The Whirlwind of Emotions

First my apologies on how long it has taken me to post. The last month can't actually be described with words, but as everything like that in life, I guess I will go ahead and try. It has been one of the most exhausting months of our lives to date. But very good and very meaningful. After living in China for five years straight, having a baby and accumulating all the stuff you accumulate as she grows to be three years old, after making friends, developing attachments, teaching hundreds of students and receiving gifts and momentos from them, etc...then, to pack up, pick up and move back "home" to Arkansas has just been the most amazing, draining experience. The jet lag this time has been the most incredibly intense out of the dozens of times we have experienced it, at least in part because when we started home this time, we were already exhausted from all the packing, saying good-bye, etc! The last day Phoebe attended preschool itself was an incredibly meaningful and sad experience for all of us. We had all our suitcases packed, we would leave China the next day, and we went to pick her up that last day. The teacher asked us to come early to take photos and say goodbye. In fact, they had a huge event in Phoebe's honor where they sang to her, she hugged and kissed all 24 of them, and then each child presented her with a gift! It was so moving, as their love was out poured to her and her to them. But can you think of any complications that 24 new gifts might cause on the day before an international flight? And yet, these things meant a lot to Phoebe for closure's sake, and we could not just leave them. An additional bag had to be procured and packed in those last hours. As we drove away from the school on the Taylor's ebike, it dawned on Phoebe what was really happening and that she wouldn't see those people again. She really understood it. She started begging to go back and crying, and even trying to jump off the bike to go back. It took all our strength to contain her and still drive and stay safe. When we got home, it took twenty minutes to get her to go inside, because she was crying and begging to go back again. Then, inside our apartment,  she cried choking sobs like the crying you would hear at a funeral, for like an hour, about how sad she was to be leaving. Comforting her in her intense grief took all we had. We were sad to leave China, but we had to summon our maturity to focus on her, because it was harder, much harder, for her. She was born there, and this is a part of her identity that she has never been without. Her name in Chinese is Wang Li Shan. Since we have been back in the States she has told us she wants to go HOME. We say, "Ok, let's go to Granny's house now." She says "No, I don't mean Granny's house. I want to go to Wang Li Shan's house." So, there's no doubt about what that means! But in fact, being back in the States she has been able to have a ton of fun in the local public parks, the Discovery Museum in Little Rock, attending Bible class, and of course, playing with her Papa and Granny. It's good, but it's an adjustment. There's a lot more I could say, but I will stop here for now. Please pray for us in this transition. Thanks!

王丽珊 (Phoebe) giving everyone hugs and kisses

The Final Group Photo of 星星班

Open Doors

Thinking of Christianity in China, certainly open doors do not first come to mind. However, the groups we have ministered with this year have seen God open doors.

The first open door is at 336 GuDun Road. God answered our prayers with ChongChong’s family opening their office space to our church family on Sunday mornings. We continue to encourage leadership in our worship service. We pray that our church family can reach out to teach more friends and family members of our Savior Jesus Christ.

The second open door is at the Cute Fish Art Center where Joy goes to half day daycare. GaoYan has built a relationship with the owner of the Cute Fish Art Center, so she said yes to us renting their space on Friday nights for our ladies/children’s Bible study. The study always begins by singing praise songs ladies and children all together. Then the ladies study and discuss challenges with raising children, relationships with their husband, and living with parents or in-laws always seeking God’s wisdom in the Bible and praying together. Meanwhile, Teacher Liu reads a short Bible story and prepares a craft project for the children. I help with the kids and hand out cookies if anyone gets restless. Grace, Linda, and XiLe MaMa are Christians and TongTong, XiXi, and CoCo moms are seeking to know more about Jesus..

The third open door is at GongDa (University of Technology). Actually we did not officially ask permission, but our Bible study is not an official class. However, God opened the door for us to study with some students. I talk too much and I teach too much. This semester we chose a Bible scripture, and students took turns preparing a list of questions to lead the Bible study. Gerald and Bill Gates became Christians through the student studies. Forrest is always welcome yet remains a faithfully attending skeptic. GongDa has also opened their door and hired me as English teacher next year.

Baby Bird

GaoYan's Dad is like a big kid. He found a baby bird that fell out of its nest. GaoYan’s Dad saved the baby birds life, because a neighborhood cat would have eaten it for lunch. So Caleb, Joy, GaoYan's Dad and all of us have been feeding the bird grasshoppers for the past week. Caleb and Joy take turns carrying the bird on a stick walking through our neighborhood to a grassy place where we catch grasshoppers. Living in our neighborhood four years now, we have kind of become like we know who we want to talk to and pass on by the other folks. With this baby bird we are talking to everybody. “Look at those kids carrying a bird on the stick.” “Isn’t it going to fly away?” “What kind of a bird is it?” “What does it eat?” GaoYan's Dad freezes little bits of meat on a fishing line, then at night catches crawdads from a creek to feed the baby bird. If you have a flashlight you can shine the light right down to the bottom of the creek and see the crawdads crawling. One night the flashlight ran out of battery. Three students came by trying to catch crawdads for their pet turtle. They had a really bright light, but no meat and fishing line. So GaoYan and her Dad worked together with the three students and caught loads of crawdads that night. Caleb and Joy really love the entertainment and responsibility. Caleb and Joy even fight less with each other since the baby bird has been around. I thought we should call it Larry Bird, Caleb calls it Spiderman, and Joy calls it Baby Jesus.

Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Visiting the Old Homestead

One big to-do item before moving to the US for our family was going back to Jingzhou, Hubei. Seth and Caleb were both born there and that's where we lived & ministered for 6 years before coming to Shaoxing. So last week we took a couple of trains and made it back to our Chinese hometown. Our little Jingzhou is all grown up now and even has its own train station!

The weather in Jingzhou is much hotter (and much colder) than Shaoxing and the weather did a real number on us while we were there. Thankfully, a swimming pool that Lisa remembered was still open and we were able to go swimming a few days.

More importantly, we were able to visit a lot of people. We went to Seth's old pre-school where he got an overwhelming reception from his old teachers and classmates.

We hung out with a few of the Christians who are still around from our time there. Lisa volunteered to adopt someone's child. We also got to eat a meal with Derek's family. His mom was sick with cancer last year and this year, but is now doing much better. When Derek asked her why she was better, she quickly smiled and said, "God!"

We also got to visit the orphanage that Lisa & the boys used to go to every week. While we were there, a group from Harding also happened to be there including Jake's sister who told us lots of embarrassing stories about him that we promised not to share in public!

On our last day in Jingzhou, we also got to eat with some of our old neighbors. Our kids all grew up together and played together in the hot Jingzhou sun for several years. Even though our kids don't remember them at all, they had a great time running around the restaurant yelling Chinese and playing together.

One last highlight was getting to eat with Rob & Hannah Johnson during the trip. They are living in our old apartment building at our old school and doing really well. They love Jingzhou, are fitting in well, and seem to be getting into a good China groove. They also cast their vote (along with the Taylor family) for Jingzhou to be the new "go to" place for future individuals from Clear Creek who want to come work in China!

We've got a lot of other stuff to do before heading back to the US, but it was great to re-visit our China home and kind of close out this chapter of our lives.

Friday Night Ladies Children Study

On Friday night, we now have eight moms coming to the study. We have added two additional members, Tongtong’s mom and YiYi’s mom. Grace, Linda, and GaoYan take turns leading the ladies studies. In May, we have been studying a Bible based parenting book call “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Tedd Tripp translated to Chinese. It is a very good book. It teaches parents not just to correct the behavior of a child, but to lead and correct the heart. It reminds parents that our children will either believe in God or worship the idols of a material world. Their acknowledgement of God and relationship with God will shape their view towards everything. The book used the example of Joseph. He was sold as a slave by his brothers. He was in prison and forgotten by his friend. However, he did not turn bitter and hateful. Joseph knew that God was with him everywhere. He forgave his brothers. All the moms are amazed by the knowledge of the Bible. YiYi’s mom went home and read Matthew 5-7. TongTong’s dad said to TongTong’s mom, “I see a change in you. You have been a better wife to me and better mom.” We are all encouraged by the Friday night Bible study and see God’s hand working in our group.

Children's Day at the Little Sheep Church

XiLe MaMa invited us to the Little Sheep Church for June 1 Children’s Day celebration. The Little Sheep Church meets in a small movie studio among renovated warehouses in northern Hangzhou. It is a really cool place to visit. I’m guessing there were at least 500 people all packed in. Their church had prepared well. Attendants helped park cars in the little alleys around the warehouses. A line of people welcomed us at the door clapping and saying “Jesus loves you.” Each child received a gift bag of toys and snacks. Four hosts played games on the stage with kids and performed a short drama about surrendering your own objective to stop and help others. Finally the celebration ended with praise and worship songs. Caleb loved it. Joy sat back with me and GaoYan, but she had fun eating snacks and wearing the glow in the dark glasses.

Our new apartment

I wanted to make another video of our apartment and I wanted the kids to help.  Hallie did not want to be on camera this time, so she offered to be the camera girl.  Eryn and Liam show you around.  We filmed some of this weeks ago. Hallie also did the editing.  When the video was finished it was 9 minutes long.  That is too big to be uploaded to the blog or to Facebook, but it is ok on Youtube.  So here is the link to the video of Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtqR4KEwy4E

In the video, the shower doors look really dirty and there are still some boxes to unpack.  But if I waited until everything was perfect, I would never get anything finished.  I hope the video does not make you too motion sick--Hallie swings the camera around a little bit.  You could always come see us in person. We will see you all in a few weeks.