Sprouts, Roots, and Flowers

The hills are alive with sprouts, roots, and flowers. Any time we walk the back road to school our eyes are instinctively searching the brush for fiddleheads. Many folks these days are climbing the hills and walking around with a hand full of fiddleheads. Fiddleheads are the unfurled fronds of a young fern. And you can eat them. Fiddleheads taste like bitter asparagus. They are especially tasty stir fried with red peppers.

More difficult to find are bamboo shoots. A bamboo grove is the right place to look, but I don’t understand how to choose a tender shoot from the bit sticking out of the ground. That’s right you can eat them. You need a long metal tool to dig up the shoot. If you break off too much under the ground then it is wasteful. I love a big plate of bamboo shoots, but later my stomach tells me I’m not a giant panda.

GaoYan showed me a flower that she used to pick as a little girl. They grow overhanging a low muddy cliff. I climbed up the cliff and slid down and got my shoes and pants all muddy and climbed up again. I had a nice bunch of flowers to put in a flower vase for GaoYan. On the way home I passed one lady who said, “Those are nice flowers. Did you know you can eat them?”

A visit to Shaoxing

Recently we took a trip to the hometown of a friend of ours, a student named Arily. She is from a city named Shao Xing, near Hangzhou, about an hour away. We went there in order to meet and spend time with Arily's family, which we thoroughly enjoyed doing. We also enjoyed touring this charming city. We will post more pictures and update this blog post shortly.

Lady in Waiting

Please join us in prayer for Helen. Over the past year, her faith has grown tremendously. She has shown her own initiative to study her Bible, seek out and attend churches, and even share her budding faith with others. She prays and cultivates a meaningful relationship all her own with God. And recently, she has been saying that she is ready to really become His child. She has just gotten a really busy job in Shanghai, though, and is only off on Mondays, and even on Monday, they often ask her to come in and work overtime! So, it has been on hold, which is kind of frustrating, to wait on something that we find to be so important. We ask you to pray, though, that God will use this time to really prepare Helen. That she will learn more about Him, His nature, His Word, and even about the seriousness of the commitment she is considering. We pray that she will have the faithfulness and maturity for a long and fruitful life in His service.

Rescued and Rebuilt and Restored

QianQian MaMa and GaoYan out driving around found an amazing little park in XiXi Wetlands. About fifty old homes are being rebuilt and restored. From different small towns in Zhejiang and Anhui province the homes are taken apart brick by brick, board by board, roof tile by roof tile. The materials are trucked to this little area of XiXi Wetlands.





Ten years ago I thought it was such a great discovery to see quaint old homes in small villages or big cities. I always had an empty feeling, however, knowing the old house would not be there much longer. In China quaint must always face reality. No one wants to live in a 100 year old house with no plumbing or electricity. The 100 year old one family house in the city center is taking up room for a 20 family concrete apartment block.

So cool these homes can be rescued, rebuilt, and restored.

New friends

We met a dad out walking on our campus with his baby boy. We let the kids play together and we talked for a few minutes. He seemed really nice, and so we exchanged phone numbers, and said we would get together another time. The dad's English name is Oliver, and he calls his wife Olivia. We invited them to the big Easter egg hunt this past Sunday, and they had a great time! We got to enjoy chatting and let the kids play together again. Jason said that at the egg hunt Oliver asked some questions about the meaning of Easter, and about church and Bible study. When Oliver sent us an email later to send us these pictures taken with their camera, he said he looks forward to studying the Bible with us! We are really excited for him and his family. What great spiritual potential.

Quick update

I made it through the second surgery. It seemed to go much quicker than last time. I did not have as much pain this time either. That is not to say that I did not feel any pain. I did but it was much better than last time. I really never want to do this again. Ever!

Yesterday, I slept and I think that has helped some. I am sore and swollen, but it does not seem as bad this time. Maybe because I know what to expect. Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for a speedy recovery. Thanks!

Prayers, please

Back in September, I had oral surgery.  Those of you that read the blog, know that it was a pretty terrible ordeal.  But I made it through and healed just fine.  (well, mostly).   Then it became apparent that I would have to have it done again on the other side.  I have been both dreading it and wanting to just get it over with. 

The surgery is finally set for Monday morning at 9 AM.  That will be Sunday night for those of you in America.  I would greatly appreciate prayers.  I would like prayer that the surgery will be successful, that it will seem quick, that I will not feel any pain during the surgery, and that healing will be fast and complete.

I am sure that I could use prayers the following week, and I know it will hurt and I will only have ibuprofen for the pain.  Pray for my family as they will have to deal with me.

Thanks!
Jenn

Our sister Mary

A few weeks ago, we were told about a girl in another city that wished to be baptized.   There were really no men in the city to help her, so she was sent here to Hangzhou.  When she lived in Jinghua she studied with a guy there, David Mills.  Then she moved to Ningbo.  Right now, there are no CoC teachers in that city.  Mary, continued to stay in touch with David Mills and also search for the Truth.  Eventually, David got her in touch with Shelly.  Shelly decided to bring her and the "bath tub" to our apartment. 

We had just finished the worship part of our meeting and were about to start the Bible study portion.  There was a knock at the door and it was two ladies, that we did not really know and the bathtub.  The ladies are from the downtown Chinese group.  We had thought that Mary was coming later in the afternoon.

We decided to just sing some more songs, while we filled up the tub.  It takes a while to fill up a tub.

Mary's boyfriend is also an American, but he does not have a very religious background.  He seems, like a nice enough guy, but could not really help her in her search for the Truth.



Right after Mary was baptized and dried off, she got a phone call.  She was so excited that she just blurted out to the caller, that she had just been baptized.  She did that twice before she left our house.  We are really happy for her.

She called us the other day with some questions.  She was going to a Bible study with a group of Catholics in her city.  When she told them that she was baptized, one person started attacking her beliefs.  There were some questions about the the Aprophical books.  Please pray that Mary will continue to grow in her knowledge and that she will be a light to others. 

The BIG city

Jon's passport will expire next April. But, when he gets a new visa, it is good until July or August. They will not put a visa in his passport if it extends past the expiration of the passport. So we needed to renew his passport. The best way to do that is to go to the U.S. consulate's office in Shanghai. Shanghai is about a 2 hour train ride away (on a slow train. fast trains can get you there in 45 minutes). We decided to make a weekend of it. We left Hangzhou around 2 pm. The kids love to travel by train. Actually, I do too.

We met a girl on the train that spoke very good English. At first, I noticed her vocabulary was very good, and then I noticed that she spoke with a distinct British accent. Actually, it was an Australian accent. She said that she grew up in Australia. She is going to high school in Hangzhou. She was traveling to Shanghai to go to a concert. She was going to see Bob Dylan.

Once we were in Shanghai, we took the subway to the area that our hotel is. On the subway, we met a guy that talks to us because he noticed a bag that Hallie is carrying. The bag is a reusable shopping bag we got at the Bible book store here. It has a Bible verse in Chinese and English on it. It turns out that the guy is a Christian too.

When we got off the subway we were a little confused about which exit to use to come up to ground level. Some lady asks us in English if we need any help and points us in the right direction. The first thing we see is a huge Hershey's sign. There is a Hershey's store right by the subway! We go in, and before you know it, we have spent 100 RMB! But we did buy some of our favorite candies that we have not seen anywhere else in China. They had almond joy's Mounds bars, Heath bars, Skor bars, Reese's cups, and others. Yum yum!!!

We walked about 10 minutes to our hotel. We liked this hotel because we could get a triple room that has a queen size bed and two twin beds. Eryn got to sleep on a pallet, but she loves that. The hotel was pretty cheap, and we quickly discovered that you get what you pay for.

The place was not grossly dirty, but obviously very run down. The linen seemed clean but the walls were in need of repainting. The beds were hard, and the pillows were flat. The worst thing was that it was really hot in our room and the air conditioner did not work. It just seemed to blow out hot air. It was about 80 degrees in our room that night. We did not sleep very well at all. The next day, we told them at the desk. They were surprised to hear that our room was too hot. They told us to open a window. They said that the AC does not work unless it is 20 degrees outside. (that's 68). We keep the windows open, and our room does cool down. The next night we all sleep much better. But now that I am home, I am fighting a cold or allergies from the air.

Two good things about the hotel, is that it was very close to a lot of things, and the shower was really good.

On Saturday we just walked around in the morning looking at some of the old buildings around. I love old buildings, so this is something I really enjoy. We ate lunch with our old boss from Changsha. He and his wife moved to Shanghai the year after we cam home from Changsha. It was neat to see him again. His wife was really really sweet. We have always really liked Mr. Tu and were very happy to see him again.

After lunch we went to the cheap glasses market and I got 2 new pairs of glasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses for 700 RMB. That is about $125. We probably could have gotten it a bit cheaper, but we did bargain for those. I am happy with them.

We met Matt Kirk (from Henderson) for dinner. We ate at a Mexican place. It was pretty good. The thing that was so weird, was seeing all the foreigners and foreign families. I really had a bit of reverse culture shock. The kids did too. Hallie and Liam both told me that they felt uneasy and a little shy when they saw the other foreign kids.

After supper, we went to an import store. They actually had POP TARTS!!!! But they were like 45-50 RMB a box. I did however buy a few things like, crunchy taco shells, and fig bars, and black eye peas.

We were very tired by the time we got back to the hotel. I was thankful that it was cooler in the room and I fell asleep quickly and did not stir until the next morning.

Sunday afternoon we met with a group of foreigners living in Hangzhou. We have known of some of this group, but had not actually met them in person until then. We ate dinner with a couple of the families. It was fun. It was interesting to see my kids interacting with the other American kids. One family has a 12 year old boy. Liam thought he was great and said that they are good friends now. Hallie was really very, very quiet. It was another late night, but it was good.

The next morning we packed up, checked out of the hotel, left our bags, and went to the consulate (which is kind of like an embassy). Jon discovered that the picture he brought for his passport renewal was too small. Grrr... so we had to go and have another picture taken. Jon dropped off his paperwork and we were free for a few hours until our train left.

We really packed a lot into the weekend. The weather was really great too. We were really comfortable all weekend.

We are glad to be back in our home. I was very thankful for our bed and our pillows. It will probably take us a few days to recover from our weekend.

Just a few pictures of some things I thought were cool:

Tulips & Cherry Blossoms

GaoYan and I love this little park each spring. This year the tulips and cherry blossoms bloomed at the same time.

A flower lady in the park said each tulip bulb cost almost five dollars imported from Holland. Thankfully thousands and thousands come to see the beauty of God's creation.

Ancestor tears

Qing Ming Jie, or the Festival of Pure Brightness, is just around the corner. It is also referred to as Tomb Sweeping Day. We get out of school, and people go back to the old homeplace to honor their ancestors. Today it has clouded over and become cooler, and the maid wanted to make sure that I understood it was going to rain soon, and why. Knowing Li, I already had a hunch why, but I let her tell me anyway, because she likes to explain this sort of thing so much. It is because people are going to the tombs to cry and mourn the dead, they will feel sad, and so of course the ancestors will feel sad too. But they cannot cry physical tears, so they cry through the rain. She also explained that they will burn paper money and other stuff, to make sure the ancestors have what they need in the afterlife, and they will talk to them, and expect them to actually hear what is said. She asked if we do the same, but of course she already knows what I am going to say too, she just wants to hear me say it. I explained, because I like to explain this sort of thing, that we might put flowers on the grave of a loved one, but that we would talk to Jesus, expecting Him to hear us, and trust Him to take care of our ancestors, and protect them. Li said, "well I knew your practise would have something to do with Jesus!" with a big smile on her face. As she walked away to straighten in another room, she just said, "we are sooooooo not the same!" with a giggle, and I could only giggle and shake my head, hoping Jesus will one day reveal Himself to her, in the way that only He knows.