Awake, thou wintry earth -Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forthYour ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"
June is finally here. The flowers are just beautiful here. The roses, bogenvelias, purple and white flowering trees are providing pleasant scents throughout the neighborhoods. June marks my 9th month anniversary of my stint in China. I feel fairly confident in my arrangement here. I have a strategy and a routine. I have been enjoying getting to know Kunming more.
Earlier this year, around March, I was really struggling to go to school, get out of bed, or go outside. This was a typical 6th month culture shock way to feel and for those of you who knew about this struggle and kept me in your thoughts, Thank you so much, for those of you who are hearing about this for the first time I want to tell you that it was a hard couple of weeks but that as my dear friend Laurel told me once, “Winter is not forever” and neither did my struggle to live and be happy here in Kunming. The kicker to this rough time in my life was the bus system, here in KM.
The day was cloudy and I was tired and really didn’t want to get out of bed, not that I ever do but that day it seemed even harder. I dragged myself out to the bus stop and waited for a bus. Now this morning there were about 25 people waiting at the stop. When bus number 56 drove up about 15 of the 25 people (including me) moved toward the bus, which had like two people on it. I happened to be very near the door once the bus driver opened it and the only person who was in front of me was a very old woman who was all hunched over. She had some difficulty getting on the bus, so I stepped up on the first step and just waited until she got further on the bus, however the entire time (5 min) I was just standing in the doorway of the bus the people behind me were pushing me and not once but the entire time and as I made my own way to the rear of the bus it took all my strength not to lean backward to prevent people from getting on the bus fast. Right there I knew that I would not be able to love these people. Father would have to bring me to a loving place.
Father has brought me through that valley of mild death and I am again enjoying and loving KM these days. In the beginning of May, I traveled to Dali City with a friend and I have been exploring some of Kunming’s own gems, such as Xi Shan Mountain, Da Guan Gong Yuan Park, and Shi Lin Park. I even attended my first Chinese wedding! I am looking forward to the approaching summer and all the events that are ahead of me. I have several people who desire to visit me, a possible trip back to the states for a couple of weeks, and a trip out to the leprosy clinic at the end of July.
My class at school has grown from four people all from England or America to ten people, five of which are from Thailand and do not speak English. This has been very good for me, although extremely hard, because I have to communicate with them in Chinese. Yunnan has had a record drought this year and so my school took our entire class out to a village to donate water and school supplies. I was really excited to go and be a part of this trip and then it got canceled and rescheduled to a day that I had agreed to babysit. But my class went and I look forward to being able to go on the next trip and sharing my stories with you.
One week ago (as I write this), April 14, 2010, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Qinghai Province in western China killing 2,039 people. I did not feel the physical affects of the earthquake (Qinghai is north of the Yunnan Province, bordering Tibet). Many of the NGO’s in KM are trying to figure out how they can help this area of China, since it is highly restricted to Chinese government organizations.
Please continue to petition Father for my growth in Him, that His love would grow in me in order that I can love those around me, for the thousands of people dealing with grief and destroyed lives due to drought and earthquakes, lastly for my language skills to continue to grow.
I finally got all my Christmas mail, thank you,
Denise
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