Morning Meditation

What a blessing to sit in this chair, early in the morning on our balcony and meditate on a passage of God’s Word. It is quiet. My children are still asleep. Almost everyone is still asleep. GaoYan and I have never lived in a house with a more beautiful view. Mountains surround our neighborhood and stand as a daily reminder that God created the earth and everything in it.
Wait a minute. Who put this big building in the way of my morning meditation?

Celebration of Discipline (another cool book) defines, “Christian meditation is the ability to hear God’s voice and obey his word.”
Colossians 1:28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
So from this verse I hear God saying that I need to teach everyone. Wow that is so overwhelming. There are at least 100 people living in this building. There are at least 100 people living in our building. There has to be more than 2000 people living in our apartment complex.
I need to listen to God’s voice in the next verse. Colossians 1:29 To this end I labor, struggling with all HIS energy, which so powerfully works in me.
What an exciting vision I hear, as I look out over the apartment buildings, that all these people may be presented perfect in Christ. My obedience is to labor and struggle sharing Jesus, knowing that it is God’s energy working so powerfully.
I feel so refreshed after my morning meditation.

Mercy Generation

My Dad bought a cool book for me this summer: The Meeting of the Waters. Seven Global Currents That Will Propel the Future Church. The first current discussed in the book was Mercy and even called young people today the Mercy Generation. Today there is instant access to news of the world’s crises like never before and young people want to help their fellow man.
Jake and I were talking in the Clear Creek Café and he said, “China will be the future major sender of missionaries throughout the world.” Back in China, I’ve been thinking about what to teach my English classes. My cell phone addicted, sleeping in class, forgot to bring pen and paper students are going to be the future major senders of missionaries? Well, if I can’t teach my religion in class, I need to inspire my students to be part of the Mercy Generation. Meeting of the Waters is full of individuals’ stories and organizations which are showing Mercy around the globe.
When I was a freshman trying to choose a course of study, one civil engineer gave a presentation on digging wells in Haiti. He was a Christian and talked about using his civil engineering knowledge for digging wells and showing mercy. That night I knew I wanted to be a civil engineer. Not exactly how things worked out, but I knew I wanted to be active in the Mercy Generation.

Cool encounter

Well, here's the so-called "cute picture" I mentioned...
Anyway, we decided on a lark to go to the local Chinese restaurant today for lunch, and there ended up being this white guy from Harding who had brought these two Chinese guys — one guy is for sure a Christian and does some ministry work with the Chinese students at Harding, and the other guy, I'm not sure about — and we were all in there having lunch at the same time. And... Phoebe is restless, so short version... Those guys are from Wuhan and they know some of the same Chinese Christians and American missionaries that we do, and it was pretty cool to run into them in Heber Springs, AR of all places. And well, it basically just made us glad that God had provided this cool little rendezvous in lieu of our actually being able to return to China. Oh, and we are planning to go to the Chinese student Bible study and church service tomorrow morning in Searcy. Cool, huh?
Postscript: It turned out that there wasn't any Chinese Bible study, per se, just an introduction, in English, by Milo Hadwin -- the dad of a former missionary in Jingzhou. He now kind of informally runs the Chinese student ministry at Harding. But we did meet a girl (English name Vivian) who is a member of the same house church in Wuhan that our good friend and former Jingzhou student Joanna worshiped with before moving to Hangzhou, and now Shanghai. So that was a "small world" moment.

His Will

Well, we are doing everything we can, every day, to try to get back home to China as soon as we can. We drive into town to check email, to see if documents have arrived in our inbox from our foreign affairs man in China. We have been filling out visa applications and talking to the airlines. But at the end of the day, the only thing we can do is the only thing that I think is really having any effect: we pray. And the effect is, we feel calm, and a spirit of peace has taken over and is now reigning in our hearts. For the longest time, we were really angry at our foreign affairs man for waiting so long to get the process started on our documents in the first place. We have certainly told him that before. But the anger is gone. And if it is gone, there is only One I can think of who could have taken it away. I am really homesick. But I am willing to just be here for now until it is His will to take me back.

Smooth trip

Jon's paperwork finally came through.  He has his passport back with a visa in it, and he has a plane ticket! He will leave Memphis early, early Thursday morning, and arrive at our apartment about 10 Friday night (we hope). That will be Friday morning in the US.

Our trip went very smoothly.  I almost left the passports and boarding passes at security in Memphis, but someone picked them up for me.  It was a little crazy getting everyone and everything through the security. It wasn't bad, but I was trying to put back computers, shoes, jackets, our few liquids... I just forgot one thing.  I would not have gotten very far with out those!
All three of our planes were on time, and very smooth.  There were people along the way that helped when we had trouble (not much trouble).  I even had time to grab some snacks for our lunch before we left Chicago.
Everyone was worrying about me handling all the luggage in Shanghai, but it was not that bad.  Two of my bags were delayed in San Fransisco, but that was really a blessing.  I did not have to worry about those two bags.  Two bags makes a difference.  They were delivered to my apartment Sunday evening.  I did not have to carry them up the stairs.  Hallie helped push a cart and Liam and Eryn took care of their carry-ons.
We checked into the hotel with no problems, and went and got something to eat.
Then we crashed!  We slept until 4 am.  Then we skyped Jon.
We were told that a bus went to Hangzhou at 11.  We ate breakfast, and rested a bit.  We got two carts and I loaded them up while the kids watched a video on my computer.  When it was time to go check out, I discovered that the carts would not fit through the door with the bags on them!!
I had to unload the bags into the hall, push out the carts and reload them again.  It was kind of funny.

We went down to where the buses are, and discovered that the one  we wanted, did not leave until 1:00

We went back to the airport and found a place to sit down.  We ate snacks for lunch and then played Uno.

When it was finally time to go back down to the bus, I sent the girls with one cart down the elevator.  Then before I could do anything, there was a long line at the elevator!  It took forever to get down to the girls.  The lady that works down there, was worried that we would miss the bus.  She took me to the front of the line and got our tickets.  We gave the bags to driver to load under the bus, then we got our seats and were off.

When we arrived in Hangzhou, Frank had got us a small moving van and two guys to help with the luggage.  We found them before Frank did.  We loaded up the bags on the back of the truck and then set out to our apartment.

It was so nice to be home!  We went back out and bought some milk and fruit and stuff.  We ate a small dinner  and then went to bed.  I took a shower and just fell into bed.  My bed felt amazing! It was so comfortable.
Now, we are pretty much over jet lag and things are almost back to normal.  We are looking forward to seeing Jon tomorrow night.  We are also looking forward to enjoying some cooler temperatures next week.
We are thankful that this have gone as smooth as they have.  Please pray for Jon's trip.

Stuck in Arkansas, of all places!

Well, we Clarks are having some paperwork trouble, too. It is a complicated story, but our paperwork is still in processing in China, not even on it's way here yet. It looks to us like we will be returning to China a little later than expected. Hmmm...my parents are gonna enjoy having Phoebe a bit longer, but we miss...HOME! Yep, we love Arkansas, and Tennessee, but more often than not, China is what just feels like home. I really get to missing the friendly neighborhood atmosphere of lots of people out for their evening walks. Also, the bustling streets, the food, our own apartment, and a schedule. Anyhow, Lord willing we will get there eventually, and we look forward to it, but for now, we will just enjoy and make the most of this bonus time with family. Who knows? Maybe there is a reason.

Paperwork headaches

Jon will be working at a different school this up coming year.  We were not sure how it was all going to work out.  Jon actually signed the new contract 2 hours before he left Hangzhou.  With a new job, we need a new visa (and not renew our old one).  In order to get a work visa (which allows us to stay in the country longer than 90 days) we need an invitation letter from our school.  We do not have that letter yet.  It has been sent, but is not here yet.  We thought this might be a problem, so Jenn and the kids got a  regular tourist visa, and will change over to z visas.  We were told that Jon cannot do this.  Well, we still do not have the invitation letter, so Jon has no visa.  We are scheduled to start flying at 6:57AM Thursday.  Jon will not make it.  Jenn will be making the trip with the kids and most of the luggage.  Right now, we don't even know when Jon will be able to make it.  The tracking number on the letter shows that it arrived in New York in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday.  It has not moved since then.  We do not know why.  It is possible that it is on the way and just not scanned.  We hope that is the case.  If it arrives tomorrow, it is possible that Jon will just be a day behind us.  We will just wait for him at the airport hotel.  If it will be several days, we will continue on to Hangzhou on Friday.

Please keep us in your prayers.  Pray for safe and smooth travels for Jenn and the kids.  Pray for helpers when she needs them (luggage).  Pray for the paperwork issues to resolve themselves and for Jon to just be a day or so behind us.  Pray for the up coming school year to be a good one for us.