new pictures!

I've posted some new pictures on facebook! If you don't use facebook, you can just click on the link below to get to the pictures. :) Most of them are from an afternoon I spent walking around at an Agricultural university in Wuhan...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010131&id=1121670006&l=a97adb7fe3

enjoy!

family in need

Yesterday, a woman from my ch--ch here had a baby boy. The baby is healthy, and the mother is recovering nicely, but there were a few complications during the delivery, and they were forced to do a C-section, and the baby is in an incubator. The problem is, the couple had set aside money for the hospital expenses related to the delivery, but the money they set aside was for a natural birth... and the C-section and incubator are costing a lot more than they had bargained for. Also, the mother is going to have to stay in the hospital for about a week to recover from her C-section, and that wasn't in the budget either. So we (the ch--ch) have been getting money together to help them pay the bills, and a group of us went to visit them in the hospital today. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the baby--not even the mother has had a chance to see him! Also, she told us today that she's still in a lot of pain from the operation, and can't even move enough to get into the wheelchair. Please keep them in your pr-yers, that the Father would provide the money they need, and that the mother would have a speedy recovery!

Halfway done? Already?!

I just realized that my semester in China is exactly halfway over. I've been here for 70 days, and I'm going home in 70 more. When I first got here, I wanted nothing more than to fast-forward to this point, so that I'd be closer to going home. Now, I'm really sad that my time here is going by so quickly! Not that I don't miss home... I'll be sad to leave China, but I AM looking forward to seeing everyone back home again! And occasionally, there are days where I would like nothing more than to be back at home with my family, playing board games or running around in the backyard with my little sisters and the camera. But there's still SO much I want to do/see/experience while I'm here... I'm hoping that the next 70 days go by MUCH more slowly than the first 70 did! But they say time flies when you're having fun... and I'm definitely having fun. :)

There's a party in Heaven today!!!!

I'm on a roll! Usually I go a few weeks between updates, but this is my second update in the past 12 hours! This is just some news that can't wait:

One of my Chinese friends came to faith today! :)

About a week and a half ago, she told me that she was interested in the Bi-le and that a mutual friend of ours had taught her some truths from it, but that she still had a lot of questions. I invited her to join us for our Easter service last week, and her English is good, but she had a hard time understanding the speakers' accents and some of the old-fashioned words in the hymns. Still, she enjoyed it and came back for more this week! After the service and our weekly lunch, a group of us went to a cafe nearby to talk some more. (The cafe was a nice surprise! I'd walked past it a few times, but I had never stopped to check it out. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but after you walk in the door and go up a flight of stairs, you're suddenly in a cozy little cafe that doubles as a Chri--ian book store. I'll definitely be back.) It was a group of six of us: a Korean girl, a Hungarian guy, a Chinese girl who believes, me, my friend, and a Chinese guy who was also looking for some answers. Everyone else in the group spoke Chinese pretty well, so most of the conversation was in Chinese. I didn't always understand all of the conversation, but I could pick out some key words, and they stopped every once in a while to translate and ask my opinion. For some reason, the Chinese guy was under the impression that I had the best understanding of the Word because I'm American (what?! ok...), so there were a few times where he would open it up to a verse, show it to me, and ask me what it meant. I don't usually like to be put on the spot like that, and there were a few times where I looked at the verse and just couldn't think of anything good to say, or the verse just didn't seem relevant, but we have a faithful Father, and He gave me the words. (There were times when I was a little surprised impressed at what was coming out of my mouth... they were 100% His words, not mine!) Some of the questions he asked were pretty hard. At one point, he opened it to Matt. 5:31-32, where Je-us forbids divorce except for in cases of unfaithfulness and declares that marrying a divorced woman is adultery. He said, "There are many Chri--ians in America, and they are supposed to follow G-d's law. So why are there so many divorced Chri--ians in America?" (hmmm... what do you even say to that?) I explained to him that we have a problem with nominal "Chri--iannity" in America, and that adultery is a sin, just like any other sin, and that although Chri--ians try to obey G-d's law, we still struggle with sin, and we won't be perfect until the Father returns to make all things right. (Again, I can't take credit for that. That would be plagiarism... or something like that.) After about 2 hours of talking, reading verses, and translating everything back and forth, the four others left, but my friend (we'll call her Jill) still had some questions, so we stayed to talk some more. Her English isn't perfect, but we were able to communicate pretty well. (Plus, she had a handy-dandy little translator that came in handy when we came across a word that I couldn't say in Chinese and she couldn't understand in English.) She had a lot of questions about sin, Judas, the Trinity, eternity, etc. The H. Spirit was definitely with me, showing me were to take her in the Bi-le to show her the answers to her questions. (The other Chinese girl had left her Chinese-English Bi-le there for us, and that came in really handy--I could look up a verse and have "Jill" read it in Chinese.) A lot of the verses I took her to were verses that I'd learned in song-form as a kid. Just goes to show that those "silly" little songs we learn in Sunday School are really important!
She eventually told me that she really admired Je-us and wanted to be like him, but so far, she had been trying to do it in her own strength. And she had pr-yed to G-d before to tell him she was happy, to ask him to protect her family, or to ask for his help with something, but now she was ready to face her sin and to ask for His forgiveness and His help to become more like Chr-st. So I told her to tell Je-us exactly what she had just told me, and we pr-yed together right there! Then I hugged her and told her that the Bible says that they have a party in Heaven every time there's a new "sheep". :) It was so exciting to see er genuinely understand the Go-pel for the first time! We sat and talked for a little while after that, about how Chri--ians aren't perfect, but that the H. Spirit comes to live in us and to help us become more Chri-tlike, and how the Go-pel and our inability to be perfect in our own strength frees us from the pressure of having to be perfectionists, not only morally, but also in our school work, etc. (Chinese students tend to put themselves under a tremendous amount of pressure.) NOT that we shouldn't strive for perfection, but that we should do our best to the glory of G-d, and that He loves us and forgives us even when we fail. From the things that she said, I'm confident that she really does understand the Go-pel. It's such a blessing to be the one G-d used for His will in her life! I feel unworthy. And the conversation was a blessing to me as well. Not only did I get to see the Kingdom get a little bit bigger, but I also was reminded again of G-d's incredible love for us, and the endless grace He as for us.

As we always said in Philly...

"Glory!" :)

Shanghai!

Ok, I FINALLY got around to uploading some (well, a lot) of the pictures I took in Shanghai a few weekends ago. It was a really fun weekend!

We got up early Saturday morning to catch our flight to Shanghai. After we arrived and got settled into the hostel, we headed downtown. As soon as we got off the Subway, we spotted Madame Tussauds, so we HAD to check it out. SO much fun!

For more Madame Tussauds pictures, click here.

That night, we strolled around downtown for a while, (it was raining all night, but that didn't stop us!) We ended at a "German" restaurant/bar. The food was good, but the atmosphere was definitely... memorable. Most of the other patrons were either middle-aged white guys with young Chinese ladies or 12 to 15-year olds with their parents, excited to be out "late". (It was only about 9 or 10.) The music was provided by a Chinese band playing classic rock. (Or at least... attempting to.) And the employees were all wearing Dirndls. I asked our waitress to take a picture with me:

We woke up Sunday morning to beautiul sunshine and perfect springtime temperatures. I enjoyed a nice "American" breakfast (including toast, scrambled eggs, and cereal) on the roof of the hostel, and then we spent the whole day strolling around the city. First, we went to a park near our hostel and strolled around, looking at the flowers and such.

The weather was perfect, and the grass was really nice and soft, so we sat/layed on the grass for a little while, until a security guard came and blew a whistle at us to shoo us away. :( But it was fun while it lasted!

(This is my friend/travel buddy Luiza, from Algeria!)

We spent the rest of the day strolling around different areas of Shanghai. Luiza has been to Shanghai, so she knew her way around, which was nice. She even showed me where the Dunkin' Donuts was, so I got to have a real donut and a nice big cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, which I have been craving ever since I arrived in China!

That evening, we went to the Bund and walked around for a while...

...and then we went to the other side of the Huangpu River and enjoyed the view from across the river.

Click here for more pictures of Shanghai (Saturday night and Sunday afternoon)

And click here for evern MORE pictures of Shanghai (Sunday afternoon/night)

Happy Easter!

He is Risen! :)

We definitely serve a faithful Father. I just got back from a 3-hour Easter service that wasn't anything like any service I've ever been to back home. As some of you know, I found a ch-rch family here about a week and a half after I came to Wuhan. It was a real blessing! I had asked some of my friends/relatives to pr-y that I would find at least ONE Believing friend here... and G-d went above and beyond my expectations by sending me a whole CH-RCH! (I've told this story a few times already, so if you've heard this already, you can go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. ;) ) Anyway, the church was started a few years ago by a group of about six men from Fiji. They got together every Sunday to study the Bi-le and to pr-y together. Other people started hearing about this and joining in, and soon the bedroom in the dorm that they were meeting in was too small for everyone to fit. So they asked the university for permission to use a bigger room. Normally, that wouldn't happen in China, but eventually, the university provided a room for them to meet in. After a while, they outgrew that room too, and had to move to a bigger room. They (we) currently meet in a room in the basement of our international students' dorm, and even that room is starting to get a little small! The members are students from all over the world: Fiji, Lesotho, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Korea, Poland, Russia, Ecuador... and some random Islands in the South Pacific that I can't really remember. And we have a few locals as well, but it's a little risky for them to join us. There's a HUGE variety of denominations, ages (we even have a family with 2 kids!), and backgrounds, but (as cheesy as this sounds) we all have Je-us in common.

Our Easter service today was nothing like any service I've ever been to back home. For one thing, it lasted THREE HOURS. (But strangely, I never got bored!) For another thing, we had a group of Chri-tians from Beijing (well, most of them are originally from Tonga, they live in Beijing) here this weekend, so they helped lead the service and they added their own "touch".

(Communion)

A lot of the Tongans (men included) were wearing these really interesting straw skirt-thingies around their waists. And the visiting "Reverend Benjamin" used liturgy from the Tongan hymnal to lead Communion.

After church, we had lunch together. Usually, some of the women cook some rice, a sauce with chicken and vegetables, and potato salad for lunch, but this Sunday, the church from Beijing provided lunch: KFC. I felt right at home! (Until some people started using chopsticks for their fried chicken!)
And for dessert, we had German Schwarzwälder Kirsch Torte! (It wasn't completely authentic-- the Chinese tend to overuse whipped cream, and the cake part is usually really spongy, but as far as Chinese cakes go, it was pretty good!)


Last night, we went to a school for blind children. It was definitely one of my favorite experiences since coming to China. But this post is getting really long, so I'll save that for another post.

GOING TO SHANGHAI!!!!!

As of about 15 minutes ago, I'll be spending my weekend in Shanghai! :)

We don't have classes on Monday, in honor of 清明節... (Qīng Míng Jié - it's a Chinese festival celebrated by cleaning and decorating the graves of family members that have died.) Thanks to... well, thanks to the fact that this is China, and not America, I didn't even KNOW about this long weekend until yesterday, so I didn't exactly have a lot of time to plan my weekend.

Actually, the planning didn't start until after class this afternoon. I texted my friend Luiza, asking her what she was planning to do over the long weekend, and we ended up deciding that we wanted to go to Shanghai. Tomorrow morning. So we got online and found some cheap flights, leaving tomorrow morning, and coming back Monday morning! (elong.net is a great place to get domestic flights in China if you ever need them! It's only going to cost about $100 USD to fly out and back!)

There's only one problem with this plan: I'm basically all out of clean clothes, and we don't have dryers here, so there's no way I can get my clothes washed and dried by tomorrow. But I'm going to Shanghai, clean clothes or not, so wish me luck, I'll post some pictures and tell you all about Shanghai when I get back! :)
(only 89 more days in China... gotta make the most of them!)

Oh the joys of being young and spontaneous... :)