Christmas is coming!!

 

 The adventure of launching the School Program was quickly over shadowed by the excitement of the Christmas Fair that comes to my city every year. Angela and I went directly from the number 12 middle school to the site of the Christmas Fair. It was packed with people. 

Since I have been involved with the Youth Group I had to help man the face painting booth. It was a blast and exactly what I needed to keep my mind off the burning question of Why did Mr. Lee not come to watch my presentation? So we worked hard at the Fair by painting 400 faces and we made $320 toward the Youth Group's rent. YAY!!!

While we were there the group of ladies that I see on a weekly basis to study Father's Word decided to have Christmas pictures taken. It was a blast. You can tell how much fun we were having. This is often how we feel when we are all together. I feel so very blessed to have these women in my life. Without them and their constant encouragement I would feel less at home here in this place so far from where the rest of my family and friends live. :)

So, while I am busy telling you about my Christmas preparations I thought I would take some photo's of my decorations in my home as well. Last year when I was in the states I was introduced to Scentsy. When I came back I brought with me some of their products but until now was unable to use them because of the difference in outlet voltage. But this month a dear friend moved to a different city and she gave me her voltage converter.   So the scents floating around in my house right now are of cinnamon and cloves. A most Christmasy smell.

 I have lights up and my advent calendar hanging on my wall. 

 

The tree is set up and the ornaments are merry and bright. I have my favorite Christmas albums loaded on my ipod and I have been watching many classic Christmas movies when ever I am able.  

 

 I have my traditional Christmas tree topper on the top of my little tree. I have had this Christmas tree topper since my first Christmas tree. It makes my tree feel like home. I love my little aluminum star. My dad made it. It is a reminder that even though Christmas celebrates the birth of Our Saviour it is the traditions we use to celebrate it that make every year special. 

 

 

This red bird is a tradition in my family and this year we have had some delightful discussions regarding how it started and what is keeping the tradition and what is breaking it.  I hope that you have some Christmas traditions that make every year celebrating special.

 

 

December 7, 2012~First Presentation

I want to thank you all for your thoughts for me on December 7th. The most important aspects of last Friday went well. From the government official stand point we must have really done a fantastic job. The review he heard must have been good because he has big plans for us. But I want to tell you about the drama and comedy of the day. 

My team's appointment at the number twelve middle school was at 4pm. We arrived at 3:30 and the government official was supposed to meet us there.  Instead Mr. Lee told us around 1pm that he would be late and gave me the phone number of a Teacher Wang to call when we arrived at 3:30. So, we called Teacher Wang and told her that the foreigners had arrived. She wanted to know when we were arriving and I told her that we were already there. 

A woman approached our team and asked us if we were the Singaporeans. We told her that we were not the Singaporeans and then she wanted to know who we were and why we were at the school. We came to understand that she was not Teacher Wang and didn't have any idea of who or why we were there. So we had her talk to Mrs. Wang and she then took us to a giant conference room. Where we waited for the headmaster and Mrs. Wang. Once Mrs. Wang came it turned out that she also didn't really know why we were there. The headmaster finally came and told us that Mr. Lee would not be able to be there and that Mr. Lee really hadn't told him very much about why we were there either. 

The headmaster knew that we were there to teach something but didn't know what. So when Angela, my teammate and translator, told him that there was a portion of the program about trafficking prevention and moral sex education the headmaster told us that their students were good kids who didn't need to have that information.  He also told us that the 2 hours he had been told we would need had been reduced. He said that we could only have an hour and twenty minutes. Mr. Lee, the government official, was not there to protect the program so we felt we had no choice but to cut the last two points off the program. 

The actual delivery of the School Program was incredibly awesome. The youth soaked up the knowledge that they were valuable, had power to make good choices, and had limitless potential. When I asked them if they thought that one person could change the world the entire class room answered with a resounding NO. It was amazing. By the time that I was finished speaking I think that even if I didn't change their minds I at least gave them something to think about. I challenged them that I believed that each one of them could change the world. They were sooooooo adorable. 

Eden's boss received a phone call from Mr. Lee who called her to tell her that the headmaster had called to tell Mr. Lee that he was glad we had come and we were a great success. 

Thank you for your thoughts. I know that it is your thoughts that gave me continual peace throughout the craziness.  The peace that passes all understanding that comes from above is a great gift that I have not taken for granted. May these small victories open more doors for the greater glory of the Father and the ultimate good of His people. 

Launching

This week on Friday will be the launch of the Shine School Program. I will be in a middle school teaching and the government official will be observing. Afterward he will evaluate the program and determine if it is applicable and useful for the provincial schools.

This is the first time any western has been allowed to do anything like this and so I am nervous. 

There will also be two additional westerners helping/observing the program to see if their organization wants to partner with Eden in the implementation of the program. 

Please ask Father to give me peace, clear speaking & connection between my translator (XiCui ) and myself, as well as for the Government leader and the two other observers to see the positive aspects and potential of this program.

I am very busy preparing and practicing my speech. 

Thank you so very much for your thoughts and love. I will update you sometime this coming weekend on how everything went. 

November Update

Hello Dear Friends and Family.

I know that I have not been keeping you up to date. I apologize. Life seems to just run away from me. 

Our Shine Graduation was now over a month away. So you may be wondering "What have you been up to?"  Well let me share just a few things. I have been working on getting all the evaluations of Shine translated and accumulated to send back to Shine headquarters; I have been preparing the Shine School Program for review by the Government and have been partnering with the Youth Group leaders to plan and organize the annual Youth Conference. I have been working once a week as the Nurse at the Eden Workshop, was involved in a Masquerade Fund-raiser for the Youth Group, and finally but not least I have been preparing to teach on Luke 14:26-33 this coming Thursday and Friday at Youth Group. 

So, I hope that you can see that I have been very busy. However, I also feel very fulfilled. I am working with others to help others as well as encourage Spiritual growth. I am using my nursing skills both in the curriculum I am working on for the Shine School Program as well as once a week in the office with the girls. My Chinese is being stretched as I continue to have 4-6 hours of class a week, work as a nurse with the women who work at Eden, and as I work with my language helper to translate the Shine evaluations. My love of anything social is met by Youth Group, Youth Conference Planning, and going to Eden's office once a week. 

Many days I just sit on my couch working diligently on my computer and I have discovered that I am addicted to the internet. Earlier this week my internet was having major technical difficulties and so I had shut the wifi on my computer off. In the span of a half hour I think every two minutes I tried to  either look something up online or check my email and every time I was like oh yeah no internet. grrrr. But it never failed that I would do it again in another two minutes.  

My drama with the internet company was very frustrating because even after the issue was resolved, one of my Chinese friends was not even able to explain why there was an issue in the first place. He understood that there had been an issue before, but after a half hour on the phone with the company he still did not completely understand why I had to pay additional money. Here is what happened: I pay my internet bill once a year.  

From Oct 2009-Oct 2010 I had no problems. Then from Oct 2010-Oct 2011 there were virtually no problems. Except that in Sept 2011 my roommate moved in with me and it slowed our band width down.  So in Oct 2011 my roommate payed the bill for a year and asked for the service to be upgraded to the next fastest service plan. No problem. That is until Aug, when I got back from a Team Meeting in the States. I found that the people house sitting for me had had to pay extra at the phone company (at the time I had the receipt but had no idea what it was in regards to because it looked nothing like my internet receipt). 

Sept 2012 comes along and suddenly my internet is down.  I had no idea why, so I gathered up all my receipts and go to the internet company. At this point I was prepared to pay the whole next years bill since I was going to the internet company anyway.  So, I got to the company and they basically tell me that I have to pay 100 kuai (15USD) in order to have my next month of internet.  At this point I was confused but I don't care I just want my internet to work. So I tell them that I want to pay for the whole next year's bill as well as this strange additional 100 kuai.  

The man behind the counter was very patient but also very flustered at all my requests and he tells me that I cannot pay the whole years worth of bills yet. He says that I have to come back in a month and pay that. Through the whole event I finally figure out that I actually can pay the whole year's bill now but that it will cost 1600 kuai instead of 1300 kuai in Oct. So I begrudgingly agree to come back in a month. Because 45usd is a lot of money over here.

So Oct comes around but the first week is a National Holiday and I was pretty sure that the internet company would be closed during that time. Which in retrospect I am not sure that they were closed. And by the time I thought they would be open my internet was down again because my bill was due. I truck myself back to the company with all my receipts and the same guy is helping me and he tells me that I cannot just add money to my account. I have to go to the headquarters's office located somewhere else.

The grand humiliation is that in our struggle to communicate everything, he resorts to using the equivalent to Google Translate. Granted most of the vocabulary we were using were things like: broadband, cpu wattage, cable connection. But it didn't matter in my heart-I felt like a baby.  Finally it turns out that my because my account exceeded the year termination time I had to go to the headquarters to cancel that account and start a new account. But I could just reinstate my account with him for a slightly more expensive rate. My stress level were off the chart and I was afraid I was going to cry so I told him I didn't care about the expensiveness I just wanted my internet turned back on. This mentality greatly disturbed him. He really didn't want me to waste my money and I had to assure him and then reassure him that I didn't care about a measly 50 kuai more. 

He began to reinstate my account and to do so he needed my passport and luckily I just happened to have my passport on me. However, some of you may recall that I had to get a new passport in January of 2011. (if you don't check the story out here: Passport story) Because of this new passport and its new passport number my documents didn't match the account in the computer. Therefore, he was unable to process the reinstatement on my account. So in the end I did go to the headquarters and canceled my account and started a new one at a cheaper price.  But I was still very confused about why I had had to pay two extra 100 kuai bills-and that is still a mystery because even my Chinese friend was unable to get a straight-forward answer when he called them.  They did reassure him that this year I should not have that same problem. Sooooooo, we will see. 

But besides random crazy things like that happening making me feel like this:

 I have been getting lots done and tomorrow (Monday, November 26th, 2012-your time would be Sunday the 25th at 9pm) I, along with three Eden teammates, will be meeting with the Educational Head of our province.  He will be reviewing the Shine School Program that I have been working on and I am very nervous about the whole thing. If you could lift us up as we meet with him that would be greatly appreciated.

Love Languages

What is your love language?

I am sure that for many of you learning that my top love language is physical touch. My second is words of affirmation, so those of you who live so very far away and cannot give me a hug an email or facebook post would be a great way to show me that you are thinking of me. 

But really this blog post is not about how I can be loved. On Tuesday we talked with the women in the shelter about their love languages. We asked them to write down what kinds of things their parents or loved ones do or say to show them that they love them. After they shared those things we asked them what they wished each of those people would do to show them that they are loved. 

Then we took the love languages test. For those of you who don't know what the categories are they are: Physical touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Gifts, and Acts of Service. We talked about how even though we can be given love by others even in our own special love language and sometimes still feel UNLOVED.  We talked about the main reason for this is because we believe something about ourselves that is not true.

This led to an activity where we wrote down things or beliefs that were true and some that were untrue. After this we discussed that we have the choice to believe the lies or believe the truth. Then we gave each girl the option to crumple up her lie and throw it away. After receiving the pile of scrunched up lies we offered them back to each of them. Specifically saying-do you want it back?

Thankfully none did. :)

In the process of discussing love and our lies some shocking and heartbreaking things were revealed. I would ask that you would please keep these two beautiful women in your thoughts. 

One of them stated during our very first activity that no one has ever shown her real love. The other said the her lie was that she was ugly. Could you please petition on their behalf that first of all that the one who has never felt loved would be overwhelmed with love from her sisters as well as from her Heavenly Father and second that the lies of the enemy would flee from them both and that they would see themselves as beautiful daughters of the King? Thank you so very much.

Shine Update

Hi, I wanted to send out a quick update about Shine. So, we have started the second program of Shine here and have already had three sessions. The women we are doing this program with this time is the single women in the shelter. There are about 8 women and their children all living in our single mother shelter and even though they only have attended three sessions the impact has already been significant. 

Session One: You are Valuable.

We teach on value. Each one of us has intrinsic value. We talk about how 100 kuai is still worth 100 kuai if it is scrunched up and stomped on and thrown away.  We make the illustration that a valuable gift in a nice gift box is worth the same as the same gift in a paper bag.  What we look like or how we have been treated does not change our worth.  Then we talk about how valuable our hands are and that usually we take care of things we value. Then we proceed to give one another manicures. 

Session Two: You are One of a Kind.

We continue to teach on value.  Because there is no one like you, you are priceless. We use the illustration that the Mona Lisa was created by a master painter and that the original is so precious that there is not a price set on her. But that a copy is not worth the same amount.  Because we cannot be copied we also do not need to compare ourselves to others. We talk about how our face is the first thing people see about us and reflects our individuality. Just like we took care of our hands to show we value them so we should do the same for our face. Then we proceed to cleanse, honey mask, tone, and moisturize our faces.

Session Three: You have been Marvelously Made.

This is our last session focused on value. We do an activity where all the girls are blind folded and try to put body parts onto an outline of a woman. This shows them the importance of correctly put together person. How important each piece in its place is. Then we talk about healthy living. Exercise and Healthy eating. 

Now, most of this information is very simple and likely you and I don't need to be taught these things. But for these women it has changed them.  

*Thursday we had them rate on a scale of one to ten how valuable they felt today.  Then how they valued they felt last week.  The difference was quite drastic.  When asked why they valued themselves more today than last week the responses were: "after learning about how to wash my face and care for my skin I know I can value myself."  "before Shine, I didn't know that my value was important."  "I didn't want to be a part of Shine, but now my life is different."

Thank you for your thoughts for these women as well as for me, especially as I prepare for each session.  Your thoughts are fruitful and lives are changing.

Media about China

Hi everyone.  

I have been pretty busy here getting back into life after having my parents visit and attending a debriefing seminar regarding my first term here.

It was a full three weeks of wonderful encouragement, heart breaking stories, and the reminder that we are not alone in our walks and that pressing on under pressure is the next step.

So, this Wednesday I met with my fellow workers to discuss next steps in regards to the Shine program.  We have some tentative plans to have two more Shine programs before Christmas. At the same time I am going to be in the process of working through the WAIT Training material and figuring out what will work and what wont. 

Currently, I do not have a time line for having WAIT Training ready to take into the schools. But I know that I will have a time line soon.  I will post a new blog shortly regarding the video Eden is making to add to the WAIT Training piece. They are making a short video that I will share once I start the education program in Chinese classrooms.

During this limbo phase I have been reading and listening to some different articles about how difficult it is for non-Chinese people to work and live in China.  I wanted to share them with you.

The first article is titled: You'll Never Be Chinese, and is a beautifully articulated piece and really resonates in my heart.  The second is a NPR pod cast on Americans in China. It also talks of many things that hit home. I have never been asked to be on TV yet though. :)

I am plodding along here day by day. With one fourth of my mind thinking in Chinese.  I was woken by a text message from my teacher and felt really proud that before I was completely awake I had already composed a reply.  Baby Steps.

I am excited for my endeavor with and for Eden.  

 

Despite being Not Chinese I have high expectations of Educating young women with the Hope to impact them in such a way that they may have a Hope for their future.

Just look at these beautiful girls whom Father has gifted China with, time for them to recognize their worth, strength, and purpose!!

Please continue to petition for the women who actively do out reach on the streets, for their relationship with the pimps and mafia bosses.  As well as protection for their hearts and minds. For the girls who have bravely stepped out of their previous life and are making steps toward a better future.  For me and the women giving me cultural advice and translating material that we would be wise in each decision made and the words that need to be heard will be chosen.  For Hope to continue to bloom in each of our hearts daily.

Thank you, your gifts are held dearly.