The Amazing Race!!

Hi all again, I wanted to give you all the opportunity to see my home town on t.v. The television show The Amazing Race aired an episode last week that took place where I live. In fact some of the places that the contestants went were less than 10mins walking distance from my house. Soooo Exciting!!!! I think that the people I watched it with got really tired of hearing "oh! that is by my house!!" Anyway, I know that some of you may have seen it already but a lot of you have not. So I am going to post a site where you can download the episode. Click Here. I have it uploaded in AVI format, so it you do not have a media player that can play avi's you can download one here: AVI player download. I hope that it doesn't take super forever to download. But it probably will. I miss you and hope that you enjoy this little tidbit into my life.

The 5 things we found funny while watching the episode:

1. The Americans speaking English to their taxi drivers to wait for them.

2. The Cheerleaders and the Goth couple carrying a solar water heater up 7 flights of stairs in the dark.

3. The one team that said they didn't think their taxi driver knew how to get to the Stone Forest because they had been driving for a half hour. (The Stone Forest is 2.5 hours away from the city)

4. The giant Harlem Globetrotters in the Tibetan Outfits.

5. When the older lady says she is putting together the dinosaur for her grandson and then starts
to cry.

Five things we said over and over again while watching it:

1. I know where that is.

2. If only we had known they were filming we could have helped them.

3. That one is my favorite dancer.

4. Wait, what just happened?

5. That's soooo funny.


2 things you should now about this episode:

1. The Tibetan Restaurant and the place where the Double U Turn occurs are both just around the corner from my house. Opposite corners!!

2. My good friend Whitney who does not appear anywhere on the show helped one of the teams get a taxi when they first got to Kunming.

Official March Newsletter!

(Please Note again that these official newsletters are not as recent or up to date as my regular blogs due to Company regulations to turn them in two months in advance. This letter was written in Feb.)

I just got home from Beijing (in Feb) where I connected with and reconnected with Team mates. We also celebrated the Chinese New Year (Feb 3) together. It was exactly what the Doctor ordered. I have been in Kunming, Mile, Chengdu, and Beijing now. I have lived, played, studied, and worked in China for over a year now. I have seen many a tourist attraction, eaten countless bowls of noodles, brushed hundreds maybe thousands of shoulders on the bus and it wasn’t until this week in Beijing that I felt really renewed, re-juiced, and revitalized. This truth has caused me to question how to keep electrified in Kunming. And I think it comes down to this basic truth which I am sorry to relay to you all because most of you have already figured this all out but the Basic Truth is that while I have been in Beijing the focus has been on who I am in the Father's Son. Not how well is my Chinese, not whether or not I am contributing, not even what I plan to DO for my Father, but instead it has been about Worshiping Him who has called me and focusing on my rightness with Him.

How to achieve relevant transition into a new culture and a new language depends a lot on attitude. I admit that the past 3 months (Nov, Dec, Jan) I have had a bad attitude. I know that uncomfortable circumstances play a part in attitude but I also know in my head, as well as in my heart that if you have a good attitude it can change how you feel about difficult circumstances. My attitude since about Mid November till about the middle of Jan has been like this: the circumstances of the task set before me (language learning) is not good to the point of hindering my learning and therefore I cannot succeed. This attitude has fed and sustained a sense of depression or gloom over everything I did or didn’t do. I beheld myself in a constant state of guilt. Because I knew that I wasn’t doing everything I could to be an effective learner because I had determined that I had already failed from the start.

I told a friend of mine recently that I was afraid I wasn’t learning as much as I could because I didn’t believe that I could learn Chinese anymore..

All in all it comes down to FEAR. Fear that I will disappoint You (my dear readers), disappoint my Heavenly Father, disappoint my parents, and disappoint my team. And this disappointment steams from failing to achieve the goals or expectations all the above have for me (which is silly because I don’t really know what expectations you all have for me; all I know is the expectations I have for myself).

So in light of being rejuvenated to focus on my relationship with Father versus what I am doing for Him and reminding myself that a good attitude makes a better situation I feel ready to start the new year (the Chinese year of the Rabbit as well as the Western year or 2011) with new purpose and new attitude.

Please ask that I would soak up much in my new school and with my new teachers. I started at my new school Feb 14. Please ask that I be self controlled and diligent to be an active learner and not a passive one. Also ask that I focus more on who Father is rather than on who I am.

Starbucks Marathon

How many cups of coffee can you drink in one day? My friend Faye and I decided to treat ourselves to Starbucks while we were in Chengdu (Jan 2011) and since we counted 9 of them on the map we decided to try and go to all of them. Did we make our goal?? Count them and see!!

Cups One at 9am!!

Cups Two at 11:30am.

Cups Three at Noonish!!

Cups Four at 1pm!!

Cups Five at 2pm!

Cups Six not pictured because the Starbucks Store was closed.

Mumbo Jumbo

I am back at attempting to organize my addresses after a year and a half of neglect. Mostly this has become a bit of a focus because I am getting ready to come back to the States in December. I will be home for about three months and intend to visit many of you who have been so faithful to Think of me and to write to me and provide for me. However, I have found that the addresses I have for many many people in my database are not current. It is a huge headache. Also in this day and age I also know that via snail mail is not the only way to keep in touch with people. However, I am a little lost to know the best way to communicate with all those who want to be in communication with me and how not to annoy those who don't want to be in communication with me. There seems to be a break down in all our well intentioned systems. If you used to receive my newsletters by mail and all of a sudden stop getting them and still want to get them in the mail please contact either my self or the company.

So in light of this I sent my first snail mail letter from China and I am excited to see how long it will take to reach it's destination. I am going to try and be more diligent with communication these next few months. Therefore, if you would like a letter from China please just let me know and I will try really hard to get one out to you.

So the big news here in Kunming is that I will be sent to Colorado in May for a conference. Some of you know the Water Project I went on last Oct, while on that adventure I discovered that I have a brain that leans toward the never ending questions. It is one of the many reasons I have a hard time learning this language because I always want to know Why something is said or done the way they are and language and culture usually has lost the answers to those why questions.


But in light of my future in China and wanting to be able to help the Chinese people in a way that they view as being helpful, Research is very important and apparently I have a brain for it. China being a very dynamic and diverse country there are lots of people who live in remote areas where much research about what kinds of health problems or issues they suffer from are unknown. These kinds of questions as well as more sensitive questions can help the people as they attempt to become more relevant to the rest of the world as well as helping the already established workers accomplish their goals.




So, I am returning to Colorado in May for ten days to learn how to be a Researcher. I am very excited about it and look forward to seeing how the information that I learn can be used here. This is an unscheduled return to the States and an un-budgeted expense. So, if you could please Ask for my finances to be secure so that this can occur I would be very grateful.

I will stay in Colorado during this time and spend five of those days in meetings. I also intend to sit down with the benefits department and learn more in-depth about 401ks and 401bs and other things like that. I will be able to pick up my mail while I am there in Colorado so if anyone wants to mail me any notes I will be able to receive them at that time. At this time I do not think any visitors should come to see me in Colorado because of the short and intense nature of my time there.

For a future reference, for those who need to plan in advance, I will be returning to the States again in December. I will be available to speak at events, have lunch or dinner, as well as just sit and talk with individuals and groups who would like to learn more about my last year and a half (two years by that time). I do not know what my schedule will look like but I wanted to tell people a head of time.


Feel free to email me with your desires for my presence but at this time I cannot guarantee anything.

(Pictures posted on this blog post were not taken by me. I have permission to post them. I was given a photo file to use as I needed.)