stored other possessions in a sea container.
3. We raised considerable annual support and have a firm base of annual givers.
4. We increased our monthly givers year after year until now we are at a sustained level of monthly giving.
5. Family and friends joined us in this vision for serving Chinese college students and new friends are catching this vision.
6. We established a mailing list which would need to be transferred to another source when we change organizations.
7. We built relationships with nationals throughout Harbin.
8. We know Harbin: what to do and where to go to get what we need.
9. We built a home here. It’s the only place our kids have lived.
10. We taught English courses to university students and have a wealth of lesson plans and material for future classes.
11. We know the university deans and officials and our kids have played together.
12. Moving is hard. Boxes, shipping companies, and setting up a new apartment seem to require too much time, money, energy, and stress.
13. We have to relearn everything (see #7-11).

To leave and follow the Father's future plans for our family requires faith. Loads of faith. I’m glad we are locked-in to the Father.

_______________
¹Jay, M. (2012, April 14). The Downside of Cohabitating Before Marriage. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-cohabiting-before-marriage.html

Back to life, back to reality

Welcome to snowy Harbin! After a (mild) winter full of freezing temperatures and no snow, snow has covered the ground for the last few days. We’re all geared up for a white Easter. Really, I hope for a spring-like Easter with cherry blossoms, flowers, and pastel dresses and ties, but it’s Harbin and spring doesn’t come until May.

It is good to be home in Harbin with familiar surroundings and routines. Kanyon started back at preschool, I began teaching, and our team shared the first round of cooking for each other.



As our team prepares for this semester, we’ve been under attack. Sickness, kids not sleeping at bedtime, mental exhaustion of big decisions looming, and minor miscommunication all attacked different members of the team and tried to bring us down. We persevered and continue to overcome because we know the Father. We believe He has big plans for this semester and we believe it will be the best one yet. Please join us in praying against the enemy’s attacks.

Looking forward to the work at hand over the next month, these events need your prayers.

Coffee house: This week we’re hosting a coffee house event for students to discuss the topic of luck. Luck seemed appropriate since coffee house will be the day before St. Patrick’s Day. Please remember this event as we hope to lead students towards a deeper understanding of life.

Passport renewal adventure: We need to renew our passports. In China this involves a trip to the nearest US Embassy or Consular General. From Harbin, that means a trip to Shenyang (four hours by train). We planned the trip for this past weekend but were delayed due to sickness. We now plan to try again in the near future. Please remember the travels and paperwork required to renew our passports.

Grace’s expectant baby: Our friend Grace is expecting her first child at the end of March. Her parents moved in to take care of her and will live with her for the next 12 months. Plus, her husband just returned from a work assignment in Pakistan. We’re thankful for her friendship and ask for prayers as she enters the final weeks before her little baby arrives.

Thailand update: Thank you for your prayers during our time in Thailand. Your prayers directly resulted in the healthiest Annual Thailand Conference that we can remember. At times, we were sick, but our overall experience in Thailand with our friends at conference and with Jeremy’s family was great. Thank you!

TwelveTwoTimes newsletters: We will soon be moving towards online delivery of our newsletters. If you know someone who receives the physical newsletter via the postal service, please encourage them to go online and sign up to receive the email letters. Visit www.twelvetwotimes.com and click, "Join Our Mailing List" to sign up today!

To the book club

While we live on a university campus, part of our work is to connect with the nationals in the city beyond our university campus. So we engage locals in throughout Harbin.

Recently Kanyon and M’Lynn have been involved in Bell English Book Club. Each weekend they travel across town to a small apartment for an hour of English books and interaction with other kids. The event concludes with an activity and Kanyon often checks out a book to take home.

This week, M’Lynn led a “Snowy Day” activity for the kids. She prepared 20 cookies (more than enough), found marshmallows (a difficult task in China), and brought snow flake designs. Lesson plan in hand, she and Kanyon went “to the book club.”

The children loved it. They read “Snowy Day” and another snowman poem before doing the snowy activity. Together the kids decorated melted snowman sugar cookies, snow flake cutouts, and a paper chain. Everything nicely fit into the hour.

Activities like this are a great way to reach out into the greater community and build relationships. We’re excited to see what is in store for the book club!

Merry Christmas

We baked for seven days, shopped for ten days (in America), and celebrated for three. Christmas was amazing.

This year we celebrated Christmas Eve with about 15 of our closest Chinese friends. It delighted us to share a huge turkey dinner with our friends. Most of them had not eaten turkey (or any of the other traditional foods) so it was a real treat.

"I don't know what I'm eating." said Cherry. Everyone agreed and made the same comment about food we find so normal: cornbread stuffing, gravy, turkey, sweet potato casserole, broccoli salad, pasta bake, pumpkin pie, apple cider (they called it soup), and others. Next year we'll be sure to include name cards for the food.



Then came Christmas day. What a pile of gifts from family and friends! M'Lynn made several trips downtown to the post office to collect packages mailed from the states.

The kids woke up quite early (6:08 AM) after one false start by Corbin at 3 AM to get more water. After they were up for good, they settled into breakfast with Mamo's famous cinnamon rolls before getting antsy to open the presents. We waited for some teammates to come and watch and then it was on!



Presents everywhere. Paper everywhere. Don't lose the instructions. Install batteries. Assemble race track. Put on skates. Mario, Luigi, airplanes, dinosaurs, and many other toys. They played, and fought, and played the rest of the day.



All the photos are posted here. Check them out to see the Christmas fun.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is here (and so are 60 students)

176 sugar cookies and 60 students later sums up this year's Christmas open house success.

We (as a team) hosted the freshmen English major students in our apartments. It's an opportunity for us to show an inside glimpse into Christmas and shower them with hospitality. Each apartment had a different theme: Christmas ornament crafts, 'live' Christmas tree decorating, cookie making, and Christmas carols and the story and the students rotated through the stations experiencing Christmas.



They were eager to make Christmas cookies at our house. The first group as a little hesitant to get their hands dirty with cookie dough and then we realized we had forgotten one step, to wash our hands. After that, they dug into the dough making as many cookies as they could.

After decorating the cookies, looking at the Christmas tree decorations, taking pictures of our family picture, and playing with Kanyon, the students were ready to eat.



When we brought out the previously baked cookies, the students became really excited. I really think the students thought these were the cookies that they had made. We didn't have the heart to tell them they were eating the cookies from the previous class. And when we did tell them, they either didn't hear or didn't really care because they were eating cookies!

Natural Enemies

We began December with M'Lynn traveling home for 10 days to attend her grandfather's funeral. I stayed in Harbin teaching classes and taking care of Kanyon and Corbin. Added to the mix was a teammate's business trip to Beijing leaving his wife and children home alone for the weekend. Our team had two single parent households!

It was not easy for anyone. Children were sick, parents were tired, teammates were doubly busy, but everyone was bearing each others burdens. During this time, teammates stepped up and watched the kids so I could teach. Others walked Kanyon to preschool so I could stay with Corbin. Another teammate bought 5 boxes of orange juice, 6 bottles of Sprite, and vegetables so we'd have something to eat and drink. Each night a different teammate would make supper for the whole team. Everyone sacrificed time, food, money, sleep, and energy.

But why? Because of the good news. Period. This kind of crazy awesome community we had going on, I believe, is proof of the power and nature of the good news in our lives.

Together we've been doing a study about the good news in everyday life. Most recently, the topic was community and what it is to live as a city on a hill in the context of the good news. The study, by Timothy Keller, talked about how we are "natural enemies" coming from different backgrounds, families, traditions, majors, states, and lives but we are able to come together because of what He has done for us and we're able to love for His name sake!

With Christmas approaching quickly, we are eager to share this community with others so they can see how we interact with each other for His name. We desire others to see the difference in our community not because we are different as Americans, but because we are His and His love enables us to love each other.

Halloween

During class this week, we carved pumpkins and ate Snickers. It was a true Halloween culture invasion. Students really enjoyed the class.

"Thanks teacher for a fun class."

"That was the best class in 3 years [of college]. No. That was the best class in 13 years [of school]."

Turn off the light and check this out.

All-American Hamburgers

About every to week, we host a Sunday evening hamburger dinner inviting our friends to taste the classic American hamburger. While we don't have a grill, the burgers taste authentic enough with our secret ingredient, Worcestershire sauce.

Most friends have only eaten a hamburger at McDonald's or KFC (which is actually a chicken sandwich, but that's another post). They have never tried making hamburgers at home. It's so simple ad normal for us, yet such a treat for our friends.

With all the food on the table, we led our friends through the steps of assembling their burgers. First, explaining the options of mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard. Then meat and cheese. And finally any veggie they think would taste good. Add a side of baked potato wedges and some pink lemonade and we have a classic all-American meal.

Mid Autumn Festival

There’s a Chinese holiday on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar that’s all about exchanging special baked goods called mooncakes (月饼yue bing) with friends and eating together. This year the holiday fell on a Monday which created a three-day weekend and happiness all around. The weekend was one of the busiest I can remember in China, but also one of the best!

The craziness started Saturday morning with a trip to an awesome store called Metro. Our good friend, Jack, drove a group of us all the way across the city so we could stock up on some much needed items that are hard to find elsewhere in the city. Saturday evening, the team and our friends Cherry and Norton hiked a mile to a vegetarian restaurant to celebrate with Hui’s father who was visiting from Georgia, USA. The entrees at the restaurant all look like regular Chinese food, but they’re all made out of tofu! Weird and fun at the same time! On the walk back, we happened upon a large group of women doing an outdoor group dance/exercise class commonly referred to as zombie dancing (because the moves are simple and repetitive). Just for kicks, we all decided to give it try. To tell the truth, it’s a lot more of an arm workout than it looks. I’d like to join the zombies again soon to work on my triceps, and parading around in a circle with 100 Chinese women brought a smile to my face!

We spent Sunday morning at a University across town to attend an ELIC city team meeting attended by all 25 adults and 6 kids who serve at 4 different universities in Harbin. Later that evening, my good friend, Grace, and her husband, Mi, came over to our place for dinner and loved assembling their very own hamburgers. I’m really glad they said my hamburgers were better than McDonald’s! It was fun to see them get excited about a food that is so normal to us. After eating, Kanyon and Mi enjoyed playing Mario Kart Wii!



After our guests left and the kids went to bed, I trooped over to Jodi’s apartment for a game night with the new ELIC teachers from Harbin East College (the ELIC school where our old teammate, Dan, is now leading). I loved serving coffee and playing games with a bunch of China newbies who are still trying to figure out the basics of living in China.

As if two packed days were not enough for a fun weekend, we kept on trucking straight into Monday! Out the door by 9 am, our entire team trekked a mile and a half to a teahouse for some team building time (4 kids included). We sipped endless cappuccinos, mango juice and milk tea while entertaining kids and discussing individual and group communication styles.



The afternoon’s activity consisted of mooncake making at Grace’s apartment, complete with dumplings for dinner! Usually, mooncakes (which are totally different than American moon pies) are purchased from local supermarkets or bakeries and come packaged in fancy bags and boxes. However, as everything in China is so expensive this year, some people decided to make the special celebratory food with care at home to save money. I’m looking forward to buying my own mooncake mold from an internet site and making homemade mooncakes next year!



After stuffing our faces with jiaozi (dumplings) and surveying our finished mooncakes, I headed back home. And, believe it or not, the weekend was still not over. Monday evening, our team hosted a get-together for the campus brothers and sisters. Everyone happily enjoyed the great company, conversation, and endless supply of mooncakes as the excitement of many “family members” together created the perfect atmosphere for the evening of Mid-Autumn Day. At 9:30 pm as some teammates and students headed outdoors to look at the moon (another holiday tradition), I politely declined and ended the weekend by laying in bed watching fire lanterns released from the nearby square drift through the sky. A perfect ending to a wonderful weekend!

Kneeling

"Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure." - D.L. Moody

Together with 5 other teammates, we live as servants, build relationships, and testify truth to students, colleagues, and other nationals. Through personal relationships, we make a difference in peoples’ lives. We seen stories of amazing transformation; students once riddled by life’s great questions now filled with potential and hope for the future. We are excited to be a part of influencing the lives of the future leaders of China.

Now we're gearing up to return to Harbin for the 2011-12 school year. If you'd like to keep up with all the happenings, connect with us!

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