The 哥哥s!

Phoebe is really enjoying Seth and Caleb Taylor. She calls them the "哥哥s" (pinyin "ge ge", pronounced "guh guh", Chinese for "big brother") with an "s" -- even though Chinese plurals don't require one. Sometimes she will wake up from a nap, or finish doing something else, and suddenly request to go down and play with them. One day, when she was being fussy, we asked, "Do you want to watch TV?" She said, "No..." "Do you want to drink milk?" Again, "No..." "Well, is there anything you DO want?" She said enthusiastically, "Ge-ge's!" So, we went downstairs to play with the ge-ge's. A simple story, but illustrative of the joy in having good neighbors so close by. God bless the ge-ge's!

A Good Stumble

Hey everybody, this is Dale (and Lisa) Taylor. First up, we'd like to welcome ... ourselves to the Clear Creek blog. During our years in China we've kept up a blog about our life and ministry. We've even thrown up occasional pictures of our kids to keep the readers happy. The plan is to keep that other blog up and running for faithful readers, but we'll be writing some of the same stuff here for our friends and family at Clear Creek. Introductions and explanations out of the way - on to the first blog...

Our good Chinese friend from Jingzhou, Derek, came to Shaoxing a few days ago to visit. We all went out riding bikes the other night and wandered into some cool, old looking neighborhoods. We came to a T intersection and Lisa decided to turn right. We immediately heard loud Chinese hymns being sung from an skinny, wooden building. We peeked inside and saw lots of people crammed onto two levels. It seemed incredibly providential, so we all went inside and stayed for about 30 minutes of a singing/prayer meeting. When we left, two sisters came outside and talked to us. They told us that we should really, really come back. We got lots of phone numbers, promised to stay in touch, and see them around at some meetings. Before we left, they also told us that their congregation was started over 100 years ago by Hudson Taylor and it's continued until today. We didn't recognize his Chinese name at first, but then we figured it out. Pretty cool!

Anyway, it's a wonderful example of Him leading and us finding where He's already at work. Of course, we have no idea if and how this will become a part of our ministry here in Shaoxing, but it was definitely cool and an answer to petitions.

Company's comin'!

We have started off this school year here in Shaoxing by having lots of company...lots and lots of company! We invite some students to come over just about every day of the week. We have been really enjoying getting to know all of these new people and trying to determine their level of interest. They are really sweet, and one thing that is a little different from our previous school is, they are from all over China. At ZUST, we met lots of students from Zhejiang province, but these kids come from everywhere: Sichuan, Hubei, Guangxi, Guizhou, etc. That is kind of neat and makes for more of a variety of attitudes. We had some kids over one night to cook, and we all chopped vegetables together and then took turns cooking our signature dish. That was fun. Please keep the kids in your prayers, that they will have open minds and be made aware of their thirsty souls. Keep us in your prayers, too, for discernment and stamina.

Moon Festival on Lover’s Slope

Maybe Moon Festival is like America’s Thanksgiving in that it is the second most important family holiday. So GaoYan was kind of feeling down because she was not with her family.
One of our friends called and announced “We are hunting moon cakes on the lover’s slope.” Hunting moon cakes? I wonder if that is anything like hunting Easter eggs? The lover’s slope is the grassy hillside notorious among the students for the place to take your girlfriend. It was already dark, but the full moon provided a good amount of light. The adults had hidden the moon cakes around the lover’s slope and the kids were running around with flash lights trying to find them. Several kids had these paper lanterns for hunting moon cakes and the first thing that came to my mind was Halloween jack-o-lanterns. The kids would run and trip down the hillside crushing and tearing the paper lanterns. They had a great time. Caleb got all sweaty with his hair full of grass. Moon cakes are like three Fig Newtons pressed together or lots of people say they are like Christmas fruit cakes. Every Moon Festival I wonder, “How did we end up with so many moon cakes.” You try to give them away which backfires, because the person you gave them to brings back twice as many in return. We did manage to lose two moon cakes during the night hunting, a step in the right direction. Maybe a boyfriend girlfriend couple will find them on Valentine’s Day for a snack.
Finally we lit a kongming deng, a miniature hot air balloon. I wouldn’t expect the kongming deng to ever become a Fourth of July tradition in the States because of the fire hazard. We started the paper lantern burning at the bottom of the lover’s slope which was a big mistake. Each time we thought the lantern was ready to fly the wind would blow it back down on the lover’s slope sending lovers scattering and us chasing after it. I heard several students yelling out Joshua and laughing, but I couldn’t see who they were. After four more tries, the flaming lantern had finally reached the top of the slope with nowhere to go but up. We all oooed and awed as the flaming flying paper lantern rose and the wind blew it across the full moon.

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.