(Written March 2015)
Happy May!
I hope that your spring is growing into a more warm season. I know that many of you have survived a rather harsh and cold winter. Historically, I have used my May newsletter to recap the highs and lows of this past year. So, holding to tradition, I seek to share with you the past year.
May of 2014 saw my very first birthday spent in Kunming! Every other year I have been someplace else on my birthday! The end of May brought me to America for my second Home Assignment period.
June, July, August, and September were whirlwinds of catching up with friends and loved ones, catching planes, helping people catch my vision and hoping that the good food wouldn’t catch up to me.
October, found me enthusiastically returning to KM with the high hopes and great desires to dive into school visits. But the reality is that what happens in one part of China greatly affects the entire country and the activities that began September of 2014 in Hong Kong created a closed atmosphere within the government in allowing foreigners to be involved in many areas of education. So when I attempted to schedule school visits I was put on the back burner.
November, was filled with good food and good fellowship. My time of waiting for “work” continued but I found that there was lots of little things that I could do for and with other people while waiting. One person who blessed my life during this time was a woman who was a substitute foster mom for an adorable little girl. During this time we also began hard core planning for Permeate 2015.
December, happened to be one of my best Christmases here. I was able to spend several days with close friends, including Christmas Eve night and waking up and doing stockings together. It was so lovely. New Year’s was also an event filled with family feelings. There was maybe eight or nine families together playing games, knitting, talking, laughing and celebrating. So much fun!
In January, we ran a Shine course with the new women who had recently stopped working as prostitutes. This course was so very good for me personally because it seemed to signal the beginning of starting “work.”
February, Driving license finally obtained I drove into the Permeate rush and ended in an extended stay in Thailand for routine medical checkups and getting pages added to my passport.
March, started with going to the South of China to train eight sisters in facilitating Shine. It was a marvelous time of growing as a trainer. From there I went to Vietnam where I was trained on how to facilitate and train others in Flourish, a program similar to Shine. This was exciting because I got to see the differences between Shine and Flourish and see where each program could be used to its greatest potential.
Since it is not quite the end of March yet I can tell you my plans for the rest of March and April but cannot guarantee that I will accomplish everything I set out to do.
I have been greatly disappointed to visit no schools until recently. At the current writing of this letter no schools have been visited since April 2014, but we do have plans to begin visiting schools starting the end March and running on a weekly basis into May. We also have been asked by a couple contacts, who work with migrant communities, how and when we could come teach at their schools. So the hope is that by the end of March or beginning of April we may be “back in the game!”
At the end of March a colleague from a different city in China will come and visit to see if she is a good fit with our team because she is very interested in the prevention program. I have high hopes for her to be one of my teammates.
So all in all my 34th year of life was a busy one. Not everything went as I planned but Father orchestrated many things in order for His plans to be carried out. I have learned much about myself and about Him as I continued the path He set before me. Thank you for your involvement and your thoughts for me as I continue to follow Him.
Happy 35th Birthday to Me!!
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