Laws

We were driving to GaoYan’s hometown for the Spring Festival. Just before we turned at a traffic light to get on the highway, a policeman stood in the middle of the road and stopped our car. “Turn over there and pay your traffic fines.” I remember back, being stopped by a policeman in America when I was much younger. My heart was pounding and racing and my hands sweating. This time was all very friendly. The policemen were laughing and joking. Another man was smiling paying his traffic fines. He communicated two words to me in English, “pay money.”

600 yuan! What did I do? It’s not really what I did, but the traffic eyes of Hangzhou have been well developed in the past year. There are radars and cameras at every intersection now. A speeding ticket, four parking tickets, and an unauthorized right turn on red.

Of course, I have a perfectly good explanation for my speeding ticket. We were driving across this long bridge, speed limit 40 mph. Suddenly without warning the speed limit changes to 20 mph at the end of the bridge with radars and cameras. That’s not fair.

We were over the limit so GaoYan had to walk to another office to pay the money. Our Sunny car was all loaded up for the journey, Caleb and Joy sitting in the back seat. I was circling around probably amassing more traffic tickets. Phone call, “Josh, they need you to come sign the paper.” “There’s nowhere to park. How can I come in and sign the paper?” Poor GaoYan had to put all the points on her driver’s license, but they were mostly my mistakes.

Two weeks later driving in downtown Hangzhou. I slowly eased up to a red light centered perfectly in my lane. I was studying the intersection planning my path so I would not get another violation. I noticed policemen had stopped a group of seven or eight pedestrians who had just walked across the road. They were digging in pockets and purses for their ID. Yes, that’s right, walking tickets! The policemen were pointing down the block to the walking overpass. You have to walk up the stairs, across the overpass, down the stairs carrying your heavy bags of vegetables. Walking across the road at this intersection is very dangerous.

Drive perfectly in the center of the white lines, park just right in the box, walk inside the fence. You better do it right or “pay money.” I guess if you have a lot of people you need a lot of laws. As time goes on the new laws keep piling up and they feel such a heavy burden

Amazing the law of the Lord is so old yet revives the soul, makes wise the simple, …

Psalm 19:7-11
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold;
They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.


Caleb and Joy delighting in the law of the Lord posted on the walls of a church.

Selling Our House Conversations

We have loved living here, the views of the mountains and lots of space to run and play on the university campus. However, there is not an elementary school really convenient, and we live on the sixth floor with no elevator. And we live a good way out of the city. So other people do not think our house is amazing as we have.

In America you can just tell one realtor you are selling your house and they will take care of the rest. China is different. The more people, realtors and friends, you tell you are selling your house, the more people will come and look at your house.

We are praying that people who come to look at our home will know we love Jesus.

So in the month of February we had these conversations:

Teacher Wang and her husband came to look at our house. One of Teacher Wang’s responsibilities is to keep relationships with students that graduated from the university, especially the ones who become very successful and might donate some money. She is Communist but Teacher Wang’s personality is bubbly and she races everywhere she goes. Teacher Wang is friends with 1000 people, surely one of them would buy our house? GaoYan and I have been friends with Teacher Wang for five years now. She lives in our neighborhood. When Caleb was little and got sick she arranged a car to take us to the hospital. “You call me when Joy is ready to be born. I will send a car in 10 minutes.” For two years I taught Teacher Wang’s daughter YiYi and some of YiYi’s friends English lessons. Now YiYi is studying in Oklahoma. GaoYan’s parents had cooked up a big Spring Festival visiting dinner to welcome Teacher Wang and her husband. I asked, “Does YiYi have some good friends in America? She needs to be careful. Some friends can be a bad influence.” GaoYan suggested, “YiYi should go to a church in America. They will really love her and take care of her.” I have tried, but I estimate that I have not planted any spiritual seeds in Teacher Wang’s family in the past five years. Then GaoYan’s Mom and Dad started in, “You need to go to church. Believe in Jesus.” It was like turning on a bright light of truly considering on Teacher Wang and her husband’s face. Same culture, same generation, the words of GaoYan’s parents carried so much greater influence than my two years of visiting Teacher Wang’s house for English lessons.

Shelly came to see our house along with Shelly’s sister, sister’s husband and their son. Shelly is such a strong evangelistic Christian leader in the JiuLian church. We were all sitting at the table, chatting, and cracking sunflower seeds. Their son was playing Legos with Caleb. “So is your sister a Christian?” Actually they are strong Buddhist believers. GaoYan’s parents were busy boiling up a big batch of meat filled jiaozi. The husband said, “No thank you. I can’t eat that. I have been a strict Buddhist vegetarian for 10 years.” GaoYan’s parents said, “We’ll make some vegetable jiaozi real quick.” Shelly is a strong Christian and her sister’s family strong Buddhists, I wonder if they ever talk about their faith or avoid the topic to keep peace? We are grateful the topic came up at our kitchen table.

A group of three realtors came to see the house. The one named 雅各 saw a Bible sitting on the coffee table and asked, “Are you Christians?” Then the two other realtors said “雅各is a Christian too. His whole family are Christians.” 雅各 YaGe is James. Praise God that James the realtor is shining his light for Jesus in his workplace. (That is the first time I have met someone in China with an actual Bible name.)

Fujian

We drove to Fujian, the province just to the south of our Zhejiang, for a travel trying to find warmer weather. From the highway we could see Fujian has many many more temples than our Zhejiang. We stayed in a big city Xiamen on the ocean. Caleb and Joy played in the sand at the beach and we rode bicycles one day by the sea.



Then we stayed out in the countryside at the Tulou. “Tulou” means earth buildings. The Hakka minority built these large earth buildings about 200 or 300 years ago for protection. Many of the Tulou are round, with three or four stories inside. Up to 70 families typically sharing the same family name can live all together in one Tulou. There was a path along a small river connecting 10 different Tulou and small villages together. Giant trees grew by the side of the river. The best part of the Tulou area was the hotel where we stayed. A local family had added on to their house and made it a hotel. Each day the whole family was working hard to keep the hotel clean and make small repairs. They fixed home cooked meals for us. For example, home raised chicken soup with milk root dug up from the mountain. For breakfast, rice porridge with sun dried, pickled vegetable that grew everywhere around the Tulou. The grandmother of the family was an elementary school teacher. She used to live in the Tulou when she was a young girl.





We loved the visit in the countryside Tulou much more than big city Xiamen.

Dr. Kirt Martin Lecture

David and Annie reserved a nice big room at Cloud Coffee, close to the Yellow Dragon stadium. Cloud Coffee Shop had everything we needed: screen for displaying PPT, lights, microphones, a side room for watching children. Chinese Lucy invited a friend who video recorded the speeches for us. We counted about 35 adults and 6 children. The JiuLian church family came and several ladies from our neighborhood. There were about 10 visitors I had never seen before. Ronald, the Hardin’s friend, traveled from across the river.

David translated for Dr. Martin’s first class: geological evidence that the Earth is young, not millions and billions of years old. Elaine translated for the second class: there is not one bit of proof that one species has evolved into another species. The fossil record evidence shows many species all appearing at the same time, all fully formed eyes, spinal cords, limbs, skeletons, stomachs, intestines, digestive glands.

Dr. Martin’s wife, Nancy, arrived in China one week before he did. Kirt and Nancy have two girls, one in Ukraine and one here in Hangzhou. Kirt and Nancy visit their girls, sons-in-law, and grandchildren every year. So not only did we enjoy Dr. Martin’s lecture, we enjoyed Kirt and Nancy being part of our church family for almost a month.

Forrest A New Brother In Christ

David prepared a great flyer for our church family to invite friends to the lecture. David and Annie handed out flyers to parents of their sons’ soccer team. One father named Forrest was greatly moved by the lectures. Forrest had been reading the Bible and going to another church, so he was excited to receive the invitation from David and certain to attend. When I met Forrest, I asked him if he is a Christian. He said, “I believe in Jesus and I’m reading the Bible and I go to a church. I have not been baptized yet.”

After the lecture David and Annie invited everyone to a big dinner at a restaurant. Forrest was sitting between GaoYan and Annie. They started talking and Forrest was saying the same things he said to me, “I believe in Jesus and I’m reading the Bible and I go to a church. I have not been baptized yet.” GaoYan catches on pretty fast, “You could get baptized tonight. What are you waiting for?” Forrest wanted his wife and son to see him get baptized, so we planned for Tuesday night, New Year’s Eve.

So Forrest’s baptism was our New Year's Eve party. Forrest wanted Dr. Martin to baptize him. We all gathered at David and Annie's house. Forrest brought his wife, eight year old son, and his wife's sister. Annie invited another friend from their neighborhood. Elaine and Margaret and Margaret’s daughter came. We sang some songs. We took time to explain baptism carefully in Chinese. Dr. Martin prayed for Forrest’s new life in Jesus Christ. What a great celebration.

Christmas Party 2013

We felt greatly encouraged by the Christmas party held in the Little Peace Mountain (Xiao He Shan) Church. It was fun. God was putting this party together like a jigsaw puzzle and it was a masterpiece. In China you are not really having a party unless you have a variety/talent show. There were more than 100 people Christians, family, and friends from around Hangzhou. There were more than 10 acts in the variety show. Behind each act I can remember years of ministry and friendships connecting Christian brothers and sisters in Hangzhou.

1. Sunday church family adults sang Christmas carols in English. We practiced the whole month of December.
2. Margaret’s daughter and her teacher played violin. (Margaret’s husband was at the party)
3. Sunday church family children acted out the birth of Jesus. Caleb was an angel. Joy was Mary. David & Annie’s two boys were shepherds. The two McDougle boys were Joseph and a shepherd. Lucy McDougle prepared some crafty props. It is amazing what you can do with a cardboard box stable and pillow cases for angel and shepherd’s costumes. GaoYan narrated in Chinese, so the children did not have any speaking parts. One lady from the church walked up to GaoYan after and asked to keep the script. “Sure it is all straight from the Bible.”
4. LinLi’s mom played “Amazing Grace” and “As the Deer” on the flute. LinLi’s Dad gave a short testimony about his faith in Jesus. (Just one year ago LinLi’s Mom and Dad made a big change to believe in Jesus. They brought LinLi’s grandparents. LinLi’s Dad is also teaching his mom about Jesus.)
5. Our neighborhood ladies performed a funny skit. A popular TV show in China stops ordinary people on the street to ask questions. The question for the skit, “What do you know about Christmas?” CoCo MaMa was a business woman and she had many items on sale at her shop for Christmas. TongTong MaMa was a Christmas shopping girl carrying her real Gucci, Armani, and three more parties to attend that night. Teacher Linda’s life was deeply troubled, and each Christmas seemed to mark another sad depressing time. Finally they stopped Grace on the street, a Christian who shared about the special gift of Jesus in her life. CoCo MaMa, a real life business woman, and TongTong MaMa, a real life shopper, are not Christians. We pray that acting out, performing those roles would help them realize that Jesus is the greater purpose and plan for their life.
6. Neighborhood children sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children” and other songs in Chinese.
7. JiuLian group performed “You Are Special” a children’s book by Max Lucado. There is a society of puppets called Wemmicks. Every day they go around sticking stars on each other for good things, or dots for bad mistakes and mess ups. Poor Shelly from JiuLian only had bad dots. Until she met one girl who did not have any stars or dots. The stars and dots would not even stick to the girl. She recommended to Shelly, “Each day I go and talk to Eli.” Eli was creator of all the puppets. Eli told Shelly it is not important what all the other puppets think of you. I made you. You are special and I love you. Interesting, Clear Creek church gave that book to our family for Joy’s baby shower. Many friends wrote their best wishes on the inside cover. By chance, GaoYan had two weeks earlier just read/translated the book to our neighborhood ladies and they loved it, loved it.
8. Angela and ten of her students sang Christmas carols and “Amazing Grace” accompanied by LinLi’s mom on the flute. Angela is a new English teacher in Hangzhou. She has a reading and book club each Saturday night with her students at ZUST.

Margaret was the master of ceremonies again this year. Dan ran the computer, PPT, sound. Many friends helped decorate the church. The JiuLian group came with servant hearts. They served food until everyone was served, then they ate. They stayed after until everything was cleaned up.

Watching the performances and seeing everyone working together I was thinking we are surrounded by great Christian brothers and sisters in Hangzhou.

The picture is kind of blurry but you can see what a small local church looks like. Everyone is sitting in the pews but we are eating and fellowshipping.

Pavilion Student Study

The student study at my university gained momentum in November. Dan invited two of his friends Will and student Elaine. Forrest invited one of his friends, but they were sleeping late that morning, and didn’t make it. Jackie, one of my graduate students, asked if I could help his English in preparing for the IELTS test. Sure, we have a Bible discussion each Friday. You are welcome to join. Jackie has been coming each week, and as a result Dan told him about Angela Thrasher’s Saturday night (good) book reading club. We have the student study in a pagoda sitting on the side where the warm sun shines in. One week another of my graduate students, Yuan (Chinese money), was walking by. Yuan stopped in the pagoda to say hi and stayed to listen to the Bible study. Yuan came again the next week. Ironic that Yuan would be studying the Bible with us. He delivered a beautiful communist propaganda speech in my English class. Certainly Yuan is not the student I would have chosen to take part in our study, but perhaps the Lord has chosen Yuan. We have studied through John 15 now. The students take turns preparing questions from the text to lead our discussion.