National holiday week

So my first week back in Changzhi has been quite busy. I came in Tuesday night at around 11pm. That was after my 8 hour layover in Beijing where I decided to venture out into the city, alone. So brave! I went into downtown and shopped for a few hours and found a Subway Restaurant!! yay! I ate it with such joy. 

Anyway On wednesday morning I went with Jenny to a Chinese Wedding which was exciting. It was so different from our weddings. Usually the bride wears red but many traditions are falling to the wayside just like in America, so the bride wore white. Lots of fireworks, confetti-cannons, red everywhere. You first go to the Grooms and pick him up then take him to the brides home where he must pass red envelopes of money under the door until her friends finally let him in then we have to hunt for the brides shoes and if we don't find them the groom must carry her to the wedding. Then we drive to the wedding a different way than we came from. The wedding is usually in a restaurant, but this one was in the courtyard at the grooms home. The groom must carry the bride to the isle while his friends heckle him and push them and spin them around. People shoot silly string at them and throw confetti on them. Good times! Then once they get to the alter they walk down a red carpet and have confetti cannons explode everywhere. Good times. They do all these little things together on stage then they kiss and we go eat! 

Then On thursday I went to the mountain with Hellena and Dangdang and a friend of theirs Christina. We saw the pretty gardens, and village built in the mountain. We saw another temple. Then we went to this huge statue thats built in the mountain for the God of Agriculture. 

Statue.

Tao symbol

Fall

Resting in the mountains 

The temple in the gardens of the mountain.

Ok while in the mountain we found these games you could pay for kids to play and this was one of them! Built on the side of the mountain. Ironically this was the safest one! The kid gets in and holds on to straps that are inside...ummm no thanks!

Friday I went shopping in the market alone and bought some necessities for the house. Lets just say my apartment is now going to be called the cave because it is so cold in here all the time! Even when it's hot outside. What is up with that??

Saturday I went to the post office and mailed my absentee ballot... yes even from China I can

 vote. Yay! Then for dinner I went to this friends grandmothers house and she taught me how to make dumplings... I'm horrible at making dumplings. I've decided you must actually be Chinese to be able to perfect the art of dumplings.

Church today and my first official day of class tomorrow. Yay! Hopefully that will go well. I only have one class in the morning so thats good. 

Camp Shamineau

Hello faithful readers! So instead of attempting to post a million pictures on here of Inner Mongolia I'm going to post the link to my facebook photo albums and you can see the pictures for yourself. here they are..

Where God's hands touch Earth

This album is full of pictures of the area that surrounded camp but the pictures do not do it justice. This place was literally the most beautiful place I have ever seen, I continued taking pictures while I was there and never captured what I wanted to. 

If you'll notice in the beginning all the trees are Green, then they turn Yellow, and right before I left they all fell off. I was there at the best time.

The Grace I found in the grasslands

These are pictures of my friends that I made while there and the students doing different activities. 

TRICKS!

These are more pictures of the people at camp and fun happenings. 

We taught at a teacher training program where middle school and high school teachers would come and practice their vocabulary, pronunciation, and learn about the culture. The teachers would stay for one week at a time, so I helped teach one week then lead two other weeks of separate classes. The last few days we were there we had an international school from Shanghai come. Teenage angst is my favorite! First of all let me just say I have no sympathy for a 15 year old in Shanghai living in a place where he gets American football on his television ok!? haha anyway Ruth mainly worked with them and she did a great job. 

The camp was located about 3 hours away through the grasslands from Hailaer, the only other city closer to us was a city about 2 hours away that I cant spell so I'm not even going to try. We were about 15 kilometers away from the Russian border, and when we climbed the hill beside camp we could see it, so that was fun! 

At night when the clouds broke the stars stretched the entire horizon. It was like being wrapped in a blanket, as Ruth put it. You could see every star in creation and you could vividly see the milky way. You know when we went Canoeing in Canada a few years ago with my Dad I was disappointed I didn't see the Northern Lights, this made up for it. Though I still want to see the northern lights sometime. 

Ok I should go run and stop eating potato chips haha. 

God Bless!

Grace

There are concepts of Christianity that I blindly believe and unfortunately do not take the time to truly conceive them until they directly effect me. Knowing my heart before I can hear it's needs is the particular topic that I want to discuss here. I believe, and have lived God knowing my needs, and desires of my heart long before I am aware of what I should be asking for. This experience at the Shamineau East camp in Inner Mongolia brought this all to light for me. 

I was nervous about leaving Changzhi even though I was very bored and becoming lonely here at times. Still, flying into the unknown again is never a simple task for me. I was in constant prayer to the point of fear when it came to my travels to Hailaer. I was sad about leaving my new friends on my birthday, about being away from constant interaction with my family and friends in America. Now I see that what I was truly sad about was the loneliness that was beginning to creep into my lifestyle here, the melancholy lifestyle I was living while waiting for work to begin. God knows this, he knows what our spirit is actually asking for even though we confuse it for something completely different. Displacement. 

I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful God's miracles have been for me this past month. First of all Inner Mongolia is the most beautifully serene place I have ever seen in my short lived life. Being in that place made me feel so elated. I was flushed clean by the spirit. I finally broke. Those feelings I mentioned in the previous post of starting to feel God break walls in me, those walls shattered and a new me was created in this place. Sometimes I think our hearts become calloused and our spirit may be trapped within these rough, cold walls; but here I became warm again. I wrote, and ran everyday. I prayed, cried, and took every breath slowly just to become apart of this place. These hills that appeared to have Gods finger strokes imbedded into them from the beginning of time. 

Thinking this experience was the right choice as I drove, thinking that was enough of a blessing to fill myself, expecting to need or desire nothing more than this, but I was wrong. This is the part where I emphasize God knowing our hearts and desires before we do. I hadn't realized how desperately I was longing for peer interaction.  That this loss, this adjustment was the thing making me so exhausted mentally and physically. Then I met Ruth.

Instantly when Ruth came into my life I felt at ease. I felt comforted, that I belonged somewhere, and that somewhere was in her company.  It's like God heard both our prayers, then he heard both our hearts and said 'Ok ladies for three weeks I'm going to give you someone to laugh until you cry with, to be sarcastic with, to pray with, to lose your voice from singing really bad pop music with, to run with, to BE with... no strings attached, nothing in return, nothing fake, no effort, just friendship take it and go.' Nothing has come to me so simplistically in my entire life. 

Shamineau became a sanctuary for me. It was so beautiful, I had time to be alone, time to read, time to run, time to be with people with my same sense of humor in person! It was a place of comfort foods, and religious connections. It was a place to fall in love with people who don't even speak the same language as you. Something I needed to learn, true love languages of people. The realization that love infrequently is spoken though words.

I feel that there is more I should say here, more things I should describe but I feel Ive reached the most intimate of this time. I will go back there, and I am am strengthened by my experience. 

I will sing to the Lord all my life, I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. 

-Psalms 104:33

Mongolia

So I'm on my way to Inner Mongolia tonight. I'll be in the grasslands outside of Hailar. I hope this is a good experience. I'm sure it will be. I'll be up there for about two and a half weeks working at an English camp, living in a yurt. Pretty pumped. This means I'll be away from my blog for the next two and a half weeks so don't expect any fabulous works of literature anytime soon.

A lot of changes have been taking place in me lately. This is turning into a really moving experience. I'm beginning to realize that one of the reasons for me coming here was to break down walls I had built up around myself. More on that later. Time to catch a plane.

Marriage advice from david.

David's Advice for finding a Husband, written on the back of a Pizza Hut Menu.

"Kill 'em with kindness"

Ok this post is irrelevant of China, and is not referencing anything specific I just want to know what others opinions on this topic might be.

So during church today I was reading through the scripture, which I've begun doing a lot at church since I don't speak chinese but I do read English.. it's rather convenient.

Anyway, I come across Romans 12: 17-21 which is a chapter many of us have heard, even non-christians have been told this I'm sure. 

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirst, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." -- Romans 12:17-21 NIV

Ok so here's what I began to consider, I feel these verses have been transposed into the infamous saying "Kill them with kindness" and in a way I can see where "you will heap burning coals on his head" can be interpreted to mean that. However, I find another meaning in this. I see "killing with kindness" and the idea of this as sin in itself. I thing the purpose of these verses is to take anger, and resentment out of our own lives so in turn we lead more promising, uplifting lives. Killing with kindness is still a concept of vengefulness. It seems to me this theory is just as bad as actually hurting a person. Your intent is still the same, you still put as much effort, and frustration into both actions, killing with kindness, or out right anger. It seems that it wastes even more negative energy to be overly kind to another person when in your heart you do not feel like being kind to them, and truly if you aren't being kind in your heart then you aren't being loving the way God wants you to love. So should we actually attempt to kill people with kindness, your mentality stays the same. Turning the other cheek, offering a helping hand to an enemy through genuine kindness is much more difficult of a task I believe. This aspect takes much more prayer, meditation, and devotion to God to muster up the courage and strength to be kind to someone we would put as strong of a term towards as enemy.  I know for me it would be next to impossible at some moments. This is a fact I am embarrassed to admit. Who wants to admit that they are weaker than their anger towards an enemy? Yet I feel this is where the importance of this verse is found. I can NOT brush past anger or resentment and then continue on to compassion, adoration, and even love for someone I consider an enemy without leaning on the strength of Christ. The teachings of Paul, though at times are extremely confusing to me, as many people feel I'm sure, seem to serve such a purpose on so many different levels. These verses I have brushed by so many times thinking "of course we aren't suppose to be vengeful... easy enough to understand" stopped me today with this concept of how many of us actually stop these emotions as they rage inside of us and attempt to actually change them? Not just an outward physical change but an inward emotional change? Which causes our relationship with God to grow, or even our relationship with knowing ourselves to grow. You don't have to be a Christian to understand the struggle it takes for a person to change their mentality of life. 

So in stopping and reading this, what are your thoughts? Am I wrong in my concept of "killing with kindness"? How vengeful and yet all the same forgiving God do we serve? Of even in a non-religious aspect, how difficult is it to truly lend a helping hand with genuine kindness to an enemy? 

**Birthday Week expands Oceans**

The beginning of this post is solely for my parents because they will find the humor in it more than others. 

SO David and Ann are in town getting things squared away before they return to the US and they decided that they wanted to take the sisters and me out to eat. The sisters chose pizza hut because they'd never been there before and I was so glad! Oh sweet nectar that is American food! So we get to the restaurant and David announces to everyone that we are eating here to celebrate my birthday since it's exactly two weeks away! hahaha I laughed so hard and thought "wheres mom and dad when I need them" Yes birthday week even expands oceans, and maybe due to the time change, probably something about the international date line that no matter how hard I try I will never truly understand, my birthday week has stretched to two weeks now instead of just one;) hahaha. Then David went and asked for a birthday crown but unfortunately they didn't understand so they gave him a birthday button instead it says "I am 08" Sure I'll be eight again thats cool.  Then David had everyone sing to me, and today he took me to buy a toaster oven as a gift. hahaha He kept saying today that it was because of my birthday, and after all that he gave me a pocket chinese to english dictionary that has Pin ying in it which is amazing! Here I thought birthday week was going to skip a year... 

So I took all these pictures of pizza hut because of all the times the sisters made fun of me and my slow progress with chopsticks I was able to laugh at them and their attempts at using knives and forks, and even though I told them they should just use their hands to eat pizza, they refused.

There was ketchup on the table and the sisters wanted to try it on the pizza... I was clearly hesitant... 

The pizza was so amazing! It tasted very similar to real pizza hut, but this resturaunt was so fancy! It's pretty expensive too, but it was a great treat to relax and not have noodles for a change. Then after we sat in there for two and a half hours we decided to walk for a while. We walked towards the square and stopped in the park to take some fun pics, then we headed on home. All in all a great evening. 

Today I went and ate hot pot with Ann and David at this fancy restaurant where I managed to spill an entire bowl of sesame sauce (watery peanut butter-esque stuff) all over myself! Go me! That was probably because it's my bi-birthday week, it's part of the celebration. Before I did that though I saw this man making noodles so I took a video so you could see how it's done, unfortunately it's sideways because I can't get iphoto to flip my videos.. 

Also this week, I've been teaching at a school here in Changzhi where they have displaced an entire school of earthquake victims. 1000 students and 100 teachers have been brought here to live, and study. They will stay here for a minimum of 3 years while the government tries to locate a new location for their school to be rebuilt. I'll be going there more regularly throughout the year to teach, I'm looking forward to that. Here's some pictures I took there. 

Ok finally, I got my schedule for the school year! 16 hours of freshman oral english. I teach four classes, twice a week each for two hours each session. Down side: School doesn't begin for freshmen until October 6th! Yeah... so we'll see how I busy myself for the month.