Clarks: Happy Sick New Cold Year [& Elaine's Departure]

Dispatch from Jason:
I'm sick. I've got a cold. This is my first cold of the year. Actually, it's not just my first cold of 2009, it's my first cold of the school year--that is, the first time I've had a cold since coming to China. So, that's pretty good, I think. I'm thankful to have been so healthy so far.
Our cat is also out of the hospital and doing well. He's been sickly pretty much from the start. He's been in and out of the vet so many times, we can't even keep up with it. We thought we were real smart for getting such a good discount when we bought him; now we've well more than double-spent on vet bills the amount we'd saved initially. So, go figure...
Anyway, now introducing... Cecely! With news about Elaine:
Today Elaine called to say goodbye. This afternoon she will head out on her journey to America and Harding University. I've tried my best to prepare her for some of what she will likely see, do, and go through. I was happy to hear some friends of ours, the Hadwins, will pick her up at the airport. I think being at Harding will give her so much valuable experience and insight, although we really hate to see her go for nine months! The thing I wanted to say though, is that today she called not only to say goodbye but out of genuine concern for her little group of ladies. She feels true ownership. The kind that makes her want to make sure that Margaret, Shenli, and Christina will be ok after she leaves. She called to give me last minute advice for how best to minister to Shenli and Christina, reminding me that they need gentle encouragement. She thinks Shenli is really in a time of thinking seriously about what she needs to do for her spir. life, and she believes that Christina really wants to be more involved in our group, but just hasn't been able to like she'd like to because her daughter Lingling has had so many flare-ups with her asthma recently. I felt so good about her calling to tell me all of that. She feels responsibility and care for the other ladies, and I am truly grateful to Him! Elaine also mentioned that she got to spend some time talking to Gaoyan yesterday; I haven't talked to Yan about it yet, but Elaine said she enjoyed so much talking with her, and that it was so encouraging!

As I think I have mentioned before, I have been having a weekly time with the ladies from Wen San to get to know them better. A couple of weeks ago, however, one of the ladies brought her roommate who is severely depressed, and it was a pretty difficult situation to deal with. She seems to have some issues with trust and she must be handled with kid gloves. I really need your prayers for her; I want to know how best to proceed.

Also, please be thinking of Julia's friend May, who isn't a sister but is interested in studying more in-depth just with me and Julia. Please ask that Julia and I will be guided in what to read with her, that her heart will be softened and her mind sharpened as she looks into the Word. Also pray that Julia will learn about one-on-one studies from this experience and be able to replicate it in the future.

Julia took some kids' books about The Book that she borrowed from me home for Spring Festival, by the way, and shared them with some little relative kids. She said one kid in particular loved it, and asked to hear the story again and again! She was so happy about that success! Be praying that the seeds planted in the hearts of those children will grow through the years, and that Julia can continue to minister to them.

Thanks again, Clear Creek, for making it possible for us to do this work that we love. By giving us so much loving support, you are involving yourselves deeply in this ministry. We are thankful daily as we realize how happy we are to be here, and what amazing supporters you are. We love you.

Chinese New Year

Today is the Chinese New Year’s Eve. People all around China are traveling to their hometown to celebrate this holiday with their family. People from the countryside have worked in the cities on construction sites, in supermarkets, restaurants, barber shops and various other service jobs. They have worked hard and saved all year long. Now they can go home wearing nice new clothes and neatly cut hair to see their family and friends in their hometown. Banks are crowded with people withdrawing money to carry with them to some remote area of China. Bus stations, train stations and airports are crowded with travelers. Some people had to stand in line three to four hours to buy tickets.

Tonight, January 25th, families are gathered together to eat a big meal of pork, fish and chicken dishes. Fireworks are exploding everywhere. The children are all dressed in new clothes playing with fireworks. Every kid gets a red envelop of cash money as a New Year gift. At 8:00 pm tonight, about one billion Chinese people will watch the New Year dancing and singing performance on TV. At midnight fireworks will light up the sky all over China.

This New Year celebration continues for the next seven days. People visit relatives and friends to eat a meal together. People are off work and students have no school. As a nation it is time to take a break from a whole year of hard work.

Pray for us as we spend time with friends during the holiday!

Phew!

I finally got all the pictures and posts up! Unfortunatly they are not in the order I want them, but I can't figure how to change them. I am officially caught up...and just in time...tomorrow is the beginging of Spring festival. I hope to have a bunch of pictures from that.

bamboo path

On January 14 we were invited to a dinner with a bunch of the teachers at our University. The dinner was at a resort area in HZ. While some of the teachers had to attend a meeting we went on a walk. At first we thought we were going to hike up a mountain but that is not exactly how it went.
We walked for about 15 minutes next to a fairly busy highway and came to a famous bamboo lined path.

It was really pretty peaceful. There were lots and lots of bamboo...

Some very old and large trees...

Some interesting buildings...

This was a meditation pool fed by a spring.

A Steele with some famous calligraphy

This would be a great spot to sip some tea...

some guys in camo with guns!!!

Ok, they were just playing laser tag. They had on vests and hats with binkers and stuff.

This guy let Liam shoot his gun while he was in between games.

Cambridge ( one of the guys that really helps us a lot) said that they rented the equipment from a company. He said that perhaps next time we could do that! We all thought it would be a lot of fun.

You never know what you are going to see in China.

snow

On January 6 we woke up to a light dusting of snow! It was pretty. The kids were disappointed that it was not really enough to play in and it did not last all day, oh well!

ginger bread house

We were sent this Ginger bread house kit! Unfortunately it did not arrive until Christmas eve and we were just too busy to put it together. After the holidays and all our grades were turned in, things calmed down. We did not put this together until just a couple of weeks ago. But as you can see, they loved it! Thank you!

Christmas

Christmas in China is very different than in the U.S. You can keep some of the same traditions but you should probably add some new ones too.
Christmas eve after I got out of class we began our family celebrations. I had made dinner in the crock pot. Jon even baked some bread to go with it. It was all delicious! It was not what we would traditionally have for Christmas dinner, but it was still good. (we had roast and potatoes)

After dinner we opened presets! We set up Skype so that my folks could watch the kids open their presents.
We had a bunch of presents. I was going to be very good and keep track and write lots of thank you notes, but I got very crazy very quickly! Thank you for all the love and gifts you showered us with!

After that we cleaned up the living room, put out milk and cookies for Santa and went to bed.

The next day the kids got up around 7. They opened their stockings and played with their toys. We chatted with Jon’s family on the Internet. Then we got dressed and went out for the kid to enjoy their new scooters! (actually Eryn did not make it, and went in to take a nap)

Jason and Cecely were on their lunch break (they went to class that day) this is Jason trying out Hallie's Scooter.

Then we went into town for a nice family dinner.

We walked through a market to get to the restaurant.



We ate at a steak place. It was late for lunch so the place was quiet. They also had a salad bar. This is the first salad I have eaten in about 5 months! Not your traditional American Christmas celebration, but we may make a tradition of going out to a nice restaurant on Christmas day.

This is a picture of all three kids on their new scooters. They enjoy riding their scooters whenever they can!

Thank you so much for all that you did for us over the holidays! We greatly appreciate it! We love you!!

Christmas Eve

We were invited to go to a primary (elementary) school on Christmas eve. We did not have any classes that morning so it was a good time. We were met at the school by a 6th grade boy that spoke excellent English. He lived in the U.S. for a year. We were also greeted by this large red banner.





We went upstairs to a large room and were met by three classes of 6th graders. We were the guests of honor for a Christmas party.

We were asked a bunch of questions in English. Our favorite question was when one of the students asked Jon what his favorite book was. Hmmm....What is your favorite book? Ours is a (or The) Good Book.


We were treated to a couple of performances by some students. One boy played the piano--he was amazing! and one girl played a traditional Chinese instrument. Then the kids showered us with gifts for Christmas. We ended up with a large shopping bag with many cards and small trinkets. The school even gave us a very large scroll with Chinese calligraphy on it.



Even Santa was there!



Do you notice that all of these girls have a red scarf on? Most Chinese students wear these. They are " Young Pioneers". I am not exactly sure what all that means but it is basically the student version of the communist party. Well, not exactly. It is more like a communist version of the "model citizen club". The purpose is to teach them communist ideals. We were all given a red scarf to wear that day too. It was pretty cool.


After the party upstairs we went downstairs. Hallie visited several classrooms along the way.



What is a party without making Jaozi (Chinese dumplings)?

The girl in the red coat became Hallie's friend. What is really cool is that a few days later we ran into this girl and her mother at a McDonald's in another part of town. We talked with her a little and smiled and waved at her mom. We wished we could have communicated more with them, but we do know that we can run into people all over town. Even though we never thought we would see any those kids again, we did. Who knows what could come from opportunities like this?

Catching up with the Hardins

I have been trying for about a week to upload pictures to this blog and the team blog. It is just not working! I have only managed to upload 2 pictures to a draft. I am so behind and really want to finish blogging about Christmas, but can't get the photos up. I guess I can just write and add the pictures later. For most of you the holidays are long over and life is back to "normal". Here in China it is very different! Chinese New Year is on January 26 this year. Chinese New Year is their biggest holiday of the year. It is also called Spring Festival. I don't really understand all of the celebrations but I know the holiday season goes for about 15 days. The biggest day is the 26 or the first day of month 1 in the lunar calender. There will be tons of fireworks! We have booked a hotel downtown near the lake so we can watch the fireworks from our room. The kids are very excited about it! They are also very excited because there is supposed to be a bathtub in our room. A few weeks ago we finally bought a basin that can be used as a tub. It is basically a huge baby tub. It fits in the shower but is not as big or as convenient as a real tub. I will try to take some pictures of the fireworks and celebrations. Since school is now out and Spring Festival is just around the corner our neighborhood looks VERY different. Shops have closed down. Even our favorite restaurant will be closed for a few days starting tomorrow. My birthday was last week and Jon had a hard time getting a cake because everyone was closing. We usually see lots of people walking by and riding bikes, but there is hardly anyone around right now. It is really quiet too. It just seems strange. I think we might be glad when the students start coming back. Right now, we are enjoying having a break and a little quiet. It makes shopping a little harder, but before we know it things will be back to "normal".

Team Christmas

Christmas day was pretty crazy actually that whole week was crazy since we were giving exams. So we had our team Christmas party (or actually Church Christmas celebration) Saturday after Christmas. We all met at the Clark's and ate desserts. We drew names and exchanged gifts.




I made this fruit tree. I think my kids ate most of it.

Caleb enjoyed the pumpkin bread that Cecely made.

Yan got some sunscreen lotion as a gift.

Josh got earmuffs and hot chocolate and a chocolate bar

Jason got tortilla chips and Salsa! Yum...(he didn't share)


It was a good day. We are blessed to be able to work and worship with people that we really like and enjoy fellowshipping with.

The Clarks Go Wireless: A Marriage of (In-)Convenience

Today we went out and bought a wireless router.
The cable running from the wall into the laptop in our old apartment was so messed up that if you just barely bumped or moved the computer it would disconnect, so we'd been wanting to go wireless for a while. And in the new place, although the cable stays plugged in and connected just fine, it's so short that you have to sit about two feet away from the wall outlet to use the Internet. So, like I said, today we went out and bought a wireless router.
The short version of what happened next goes something like this [And believe me, if you can read the next couple of paragraphs in less than four or five hours, then this really is the short version]: We come home; I take the router out of the box; I read the instructions (sort of) ...as much as I could in Chinese; what I'm doing doesn't work; I make a phone call; I sound stupid; Cecely steps in; we think we have gotten our point across, only to find that the alternate phone number we've been directed to call is, like, a plumber, maybe? I still don't know for sure.
We call back to the first number; this time we sound both stupid and possibly insane; we make another, oh... say... about 17 phone calls; we send text messages to everyone we know and think might be able to help; we finally get someone on the phone who is able to get someone else on the phone, who comes over but can't figure it out but is able to make a few more calls and get someone else to come over... The next guy comes over, spends about an hour, has to make a few phone calls himself... Meanwhile, I'm scrapping around in our files looking for the original Internet connection receipt so that the guy who is over here now can make another phone call, this time to the Internet company to retrieve my password because I don't know my password because the first time we set up the Internet the guy from the company entered all that in by himself without asking me and... well, another side note, the whole thing isn't even in my name, so this guy in my house is having to say the name under which it was originally registered, which is Wei's husband, who is in the far north of China with her and the rest of her family in Harbin where they will spend the Spring Festival holiday...
And of course, the guy in my house is wondering what kind of idiot doesn't know his own password, but he was nice about it and just made the phone calls and got the information, because, after all, he is going to make 40 RMB off of this if he can get everything successfully connected. So he gets the information, he sets it up--which still took longer than you would think--and I give him the cash, and he goes home, and I am sitting here typing a blog entry from the comfort of our huge leather sofa, rather than hunched over facing the wall.
[Well, I'm still hunched over, but that just goes with typing, I guess.]
The moral of the story: No matter how much I try to get around it, simple technology and the Chinese language will always have the upper hand it seems. Oh well.

Clarks settling in and pressing on

Cecely here:
We are feeling settled in and at home here in our new apartment. It feels pretty warm and cozy here, which is a blessing since we had been warned that we might be colder in this apartment that is only one flight up, as opposed to our previous one, many more than six actual flights up. There are three small heaters here and one big one though, and they do well to heat the space. We don't run them all the time, of course, but enough to feel warm and comfortable in here most of the time. Also, our bed recently got more comfortable, as well, which was a very welcome relief. When we got here there was only a base "mattress", which was a hard base that you would set the actual mattress down on, sort of like the boxed springs in America, but more just like a hard plywood-feeling box mattress when you lay down on it. We knew that from the back aches and fitful sleep the first two or three nights that we would have to add something to it to make it more comfortable. On Monday, we went out shopping for dishes (the dishes we were using over in our previous apartment actually belonged to the landlady, so we left them behind) and a mattress. We found some dishes we really liked, but after a day of running around all over town, didn't find a comfortable and affordable actual mattress. The best we could do is ask Metro to order a correct size memory foam bed pad, and they said they would call us when it came in, and we wouldn't have to pay until we came to pick it up 3 or 4 days later. We were glad to have found the dishes anyway, and we headed home, as that evening I was hosting a ladies fellowship, pr-yer and Book reading time. We had a good turnout for that, and me and the five ladies were all with heads bowed in prayer when Jason got a call in the other room from our landlady liaison here, informing us that there was a 4000 yuan German mattress down in the storage area on the ground level below our apartment! She apologized, though, that it was so soft, warning us that we might not like it. Obviously, that is why the owners had removed it from their bed and stored it down there, prefering the comforting plywood bed feeling of the old hometown, perhaps???? Jason reminded her that we are Americans, and so it probably could not be too soft. She laughed and said she'd come over and help us to get it out of the storage area. It made for an interruption in our pr-yer time, but the ladies who were over here helped us move furniture out of the way of the mattress, get it up the stairs, etc. And when we had it safely up here, we resumed our pr-yer time. I think the ladies in the city (this particular meeting included ladies from W3, although the RJ ladies had had their own self-initiated meeting earlier that day as well!) are getting closer to one another. They really seem to enjoy sharing their struggles and providing listening ears to one another. I am greatly encouraged by this. Also, they welcome Seekers in gladly, and I sense that the Seekers greatly admire the spirit of love and sharing that they witness among us. Please keep this in your thoughts as much as possible, because I know that He can do great things from what is happening among our ladies here in Hangzhou.
Thanks so much for the care and concern you have shown to us. We watched our senders video this afternoon and thought of you and the loving way you took care of us in Chattanooga and how you made our parents and grandparents feel comfortable and cared for. We love and appreciate you very much; and what you have done makes the work possible and able to thrive. You truly are our partners in this work!
With much love,
Cecely (and Jason) Clark

Christmas Eve

One of the teachers at our school arranged and invited us to her daughter's school for a Christmas party. When we arrived at the school they welcomed us with open arms and a banner! There was also a boy there that had lived in the US for a year and could speak very good English. He was funny.




They had three classes of 6th graders waiting for us. They asked us questions in English. One student asked Jon what his favorite book was. They performed songs, played the piano, and a traditional Chinese instrument, and played games with us. They also showered us with gifts and Christmas cards. The school presented us with a huge scroll of Chinese calligraphy.

Then we walked downstairs to a different room. I guess it was the cafeteria. On the way, Hallie stopped by several classrooms with one of the teachers to meet several students.



Of course we made jaozi (Chinese dumplings) with the students.



Hallie had a lot of fun making the jaozi and talking with this girl (in the red coat). The neat thing is that a few days later we ran into this girl and her mom in a Mcdonalds in another part of the city!

Probably the funniest moment of the morning was when a teacher was introducing us to the students. She could not pronounce Hallie's name very well.

Teacher: ...and this is Harry, lets everyone say hello to Harry
All students: Hello Harry!

Liam did not like that, but Hallie just laughed.
The morning went on about one hour too long for the little ones, but overall it was really fun.

Clarks: Address Change

We're moved!
We are busily cleaning and unpacking and arranging. We're super-tired.
We'll do pictures and all that some other time.
Just wanted to say it's finally happened.
Our new address is the same as before, except you need to change the strand of digits representing our building and house number [19-1-601] to reflect the new place: 32-2-102
Thanks again and again for all the gifts and everything.
Send any further packages to the new address.
The postal code -- the last six digits, without the hyphen [310012] -- should remain the same, by the way.

Clarks:

Something unusual happened today.
Something very strange.
We don't know the outcome.
And we probably never will.
I even wonder, Should I be writing this? Should I tell the story?
Yet, it is the sort of event that you cannot let go of, that you feel you must share.
And that may forever leave you questioning.
How did this happen? Why were they out there?
Is he OK?
Is he alive?


The morning was heavy with fog and damp with a cold, wintry mist. Cars and buses sliced their way along the wet street below our home, their lights reflecting in a thousand directions upon the street and through the white, liquid air. People, like colored plastic bobbins, scuttled along the sidewalk and out into the day, wrapped in protective layers until stiffened thick, fuming spent air, grey and heavy as exhaust.
Into this day we ourselves went, bundled warmly, snug in our comfort.
We took a stack of 100-yuan notes, a tithe we had set aside, to buy gifts for some of our most helpful administrative colleagues. Something to say thank you for all they have done to make us feel at home, to help solve our problems, and to care for our needs.
I had been listening to a sermon the night before, about sacrificial living. About giving.
It felt good to be headed outside to buy something for someone, to finally be putting some of our ministry money to use.
I had wondered, though, in the night -- before falling asleep, cozy in our humble but restful bed, my head laid softly upon my pillows, the heated air wafting through the room -- I had wondered how, and where, and who we could possibly be helping. Where are the poor people? Where are the needy ones?
This is one of the nicest, most advanced, most civilized, and most prosperous cities we've ever lived in. As they like to say, Hangzhou is Paradise on Earth. It's a great place to live, and a pleasant place to work. People are kind, well-educated, and for the most part, it seems, well-off. Most of our friends drive cars. Some own multiple homes. No one we know lives without heat and air, and no one's hands are chapped and blistered with the chill of frostbite.


We had just left the IN-TIME department store's spacious, upper-floor Starbucks, having had a couple of drinks each, and carrying a couple of bags full of Starbucks' exquisite Chinese New Year coffee mugs -- some for gifts, plus a mug for each of us as well. We'd spent something like 600 yuan, I guess. I hadn't kept track of it; it was mostly ministry money.
Cecely had seen a hobo, as she described him, walking along the sidewalk below our view while we sat sipping coffee a few minutes earlier.
I didn't get a look at him, but his shoes, she said, were obviously something he had found, several sizes too large, clownish on his small body. He carried a bindle stick across his shoulder, his few meager possessions bound inside. "He was going that way."
I wondered if we might see him now, approach him, and buy him some new shoes.
But the only people we saw were middle-class, like us.
So we went on, looking in store windows, popping into a couple of places along the way, searching for some new corduroy trousers, or anything else that might catch our eyes.
And it was just about that time when we first saw him.
Not the hobo, but someone else.

We've seen so many bizarre things in our time here in China. We've seen so many poor, sick, bedraggled people. We've seen women throwing up out of bus windows; we've seen men in bloody head wrappings, the likes of which we had once thought only existed in old-fashioned cartoons with their violently slapstick plots; we've seen babies and toddlers with I.V. needles fed into their foreheads, watching those very same cartoons, old Tom & Jerry re-runs, on hospital televisions. We've been passed on the roadside by people on bicycles -- one driving, the other sitting side-saddle and holding on from behind, holding high his own I.V. drip bottle with his free hand. And we ourselves have collasped, more than once, from nausea and dehydration.
This is life in a developing country.
Some places, we know, have it much worse.

We'd never seen this before -- not this exact situation.
At first, it just seemed to be a young man holding a thick wad of tissue to his face, bent over, trying to stop up a bloody nose. In fact, I had gone right past without hardly noticing.
But Cecely stopped a few feet on, and then, as we looked more closely, we realized that this man -- supported at one side by an older gentleman whom we supposed to be his father -- was not well, not normal at all.
His lips were swollen, his eyes sunk-in, his whole face a horrible mix of pale and black and blue. He was a walking, breathing corpse.
He had collapsed to his knees upon the cold, wet sidewalk.
Although his hands were scabbed and painfully swollen, it was not as though he'd been beaten up and left for dead. It was, rather, as if he were dying from the inside out.

We asked what was wrong.
The answer -- mumbled in some unknown Chinese dialect by the whiskered old man, whose nose ran thick, down to his upper lip -- was unclear, but certain. His boy is sick.
"You need to go to a hospital. Do you have any money?"

Passersby puzzled at the scene as we pulled out a handful of left-over hundred-kuai bills and handed them to the old man -- We believe in Jesus; this money is from Jesus -- whose son was now standing, moving forward, and now, once again down on his knees, weak and struggling.
"Where are you from? What's wrong with him?" we asked. But none of the answers made any sense to us. And no one else stepped in to translate.

We continued, the four of us, down the sidewalk.
Every few feet the boy would collapse.
His father would then pull him to his feet and on we would go; a few more steps, and down; another few, and fall.
We might have helped, but we were afraid. Afraid to touch him.
Did he have AIDS, or some kind of cancer? Or was this the result of a communicable disease?
How could we know? How would we ever?

At one point we saw the old man, whom we had let get across the street ahead of us, asking directions from someone. We followed, keeping our distance. Partly due to fear, and partly due to pride -- his actually, not ours: Strangely, the boy, despite (or because of ?) the condition he was in, actually halted at one point, threw off his father's grasp, and refused to go any further -- apparently angry or embarrassed at our tagging along -- whereupon the father insisted that they should go ahead without us.
So, we stopped.
We stood still and watched from a distance as they climbed onto a bus.

The characters on the bus stop sign indicated a hospital just a few stops ahead.
We wanted to get on the next bus, go behind them, see what would happen.
But we didn't.
We walked away.
And as we left, I know, we both silently prayed.

Proud moment

Often times being a parent is Hard! You feel like you spend all of your time feeding and cleaning them and they still complain and whine. You really wonder when you will have time for the important stuff you should be teaching them when you are just trying to get them to keep things out of their mouths and noses.
Then there are those moments that make your heart swell with pride! And you realize that maybe, just maybe some of the important things are getting through.
I had one of those moments the other day. I was cleaning up the desk in the office/school room. I found this index card.



Hallie got a bracelet for Christmas that has a locket on it. The card with the bracelet says you should write a prayer and place it in the locket. This what Hallie wrote, but she could not fold the index card small enough to go in the locket. I guess we will have to help her with that. I think this prayer from an 8 year old could be one all of us could pray! Just thought I would share. Now I have faces to wash!

Clarks: school is over, let the move begin

So, we just finished --this afternoon -- grading essays, entering scores, and recording final grades for my [Jason's] classes. We wrapped up Cecely's a couple days ago. And tomorrow we turn all of this in to the office and are officially done for the semester.
Good thing, because now it is time to move.
It seems that, finally, we are going to be moving over to the other place, just a few buildings away here in FYXC. A professional maid will clean things up on the 7th, then we get the key on the 8th, then -- we're guessing, but actually not 100% sure -- we will probably be able to start moving things in and re-setting up house.

Besides grading and moving, we've been busy with school-sponsored holiday celebrations and local family gatherings at W3 and RJ and [right now actually, with Julia] in our house. The parties were nice -- good food, good entertainment -- and the family get-togethers are positive and encouraging for all of us.
We hope to spend some of the vacation time seeing some of the sights around town. Just the other day -- as a break from grading -- we went to Wu Shan Hill, a temple site just south-east of West Lake, where people gather to play cards, dance, exercise, knit... There's a beautiful yoga studio that overlooks the surrounding woods, the nearby lake, and the rest of the city. We walked along He Feng tourist street, which runs along the northern base of the hill. We ate donuts at Big Apple, a recently-opened, authentic donut shop [I think Jon has mentioned it to you], which is also down there in that same area -- just across the street from Wu Shan square.

I guess that's about it. We'll post pictures of the new house once we get over there.

Thanks, thanks, thanks for all the Christmas gifts, by the way! You've helped to make this a great holiday -- even though we were having to administer final exams on Christmas Day [the whole week, in fact]. Which reminds me... we didn't tell you about the exams, did we?
Maybe another time. But I can tell you this much: people cried, screamed, pulled their own hair, begged on their knees for mercy... It was a stressful week, to put it mildly.

Party Chinese style!

We had several parties we attended this holiday season. This one was a lot of fun. It was hosted by the local Family at a school for autistic children. The party went on for hours and hours. It began around 3 in the afternoon and we left about 8pm! They really enjoy fellowshiping with each other. It was well planned and everyone had a good time.



What party would be without making Jaozi ( or Chinese dumplings) You make them, then you get to eat them! yummy!!



They asked Jon to dress as Santa. This costume was not that great. We are thinking about investing in a good suit, that he can use for years to come.

Next they played some games. This is Josh and Yan trying to pop balloons that are tied to others legs.




no party would be a party with out people singing!





During the entertainment these guys sat watching a DVD wearing flashing hats! They cracked me up!



At the very end we played "dirty Santa" Oh, so much fun. I can't wait to go back next year!

making oraments and building relationships

Even before I came to China I had wanted to have an ornament party during the holidays. Things were pretty crazy and I almost did not have one, but I did go ahead and plan one. This was my first time doing something like this, so I kept it small and simple.
I invited two students that are apart of the student fellowship and then two students that I would like to influence. One girl could not make it so I only had 3 come. We had cookies and hot chocolate and I taught them to make a simple ornament from paper strips. We listened to Christmas music as we worked. I was worried that things would get too loud. Ha Ha. They were concentrating so hard. Everyone ended up making two ornaments. I will definitely do this again next year. I may even have more than one of these parties. Everyone seemed to have a good

time.

working hard.... the finished products!