favorite prayer room moments

Your call comes like the morning breeze
You spread your wings and cover me
underneath Your shadow, i will hide away
for there i've found a shelter, and there i'd like to stay

so calm down my soul, and rest.

i love Your leadership, it's perfect in my life!
i love just how You lead, You know exactly what i need!

so calm down my soul, and rest.

God is able to keep me from stumbling
God is able to make me shine!

***

to starve is to feast and
less of me is more of Jesus
Lord, i want it all
Lord, i want it all
if i lose my life, i gain everything
at the cross, away with all death's sting
Lord, i want it all
Lord, i want it all

so take my heart Lord, come and seal it--
it's all i have to give.

i am Yours, come what may
i've been bought with a price
and i give You my life

You who hold the seven stars in Your hand
hold my heart
hold my heart

it's 4:56 AM!
why am i up so early
because we have to leave here at 5:30 AM for our bing trip
let me tell you something about my belief regarding vacations
although this bing trip may or may not count as a vacation.

vacations should not be jam-packed with things so that the people taking a vacation are obligated to wake up before/at sunrise in order to make sure they see/participate in all of these things. that is just ridiculous.
i would rather see ONE OR TWO things per day, and be able to relaxxxxxxxxx and chilllllllll not RUSHING AROUND EVERYWHERE ON 4 HOURS OF SLEEP and riding 7 hour long bus rides, yeah that's right you heard me 7 hours.

thank you mr and mrs bing for generously funding this trip, but it's just my suggestion. for the future.

last night i couldn't sleep well because i knew i'd have to wake up in just four hours, and i'm always nervous when i have to only sleep for a few hours, because i'm afraid i won't be able to wake up. so when i finally did sleep, i had a dream that i woke up at 5 in the morning (i wonder why!) and rushed to the airport by myself, and the airport happened to be on campus, and there was this guy filling up a machine with egg sandwhiches, and i decided to steal and egg sandwich from his cart cause i saw another guy steal one, and at the end of the dream this lady forced us all to pay $8 for the sandwiches, even though they were only worth $5, and i got mad because it wasn't a LAW that if you steal a sandwich you have to pay $3 extra when you're forced to buy it. because it hadn't been clear whether or not the sandwiches were for sale or free...i guess. anyway, i was mad. because i was like what $8?!? that's like 56 rmb! i could buy so much for that!!!!

so let's just recap:

vacations
relax
sleep
more
good
bye.

bing trip itinerary

Xi’an & Yan’an Trip Itinerary

Friday, May 08:

5:30 am: Depart from Shaoyuan 7 to Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3

7:30 am: Take flight CA1203 from Beijing to Xi’an

09:20 am: Arrive at Xi’an and Hotel check-in

Morning & Afternoon: Visit the famous Han Yangling, Terracotta Army (Bingma Yong), The tomb of Qin Shi Huang， Xi'an City Wall, Xi'an Beilin Museum （汉阳陵，兵马俑，秦始皇陵，明城墙，碑林孔庙）

Everning: Back to the city, hotel check-in

Dinner at the night market on your own, stay in Xi’an

Saturday, May 09:

6:30 am: Have breakfast at the Hotel.

7:00 am: Depart to Ganquan County (4 hrs bus ride)

11:00 am: Bus goes directly to Shaanbei village

Meet with village leaders and farmers

Lunch at the village

2:00 pm: Depart to Yan’an

3:00 pm: Arrive at Yan’an and visit Revolutionary Memorial and Mao’s old residence （延安历史革命纪念馆，枣园毛主席旧居）

Evening: Group dinner and stay in Yan’an Hotel

Sunday, May 10:

6:30 am: Have breakfast at the Hotel

7:00 am: Depart to Hukou Waterfall along the Yellow River (3 hrs. bus ride)

10:00 am: Visit Hukou Waterfall (a quick lunch if needed)

11:30 pm: Depart to Xi’an Airport (about 7 hrs bus ride)

6:30 pm: Arrive at Xi’an and group dinner close to the Airport

21:30 pm: Take flight CA 1212 from Xi’an to Beijing

11:20 pm: Arrive at the Beijing Capital Airport (PKU bus pick-up)

my sentiments exactly

“On Turning Ten”–Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

storytime

once upon a time, about two weeks ago, i was walking and eating a baozi at the same time. as i was walking and eating, i happened to look down at the stanford sweatshirt i was wearing, and noticed a bunch of marks on it, as if some fat water droplets had fallen from the sky onto my sweatshirt. i assumed that it had started raining, and kept walking. upon finishing my baozi, i finally noticed that my hands were covered with oil/grease (i'm not sure what the difference is), and that it wasn't raining. and then i realized that those marks on my sweatshirt were oil stains. and i was horrified, because there were a lot.

i went back to my room, and tried washing them out with soap. then i hung my sweatshirt up to dry. the next day, my sweatshirt was dry, but the stains were still there. then i decided to put the sweatshirt into the laundry basket and take it to the laundromat. a few days later, when my sweatshirt was dry once again, i noticed that the stains had not in any way diminished. at this point, it began to occur to me that maybe these stains would never come out. but i thought, "no, that's impossible. there must be a way!" so i googled "how do you get oil stains out of clothes," and the most popular answer seemed to be that if you put some borax (what's borax? i thought) and then dawn dish soap and then wash with hot water, the stain will come right out! hooray, i thought. but then i realized that 1) i don't know what borax is, 2) there is probably no borax in china, and 3) ...there's probably no dawn dish soap in china?

so THEN i decided to take it back to the laundromat and have it dry-cleaned, and it was pretty expensive, meaning like 12 kuai.
and today i picked it up
and the stains are still there.

THE END.

hooray!

i love the church i'm with now. every time i hang out with these people, i just feel SO MUCH JOY. they have such grateful spirits. they're always looking out for their brothers and sisters, and putting other people's needs above their own. their humility amazes and inspires me. i'm so, so, so grateful for them!

this is just to say

for all of my dear friends who think i am a weakling who doesn't like exercise/hardcore things...

most of the time, you are right.

BUT THIS WEEKEND, YOU WOULD BE WRONG!

this weekend, i went camping in yun meng valley, and i hiked (and literally climbed, for awhile) up a mountain for 5 hours with a backpack as big as me (and although i'm bad at estimating weight, it was heavy. the guys who tried picking it up from time to time were all like, "wow, this is heavy!" in chinese, which carries even more surprise than english) strapped to my shoulders/waist and then lay in a cold damp tent inside a thin cotton sleeping bag till 5 AM, then got up and hiked back down the mountain and didn't get back to school till 8 PM and i am still alive and feeling GREAT!!! wheeeee

of course, i'm going to sleep right now, and probably never waking up again. slash when i do wake up i'm sure i won't be able to move my body at all.

but it was great fun! the air was so FRESH and wonderful! and the mountains were SO BEAUTIFUL! and i zip-lined for the first time in like 5 years! also, the whole time we were clambering up and down the mountain, i was thinking about how hiking a mountain trail is a lot like the christian life and how i want nothing more than to follow the Lamb wherever He goes for the rest of my life.

pictures to come!

sneak peek:

by the way

For more info on migrant schools, go to http://reapchina.org/

and especially here: http://reapchina.org/Financia-Aid.asp?btype_id=89

If you're too busy to read the text, just look at the pictures. They'll give you the basic idea.

I'm basically participating in REAP's pilot volunteer-teaching program right now.

Teaching, Week Two!

Today was Week Two of Christina's Migrant-Teaching Extravaganza.

Some pictures of the road leading to the school:

The buildings on the left are houses, but I don't know who lives in them.

If you enlarge this picture you can see the trench full of stagnant moldy water and trash running alongside the road.

Imagine piles of this everywhere.

Also, too bad I couldn't capture it on camera, but it was SO WINDY. I think I can still feel the dust between my teeth (yes Mom, I know...mask. I forgot to bring it today).

So today:
I was so nervous about coming back, because last time was, you know...crazy. So I e-mailed my wonderful friend Leilani, who works for Jumpstart, and begged her for advice on how to teach little ones, and she sent me back a treasure trove of tips! So I took those tips and made a lesson plan that included singing, a SILENT game, storytime, and candy. And it was awesome. It totally worked! The kids were soooo cute and involved (also, I'm 100% sure that the regular teacher standing in the back of the classroom with a stick helped them stay in their seats). I also videotaped each of them saying their names, so I can start memorizing them (although I honestly can't understand 80% of them so...better luck next time haha), and I present three of those videos here for your viewing pleasure! The girl in green is my favorite haha. But don't worry, I won't show it!

My favorite part of the preschool class was when we read them The Giving Tree in Chinese. They were so absorbed in the story, and throughout the story we would ask them questions (per Leilani's suggestion, thanks lei!!) like, "Is this tree a nice tree? Why do you think so?" or "Is this boy a nice boy?" And their answers were so cute. And at the part when the boy cuts off the tree's branches to make a house, one of the kids was like, "Then the tree will be gone!" and another boy responded, "No, trees can grow their branches back!" To which Adam and I responded, "Well, let's see what happens in the story..."

When the bell rang at the end of class, we were still on the second-to-last page, and almost all of the students stayed quiet and still to find out what happened at the end!

Bad news:

1. My sixth graders don't know how to read. Some of them can recognize words, but even though they can "read" a sentence like "The fat cat sat on the mat," they don't know what it means. Basically, the way their teachers have been teaching them English is by making them memorize the sentences in the books, so they memorize how those words look and what those sentences mean, but they have no concept of phonics and no grasp of how the English language works. Aahhh. I'm torn between just trying to expose to them as much English/American culture as possible in these next few weeks, or attempting to lay a foundation of basic phonics for them.

2. This isn't that bad, but today we ran out of candy to give the preschoolers! I mean, we'd already given each of them one during class because they all played the game without talking, but we'd also told them they would get a prize at the end of class if they were good, and then at the end of class after they'd all lined up, we discovered we didn't have enough...haha but it's okay, we told them we'd give them two next time. Time to buy lots of snacks.

Random:

A window broke while I was teaching my sixth graders today! The window already had a hole in it from before, and the wind was blowing really hard outside today, and in the middle of class a bunch of class suddenly splintered off of the window and scattered onto the floor. Luckily, there wasn't too much, so we just swept it into a corner...

A concern I have about my sixth grade class is that even though there are only twelve students, it's hard to engage some of them. Some obviously have a better grasp of English than others, and there's one guy that I think has potential, but he mostly just checks out during class because he can't keep up with the others, and I think he's already given up. I don't know if he's like this for all of his classes...I hope not. Anyway, I want to help ALL of them learn as much as they can! No child left behind! ha ha. But really. Any suggestions?

first day of (teaching) class

Background: Professor Scott Rozelle, the Stanford prof who's with us in China now, is starting a program to bring volunteer teachers to migrant schools in Beijing, to help teach English. We are his guinea pigs.

Starting today, I'm teaching at this school in Haidian District (same district as Beida, but it's a big district, apparently) every Friday from about 1:30 to 3:30. The school is a 40 minute bus ride away, in a community that my teaching partner Adam described as "something between the countryside and the city." In terms of wealth/resources, it's pretty similar to a South African township, or those neighborhoods in Mexico that OCCEC goes to every year. But it's a little different because it's still pretty close to the heart of the city, so there are random shops with glass windows, and a good amount of cars/buses traveling the dirt roads. Anyway, the school has about 300+ students, preschool through sixth grade. We talked with the principal, and agreed to teach two classes: a sixth grade class, and a preschool class.

part of the schoolyard

I forgot to take pictures of the sixth grade class, but I'll do it next week. There are only 12 students in that class, and their ages range from 12 to 15. They were all pretty well-behaved, though some learn faster than others because the others don't seem to be very good at paying attention. I gave them all English names because none of them had one yet, and yes, I did name two boys Moses and Aaron 8-)

After that class was the preschool class. And the only word I have to describe that experience was AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

hahah jk, i have more words. But really, it was OUT OF CONTROL. First, some cute pictures:

cute boy who came up to me in the playground and said, "YOU'RE the English teacher!"

this is me writing "tiger" on the board, before i realized that 1) they can't read and 2) they have the attention spans of fleas.

At first, things seemed to be going okay. The kids were relatively well-behaved and paid a decent amount of attention, although I was constantly shushing them and asking them to sit back down.

"learning" animal names

asking this boy if he knew the English word for "cat." he was shy, so he didn't say anything

But VERY QUICKLY, the kids figured out that we didn't really know how to handle them, and after about five minutes, the classroom devolved into mayhem.

Adam and I were totally flustered. We just kept looking at each other and being like "Um...so...haha. What should we do?" And then about ten kids ran out the door to tell the principal, and then five more kids tried running out so I grabbed them and said, "Stay here!" And they all said, "We have to go to the bathroom!" So finally, at the advice of the little girl in green, I grabbed a stick that was lying on the table and said, "Whoever doesn't sit down is going to get hit with this stick!"

AND THAT WAS THE MAGIC PHRASE. They all sat down! It was amazing. And THEN the regular preschool teacher walked in with an even BIGGER stick and started herding them into their chairs, and if they didn't move right away, she would whack them on their arms (not hard, but harder than my tender heart would at first allow me to, haha). That got them really quiet, and it was seriously like a magic trick. All of the crazy little kids were sitting at their desks, being quiet, and then I told them to get their books out, and it was almost as if I'd been given a new class.

transformation

the woman in the pink is the regular teacher, and she stayed for the rest of the class period, keeping the kids in line! Adam and I asked her to please come back next time and stay throughout the whole class.

At the beginning and end of every class, the kids would stand up and yell, "LAOSHI HAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (Hi, Teacher) and "ZAI JIAN LAOSHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" haha it was so ridiculously loud. But as you can see, they are ADORABLE! So uh, hopefully next time will be less of a zoo and more of a classroom with humans in it.

riding a bike through beijing rush hour traffic = EXTREMELY MA FAN
i am totally wearing my mask next time. my poor poor lungs :'( and the poor poor lungs of everyone who lives in beijing!!! the air is HORRID here.
but the city is still growing on me.

on the other side

I had a really interesting taxi ride back to Beida tonight. Our driver was super talkative, and had a lot of opinions on why China sort of sucks and America/other Western countries are much better. When he found out we were from the U.S., he said,“You must be crazy for wanting to come HERE to go to school! All you’ll learn is bad manners, like spitting on the sidewalks and cutting in line. And you'll get a whole stomach full of polluted air.”


He kept talking about how much he admired the transparency of the American press ("They talk about that time when a student went to school and shot a bunch of other students, and then killed himself...in China, people kill each other all the time, people get drowned and there's corruption in the government and in doing business, and the press is quiet."), and how happy he was when he saw on the news that former VP Cheney got a speeding ticket, because it showed that Americans value equality. He also talked about how in China, people don’t really follow the law, but everything is based on “关系,” or having the right relationships with the right people (sort of a more corrupt form of networking, I guess). And how in China, it’s customary to just “被人害” or take crap from other people, whereas in America, it’s more customary to “害别人,” and his example was that if a teacher at a Chinese university harasses a female student and she complains, he’ll just flunk her and the school won’t punish him, but if the same thing happened in the U.S., the teacher would be fired in a minute.

Finally, he told us that his own daughter is currently in England. I was surprised, because he’s only a taxi driver—he obviously doesn’t have money to spare, so how could he afford to send his child to England? When I asked, he told us that when he was about our age, he became friends with a foreign exchange student from England. After this student went back home, they became pen pals, and have been friends now for more than 30 years. When the taxi driver got married (and he told us that he married late—I don’t really know what he means by “late,” but apparently his child is only in 4th grade now, and he looks like he’s in his late forties, at least) and had a kid, this British friend offered to pay for her school tuition. But in China, not only is tuition very expensive if you want to go to a good school, you also have to bribe the teachers in order to make sure your child will be looked after as well as the other children. So when the British friend found out about this, he offered to just bring the taxi driver’s daughter to England to live with him and his family (he has three daughters around her age). And the taxi driver, of course, accepted. He said that his wife was really sad about it, but he convinced her that it would be better for their daughter to leave China.

“She’s been there for a year now, and now she doesn’t want to come back! I can see why—she sent me a picture of her and her friends at the park, and the grass was so green! I don’t know if the grass is like that in America. Have you seen grass like that? So green, you can't even see the dirt underneath it. When I saw that green, tears came to my eyes. I think if I went to England and saw that green grass, I would never come back to China.”

Then I tried asking if his daughter ever came back to visit, except I forgot how to say “visit,” so instead I used the word “return,” and he immediately burst out saying, “I would never let her come back here! I don’t want her to come back to China. I want her to stay in England, or maybe go to America. Of course, it’s up to my friend, and if he says he can’t support her anymore, she’ll have to come back. But then, I’d try and find a way for her to go to some other country. After all, she knows English now, so she would be okay.”

“But doesn’t her mother miss her?”

“No…when she misses her, she can go online and talk to her and see her. And of course it would be okay for her to come back once in awhile, maybe for ten days or a month. But I wouldn’t let her live here again.”

When I got out of the cab I thanked him and tried to say something like, “I hope your child has a really good future,” but I couldn’t think of how to say it in Chinese fast enough. Anyway, it really moved me. It reminded me of that movie, “和你在一起,” when the guy’s dad pretends to kick him out of the house, because he wants his son to go live with the violin teacher so he can get better at violin and become famous. I wished I could plant a huge green lawn in China for this man.

my sister wrote this poem

it made me cry. go liz!! :D



sometimes
you feel so far away
distant shores,
crowded cities,
a million lives away.
and though i know you're always here.
you disappear sometimes
fade into the background of an ordinary day
of lifes pain and struggles

but i always find you,
i always know i will.

black and white scenes
our memories, our struggles
the lessons youve taught me
the way you so profoundly
touched my life.

how can i find the words
to express
the bond we have,
the comfort and security i feel with you
the youth and innocent joy
the contented smile

you taught me what was right.
saved me from what was wrong
and protected me.

how can i find one single,
closed, stifled word.
to express that which is free, light, majestic, and glorious?

you are my sister.
and i love you.
and i miss you.

come back soon.

hoooody doo!

1. HAPPY EASTER!!!! Mine was a trip. Literally ha ha. But I'll tell that story later.

2. I went to the Great Wall yesterday. I thought it'd be boring, just another tourist trap, but it was actually really fun! We went to the Mutianyu section, which is less touristy than some other sections, and I really liked the vendors selling stuff at the bottom. It reminded me a little of the vendors at Mont-Saint-Michel, which completely charmed me for some inexplicable reason. I think it was one of my favorite places in France...although I just loved France in general. ANYWAY, the BEST part of the whole Great Wall experience was definitely tobogganing down the mountain!! We took a cable car up, but on the way down, you can just get in this little sled thing and slide down in these metal half-pipe things, and you can control your own speed. Since there was no one in front of me, I usually went as fast as possible!! It was AWESOME!

Soooo pictures:

here it is, the stuff of your fancies and fairy-tales, THE GRRREAT WALL!

look how steep the steps to go up were!! good thing i bought comfortable shoes the day beforehand for 190 rmb...yeah i got 9 kuai off because my friend told the saleslady that i was a "famous american student studying at beida" hahaha

look how lovely!

i climbed this battlement

we went all the way to this unrenovated section of the wall. no wonder the wall didn't work...haha just kidding it didn't work because it was too big to properly man.

instructions for TOBOGGANING

see, to go faster you just push the lever down!

look how excited i am

look how EVER MORE EXCITED i am while going down!

the end of the run

what it looks like to ride down!

super duper!

Recieving

"Only the hungry dine, only the thirsty drink deep."
-Mystery, Misty Edwards

The more you ask for God, the more of Him you will receive. Blessed are you if you are unbearably hungry and thirsty, if you feel as though you can't go on living unless you touch the Eternal One, unless you hear His voice and see His face. Blessed are you, because Jesus promises that you will be filled--and this filling is not even directly proportional to the amount of effort we put in, or even the amount of passion in our hearts for Him. It is always much more than we ask for. God never withholds Himself from those who seek Him with a humble heart.

What we need to understand, though, is that we don't deserve that blessing. We don't deserve to be filled. We cannot have the mentality that, since we've put in so much effort/energy into seek God, we deserve for Him to show up. It is HE who deserves all of our love, devotion, worship, longing, energy--everything. Failing to understand this is failing to recognize that God is God. We must never, ever think of our relationship with God as a business transaction between equals, in which we pay Him with our time and love, and He pays us back by showing up when, where, and how we expect Him to. He is the only God, the Uncreated One, Holy and Wholly Other Than everything in all creation; therefore, He deserves all our affection, regardless of whether or not He chooses to acknowledge us.

Yet, not only does God acknowledge us, He loves us with an unstoppable, unquenchable, all-consuming love. He yearns for us far more than we yearn for Him! He began longing for communion with us before we even knew who He was. He loved us so much that He humbled Himself, He made Himself lower than all of us, so that He could raise us up and clothe us in His glory. Furthermore, God's love is not a vague, blanket-love for all of humanity. He loves us personally--He is the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 to search for just one. THIS is the God we long for. Not a distant Being who's powerful, but uninterested. Not someone who might deign to give us some of His attention if we beg hard enough. We must always remember that the only reason we are even able to long for Him is because He first longed for us.

This God is completely worth seeking, not only because of who He is, but because He promises us that if we hunger and thirst for Him, He will not leave us empty and dry--"for they shall be filled."

Dwell on this truth, and live it out in faith. Hunger after Him with uninhibited passion, boldness, hope, and expectation.

i'm sorry

i just HAVE to say this somewhere, to someone:
i find it absolutely ridiculous when couples take pictures of themselves looking each other in the eyes, or kissing, or whatever...how can you even pretend that that's actually an authentically romantic moment of you just staring at each other without another thought or care in the world, when clearly you're both thinking about the fact that one of you is holding a camera inches away from both your faces, and trying to angle it so that both people are in the picture, but you can't look at the camera to check and see if it's at the right angle because you're supposed to be busy looking at each other, and you know right after you take the picture you're going to stop looking at each other and check the picture to see if it's "cute" enough (or if both people's faces are even in the frame)?! and finally, why, oh why, would you post such a picture on facebook? and not just ONE such picture. more like 20. in a row. see, the assumption is that you only post pictures to the internet that you think other people would want to see.

but we live in a crazy world where people do crazy things all the time. and i guess if i had to choose between the cultural revolution and sappy inauthentic couple pictures on facebook, i would take the latter. but only reluctantly. ha ha...just kidding...

i was so tempted to post an example picture, but i won't. just in case any of you know these people. hahaha. okay /rant.

mullullullulullulllllllllll

my head is bursting with:
chinese history
politics
things i need to do
how it all fits together


it's important to me that i find some way for everything i've ever learned/experienced to fit together. it's how i make sense of life. i really do believe that everything affects everything else, and is therefore inextricably connected to everything else. i feel that it's vital for me to figure these connections out, because theoretically, my life (my plans and actions) is simply my response to these connections.

it's hard to find (english) poetry here

but here's one, from a friend's blog:

Child

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate–
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

-Sylvia Plath

convoluted.

had a dream that i was supposed to perform at this girl's sorority party, and she'd planned the party all around my performance, but at the last minute i got the opportunity to lead worship in the prayer room at IHOP, so i canceled on the girl and she was furious at me, and kept sending me scathing text messages about what a horrible person i was.

also in this dream, i was looking at a vase, and i saw a spider crawling out of it and i got scared, but then it turned out to be a huge orange frog with a smaller orange frog beneath it (it was sort of attached to the underside of the bigger frog's belly) and THAT frog had a small stuffed fishie in its mouth.

in other news, i am learning a lot here. we watched a documentary called "China in Revolution," about (guess what?) China during their civil war (and WWII) from the 20's to the 50's. i learned so much that i never knew before, just about the details of the revolution(s), about chiang kaishek and mao zedong, about how stubborn and brutal both sides could be. i think i learned a lot about the chinese mentality, for both people in power and the peasants, who really lived very bitter lives. and i don't know, maybe still do. i'm not sure what things are like for the very poor in China now, but the documentary had some pretty sad interviews, like an old woman talking about how she was a child worker in a factory, and how communism sounded like paradise compared to what they have--so much so that she would have been willing to give up her life for the cause. there's so much to learn from that statement alone.

then this morning we watched "The Story of Qiu Ju" in my chinese criminal law class. i'd actually watched that movie before at home, a long time ago. but i'd forgotten how sad it is! and it just made me THINK so much. there's no real bad guy in the movie...so there's no easy way out for the audience--you can't just blame one person for the problems. it's about the failure of the chinese judicial system to actually provide justice, but it's also about chinese pride and saving face, AND about the way living in a village changes your relationships with people, so that maybe the standard rules/mentalities about justice don't apply, because things just are more complicated than that.

and then tonight, we went to a lecture by Timothy Ash, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford and an Oxford Professor in European Studies (i dont know why i started capitalizing things for this. i think it just felt a little disrespectful to not capitalize a Hoover Fellow's name. or title, apparently). it was on the G20--well, it was prompted by the G20 summit, but it was mostly about Ash's hypothetical idea of a G3 coalition (U.S., China, and EU). i thought the discussion was pretty interesting--there were 14 Americans, 7 Europeans, and 29 Chinese students present, and hearing from the different groups about whether or not China would replace the U.S. as the most powerful country in the world and the pros and cons of a G3 coalition was very...stimulating to my mind, shall we say.

sometimes i get super interested in things like this, but almost immediately come to the thought, "what does it matter, anyway?" i think that's what puts me off from politics so much--yes, it's interesting and one can get very involved/caught up in the complex relationships between people in power, but when i think about the history of the world, kings and kingdoms have risen and fallen over and over again, and that's that. people live and then they die, and all of it comes to nothing in the end. i know that the politics of today do affect future generations, and i'm not discounting the value of the present-day effects of politics, especially when it comes to human lives and the quality of these lives. i think politics can be very influential and can do a great amount of good or harm. and i think, in theory at least, it's important to pay attention to what people in power are doing because what their actions can affect everyday lives all over the world. but the problem is, i feel like politics is always, if i may, SHOOBING AND GOOBING AROUND!!! hahaha

okay seriously though.

it's all about power. earthly power. it's about making your own country climb as far up as possible, and it's about doing damage control when the mad struggle for power and wealth begins messing up the world in major ways. in the bible, it seems like God's view of politics is much, much different from people's view of politics. kings are so concerned with making treaties and waging wars and conquering lands and playing political games to create what they think will be best for their countries/empires. but from the beginning, God has pretty much only been concerned with whether or not they ruled justly (protecting the poor, widows, orphans, and foreigners), and acknowledged Him as God. when they didn't do these things (which was the case far more often than not), He used them as pawns to destroy each other.

i feel like God has always only had one goal in mind, and that is to be in relationship with people. and He's given men great power time and time again, but when they haven't acknowledged Him as God, their most ingenious plans have always came to nothing. no matter how strong one nation or empire seemed, God could always raise up one that was stronger. it all seemed so futile in the end. i guess what i'm saying is that God's ideas of justice and how to handle power are so different than the world's ideas of these things. the "kings" of this world aren't interested in Him. so when i start thinking about politics, i inevitably stop short and wonder why i should even waste my energy learning about all this stuff, when it's so...meaningless. all of it is meaningless--it goes around in circles and sometimes it looks promising, but to me, the promises made by nations are false, fragile at best. we try to build ourselves up without acknowledging the Builder. we even try to do noble things like solving the problem of poverty, but we do these without admitting that God is good or seeking His face at all. we're trying to fix this world ourselves, but the truth is that we simply can't. and people won't admit that--they simply cannot believe that the world is not in their full control. the best, most noble efforts of kings and kingdoms to improve this world are so unimportant compared to the most vital thing--in the end, the only vital thing, actually--to know and love God. when we're spending all of our time and energy on these things, as if they're the only things that matter, we're just chasing after the wind. and when i think about life from this standpoint and ask myself the question of what the best possible use of my life could be, it's always simply to preach the love of Jesus as widely and powerfully as i can. because who cares if i help improve the quality of life? food, shelter, health, and even justice will preserve your body, but it won't feed your spirit--it won't nourish the eternal part of you. and a relationship with God is not a luxury that can only be fully experienced if your natural needs are taken care of. i hope this doesn't make me sound like one of those people that goes up to a starving man and says, "God bless you" and walks away. i'm not talking about dead religion that i want to spread to people everywhere. i'm talking about a relationship with a LIVING God, who cares for a whole person, and not just the spirit. but i am saying that having a relationship with God far outweighs having your physical needs met.

these are things i could never say in public at a place like Stanford, because people would just consider me to be an ignorant Christian. i haven't always been like this, either. i think the more i learn about God, the harder it is for me to live a "normal" life, or see this world like a "normal" person would. sometimes i scare myself. i think, "what if i'm just going off the deep end, into craziness?" so i have to take a step back and just ask God to please, just take me where He wants me to go. as long as i'm not walking according to my own will, it doesn't matter how crazy the rest of the world thinks i am (a lot easier said than genuinely believed, of course). and i can and will make mistakes, but as long as i learn to love humility, He will set me right. and of course, He often uses people to do that. so your opinions are appreciated, even if they don't always seem to be, at first.

GOD ANSWERS PRAYER!

God, I know I've asked for a lot, so far. And You've given it all to me! Thank You thank You for meeting me here, for giving me water and food, sustaining me day by day, every day. Even when I'm at my loneliest and whiniest, You never forsake me. So please help me to trust You more.

...and since I know You are never in short supply of anything
PLEASE GIVE ME A PIANO/KEYBOARD :D
and EMPOWER ME!!!!!!!!!

anxiously awaiting Your reply!

quote from my chinese law textbook

"Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the PRC. It is the inviolable duty of all Chinese people, including our compatriots in Taiwan, to accomplish the great task of reunifying the motherland. The policy is well-known that Taiwan may enjoy a different social and political system from that of the mainland when China is reunified. The policy of one country with two systems has been the consistent policy of the Chinese government to resolve the Taiwan problem."

equality

press on, press in

I will enter by the narrow way
for Your cross is a better place
and I will follow,
I will follow.

So come and take me by the narrow gate--
Your cross is the safest place
and I will follow,
I will follow.

(How I long to see the picture finished,
painted as a perfect portrait
void of all the mysteries of my life.
The cares of life bend every corner
taking me in wrong directions
can I walk despite the pain and strife?

But what is life without all the yearnings of the heart?
And who am I to doubt all You have in store for me?

So I will take up my cross
and I will follow,
I will follow.
Day by day,
and choice by choice,
I will follow,
I will follow.)

-Cross, Audra Lynn

lullaby

I'm sorry if the following story is incoherent...it's still hard for me to explain to myself what happened, but I feel like I need to write it down even if I can't convey everything as well as it deserves to be conveyed.

So yesterday, I spent the whole day fasting and praying and reading Jeremiah, and that was good. Then I went out to dinner with some friends and we got back sort of late, around 9 or 9:30 PM. I knew I'd be alone in the room for the night because my roommate was out climbing Tai Shan, but I didn't think anything of it, because I haven't gotten creeped out by the dark in awhile. But for some reason, as I was getting ready to go to bed last night, I started getting really afraid, and I don't even know what I was afraid of. All of the lights were on, and I felt safe in the sense that I didn't expect any murderers to come into my room at night. But I just had this really tense scared feeling while I was brushing my teeth and coming into my room, and when I turned off the light and got into bed I tried closing my eyes and sleeping, but my heart was sort of fluttering, and I felt this pressure and tightness in/on my chest that wouldn't go away no matter how many deep slow breaths I tried to take. I didn't want to admit that I was afraid, because I felt like that would make me REALLY scared, so I just kept telling myself, "There's absolutely no reason for me to be afraid of anything. God is always with me, etc." And then I prayed and said Jesus's name out loud over and over and that calmed me down a little, but the pressure in my chest didn't go away and I just couldn't shake the weird/bad/scary feelings.

So then I turned on my computer and started playing Misty Edwards songs, because that usually always helps me calm down/fall asleep or at least lets me enter into worship and forget about everything else. But even though I heard the music and understood that the messages in it were supposed to be comforting and true, it was like her voice was just noise going into my ears. All I could really hear was my heart rate going really fast and myself trying to breathe slower.

I had no idea why this was happening, or even what was happening, because I'd been totally fine all day until this point. A lot of theories drifted into my head, but I was too scared to give them much thought. I was so tempted to call someone and just have them talk me out of it, or talk to me until I got tired enough to fall asleep. But finally I just burst out saying, "God, I'm scared! Why am I so scared? You're supposed to be the God who's close to me, who talks to me. You say that I can recognize Your voice. So Jesus, please just talk to me. Give me that peace that You promise!" Almost right away, this thought came into my head that I thought could be from God: "Turn off the music and I'll sing you to sleep." It was a semi-weird statement, which I thought I could be making up in my half-delirium. But something about it felt trustworthy, so almost without hesitation, I closed my computer (which, until that point, I had been really scared to do , because that meant the room would get totally dark and silent).

The moment my computer shut off, I felt PEACE fall on me like a huge blanket. There's just no other way to describe it. My whole body relaxed, the pressure on my chest went away, and there was no trace of fear or anxiety in me. I couldn't have conjured up fear if I'd tried.

And then as I lay there, I heard felt God's presence right next to me, probably the strongest I've ever felt it. I just KNEW it was Him! And He said, "I really enjoyed the time you spent with me today." I can't think of a more beautiful moment in my life. I can't think of anything better or sweeter than those words, and the way I felt them enter my heart/mind/spirit. It was just so tender and pure, and it was so unmistakably Him--the Creator of the universe, so close to me! Immediately, tears came to my eyes and all I could say back was, "Wow." And then He let me know, not exactly in words, the way the first words came, but more in impression/feeling, that He was proud of me for how I'd told my friends at dinner about my relationship with Him. And again, I was like like "Wow...thank You." Then, I think I asked Him why I'd been so scared, but instead of giving me reasons, all He said was, "You have absolutely no need to fear."

I think I fell asleep pretty soon after that. It's so weird...I just can't really describe what happened, nor do I understand that whole chain of events. All I know is that it was SO AWESOME! I called on Him, and He really answered me! It was that simple. I feel like this experience has given me so much more confidence in Him, in that fact that He will unfailingly come to me whenever I need Him.

Anywayyyyy just wanted to share that. Hopefully it made some sense!

picture mania

Okay, I guess I'd better do this before the pictures pile up too much.

Here is a taste of my weekend, in pictures and some captions.

Last Sunday, we met our language partners--Beida students who will help us get better at Chinese I guess, and who want to get better at English. Everybody wins! Then, they took us all to the Summer Palace, which was a LOT bigger and grander than I expected. This is me and my language partner, Gou Ying.

Cixi's boat (not a real boat)!

A famous long corridor. Forgot what it's called. Probably something like "Long Corridor of Eternal Harmony and Extremely Glorious Peace"

It was SO CROWDED there. But this made me think--the concept of a place being "crowded" is so interesting. It's easy to dehumanize people when you think of them as part of a "crowd," obstacles in your path, inconveniences. But I won't go into that now because then I'd never finish posting these pictures, and that is obviously more important.

CUTE LITTLE KIDS PLAYING! i couldn't resist :]

This is...the next day? I think. My roommate Natalie and I in a cab on our way to Carrefour.


For dinner, we ate at a really nice Yunnan restaurant. Mom, in case you don't recognize it, that green 菜 is the kind you buy at farmer's market sometimes--you know, that kind of fuzzy one with the swirly tendrils? I was excited to find it at this restaurant.

And then a couple of nights later, we ate at this other restaurant which was not as nice and pretty dirty looking, but the food was really good...especially this pineapple rice! My friend Eric took a bite out of the pineapple to prove that it was real...


And this weekend, we went to the Beijing Urban Planning Exhibition. This is a bronze of Beijing.


model of the business district

then we ate lunch at this famous 100 year old peking duck restaurant. they bought WAY too much food for us...

Then we went to Tiananmen Square...and took a picture with Mao's portrait, except whoever took this evidently forgot the purpose of the picture...oh well.

and on to the forbidden city, which did not feel like a palace, because it was too crowded and commercialized. it just felt like a tourist trap.

After we got out of the Forbidden City, we climbed the mountain behind it, which had a pretty nice view of Beijing


But the BEST part of the whole day was definitely when we haggled the price of these amazing photos from 25 to 5 kuai per person (using the classic "that's too expensive. goodbye!" of course) Which honestly, isn't that bad for them, considering they took the photos with our cameras and got lots of publicity what with the six of us dressed like this! heheheheheee

happy royal family

dramatic royal family

awesome royal family.

clearly, i was born to be an empress.

when we came back down, there were all these chinese girls taking pictures like this. except they don't really smile.

and for some reason they never do this!

phew. i should stop doing things so i can stop posting pictures. THIS TAKES FOREVER!

i have blogged far too much today!
goodbye!

email from watchman

Hi,

Greetings from Singapore.

So sorry for my delay and my first mail to you all. Thanks alot for allowing me to share with you all that night.

I am so caught up with so many speaking engagements right now. Immediately after the Prophetic Conference in Bethel Church, Redding and I found myself in Mongolia for 10 days conduct a seminar for the church leaders in the countryside near Siberia and Russia.

Stayed 2 days in Singapore and on my way to Hainan Island for 5 days and to talk to poor farmers about God-given fertilizer - non toxic.

Now I have little time to write to you and in a short while I am on my way to Kluang, Johore because Dr Emily's grandfather has gone back me with the Lord two days ago.

I pray that you all will learn to walk with a deep intimacy with our Lord and the Holy Spirit is there to guide and to teach you to enter into a deep loving relationship with our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus.

3 weeks ago while in my village in Mongolia, I had a dream in this dream it is very scary and frightening. I sought the Lord and I received the word from the Lord on 25th March. Just one word - PREPAREDNESS. ARE YOU STILL PREPARING OR .....?

We are living in perilous time and I want everyone to seek His face and spend time with him as often as you can even in your midst of your study. Avail yourself to him only. Shalom my friend.

Shalom

Watchman


Three things about Watchman (my friend De Wen's spiritual father) that really struck me when he came and visited Stanford: 1) His obedience to God, 2) His humility, and 3) The spiritual authority with which he spoke to us.

This man prayer-walked around the entire island of Singapore every year because God told him to. And because of his obedience to God, he literally helped save Singapore from the tsunami. He obeyed God in doing something that, to many people, might seem illogical and useless. He walked when no one else would walk with him. I want to learn that kind of obedience--the kind that doesn't argue or resist until a command makes complete sense to me. Isn't it enough that I know God is good and that He loves me with a perfect love?

I pray that God will raise up more strong spiritual mothers and fathers like Watchman. Yes, he is a prophet, so it makes sense that he speaks with so much spiritual authority. But I believe that many of our mothers and fathers have great callings and gifts in their lives that are yet unexplored.

I pray that I will grow up to become a strong spiritual mother--that this passion in my heart won't grow cold or become jaded as the "reality" of life surrounds me with "practical" concerns. I think it's a lie that only young people can be totally sold out and on fire for God. We should be catching that fire from the generation before us! If I can still dance by the time I'm 60 or 70 (if I'm still here by then), you can bet I'll be one of those crazy grandmas dancing around in church :] And I hope I inspire my grandchildren to dance, too.

I encourage you all to pray for your parents, even if they aren't Christians yet.

saturday

I decided not to climb Tai Shan today because I was too tired from the past two days, which I know I haven't written about yet, so I'll do that...later.

Today, I spent my morning and afternoon with God, worshiping/praying/reading.

I've been reading Jeremiah lately. I'd never read the whole book before. Of course, the very first thing that struck me is how angry God sounds. Angry and frustrated. There are chapters and chapters of God repeating Himself about how fed up He is with Israel and Judah for disobeying Him and rejecting Him. But then I started reading deeper into His words, and realized that the word "anger" isn't enough to describe what's going on in God's heart as He's saying these words.

If God were REALLY angry, like the "angry God" lots of people like to stereotype Him as, the book of Jeremiah would never have been written. Why proclaim judgment at all? Why expend the energy? It's an infuriating and painful experience to say something over and over again, only to be ignored or mocked by your audience.

But God was more than capable of destroying them in an instant. Or in a slow, painful death--whatever He wanted to do. Reading Jeremiah, I completely understood what he meant when he wrote, "I tremble all over. I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated" (Jer. 23:9). It's terrifying to think about how these people diminished God to nothing, completely disrespected Him and basically spitting in His face. This is GOD they were doing these things to! But they were so ignorant of that. They seemed to have no idea that they were disobeying the LIVING God. They didn't believe He was alive, all-powerful, and all-knowing, even though they professed to believe these things. So when I first started reading Jeremiah, I felt God's frustration so acutely, and I kept waiting for the judgment to come. I kept waiting for Jeremiah to stop delivering messages like "God's wrath WILL come," and for the punishment to actually happen. But chapter after chapter goes by, and God just keeps talking. And He's saying really scary things about what's GOING to happen, but instead of lightening bolts coming out of the sky and killing people immediately after Jeremiah delivers a word of judgment, time passes and nothing happens. So the people start mocking Jeremiah and plotting against his life, because as far as they can tell, he is just a trouble-maker who tries to guilt-trip everyone around him.

These Israelites just didn’t understand the heart of God. They said things like, "If He's actually serious, let Him show up! Let the judgment happen!" They didn't even know the God they were talking about. Behind every proclamation of judgment is so much love, so much patience, so much tenderheartedness. God's heart is so tender! He gave them chance after chance after chance, hoping they would turn back, hoping they would finally listen to Him so that He wouldn’t have to punish them. Even though they completely deserved to be wiped from the face of the earth, He held back. He waited.

And then, when He finally brought judgment by sending the Israelites into exile, He did it with an amazing amount of grace, gentleness, and love. He was just--He did bring the judgment that He said He would, because they didn't turn back to Him. Yet, this is what He says to them in exile:

29:10 “For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule are over will I again take up consideration for you. Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore you to your homeland. 29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. 29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers. 29:13 When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, 29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ says the Lord. ‘Then I will reverse your plight and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

I never realized that this was the context to the famous "I know the plans I have for you" verse that everyone always quotes. Reading it in context is much more powerful for me. This comes after chapters and chapters of God proclaiming judgment on Judah and Israel for how they've repeatedly scorned Him and rejected Him. But even while He's punishing them, He's showing them how to reap His blessing. He's saying, "All I've ever wanted was to give you good things, to give you joy, to give you a future filled with hope. You wouldn't listen to me while you were safe and comfortable in the land I gave you, so I had to take you out of that. I had to wake you up and show you that I am real, that I'm still here and I still want to give you the same good things. Will you finally listen to me now, when you have no one else to turn to?"

God is tender-hearted. God's love is steadfast and unchanging. If we don't understand and BELIEVE this about God's heart, we will never understand Him. We'll get angry at Him, calling Him unjust, a liar, or non-existent when circumstances and events don't go the way we believe they should. While Jeremiah was prophesying judgment, all the other prophets of Israel and Judah were prophesying peace, because they didn't understand the true heart of God, and were trying to conjure up their own idea of who God was. They made a papier-mache god by taking little pieces of His character and personality and mashing them together with promises taken out of context. That is who they wanted their God to be--something they could mold and shape according to their shifting desires. But that is not who God is. And the thing is, He's always desired for people to really know Him, and to know Him intimately.

"[The false prophets] are reporting visions of their own imaginations,
not something the Lord has given them to say.
23:17 They continually say to those who reject what the Lord has said,
‘Things will go well for you!’
They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts,
‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’
23:18 Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle
so they could see and hear what he has to say?"

And again,

"23:22 But if they had stood in My inner circle,
they would have proclaimed My message to My people.
They would have caused My people to turn from their wicked ways
and stop doing the evil things they are doing."

The point is, these false prophets did not seek the living God. They did not ask to enter God's inner circle--the place where He makes His plans known (also translated as "council")--to hear what He actually had to say. It's not that God made it impossible. It's that they didn't even try.

After I read this, I began praying, asking God to let me come into His inner circle, to stand in His council and simply listen to what He's saying. What His plans are, what His thoughts are.

At one point while I was reading Jeremiah, I looked up at my wall to where I'd posted a verse from 1 Thessalonians that John Sillcox gave me a few months ago (it's 1 Thess. 5:16-24, talking about how we as Christians should live). Suddenly, I was struck with amazement as I realized how much how relationship with God has changed from Israel's relationship with God under the old covenant. There are so many similarities, but so many important differences, too. We're privileged to enjoy a level of intimacy with Him that Israel didn't have under the old covenant. Instead of being clueless sheep that rebel and resist, we are transformed, renewed, empowered. We receive gifts and revelations in abundance! We are CALLED to His purposes, to do His will, to expand His kingdom all over the world. This is the destiny God has given humans since the beginning of time, but we are currently living in a time when we can see this calling and destiny blooming right before our eyes in an incredible way. And it's Jesus that did this. His blood alone completely changed us from helpless beings, subject to God's wrath, to FRIENDS of God and heirs to His glory! God has already given us glory beyond measure, and there is even more to come. Sometimes I forget how amazing Jesus's blood is.

And I want to live each day in this reality--the realization that I am a child, love, and friend of the Most High God--that He calls me a part of His body, a part of His very fullness.

To have this identity given to me by God makes each day of my life simply wondrous, no matter where I am or what's going on in my life.

"My blessing is on those people who trust in me, who put their confidence in me. They will be like a tree planted near a stream whose roots spread out toward the water. It has nothing to fear when the heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no need to be concerned in a year of drought. It does not stop bearing fruit" (Jer. 17: 7-8).

That's His LOVE!

I will let this truth sink deep into my heart, so that I become rooted and grounded in it.


THIS turned into a huge ramble, but that's okay, 我行我素！haha, phrase I learned yesterday when I went with some of Natalie's Chinese friends to a vegetarian restaurant.

anyway, consider it a privilege to be let into my head like this :]

t o p i c s o f i n t e r e s t

r e a l i z a t i o n :
Chinese people aren't rude, they just have a different system of politeness. for example, they'll cut you in line and let the door slam in your face, but they (usually) won't go so far as to push you out of the way, and if you learn how to play their game of "I got here first," they'll honor the system. similarly, although the drivers might appear to be reckless, with no regard for human life, taxi drivers won't allow 5 passengers to ride in a 4-passenger car, and it's understood that cutting another driver off on the freeway is stupid and rude.

f i r s t d a y o f c l a s s :
Chinese class is a complete drag. i'm not used to learning first year chinese with non-bilingual students, so the class moves INCREDIBLY slow compared to what i'm used to. and what i'm used to was already pretty slow. seriously though, the teacher repeats simple phrases like "let's learn lesson 1" over and over, and puts a half-second pause between each word. and then she'll stop and say, "do you understand?" a;liwaw;lgiu and then we read the lesson by REPEATING AFTER HER instead of reading it ourselves. we do this repeating thing like three times, and then she asks us questions about the reading, and then we read it again. gawleghlhaeu; ALSO, i do not enjoy writing simplified chinese. it's ugly and it feels awkward :( conclusion: stanford is nice. this is not the only thing at beida that's brought me to this conclusion, but it'd take too long to get into it all. all i will say for now is that my time here so far has taught me how extremely blessed i am to go to a school like stanford, and to live in the U.S.

f i r s t R E A L d a y o f c l a s s :
Economic Development of Greater China with Scott Rozelle
this should prove to be a pretty awesome class. it's only been one day, but Rozelle is a very engaging lecturer, and i feel like i'm actually learning! the sensation of my brain expanding is so wonderful :] and it's a pretty general class, but since i know almost nothing about the economic development of greater China, i think it will be great for me. AND we get to take a bunch of cool field trips to do field research on migration in China. AND Rozelle is working on this program called REAP, to research and improve the education for migrant children--apparently, it's the fastest-growing part of the education system in China right now, but also the most neglected. and while we're here, we get to volunteer with his program to teach english to kids in the migrant schools! i'm so excited! i hope i get really small cute ones haha ;alweiuge i love little kids!

m o u n t a i n :
i might climb tai shan this weekend. stay tuned!

I WANT TO GET DRUNK!!!!

DRUNK PEOPLE DO CRAZY THINGS!
Written by: Kevin Dedmon

It is true, drunk people do crazy things. They will say the craziest things to anyone who will listen (even if they won’t listen). They will laugh out loud, oftentimes for no apparent reason, and without any sensitivity to their surroundings whatsoever. They will dance, fall on the ground, sway as they walk, and completely sacrifice their personal dignity. Why? Because they are drunk.

They are not concerned with what people think about them at the moment. They have lost all fear of man, not concerning themselves in the least with the aftermath of humiliation that is sure to follow their actions. They therefore express themselves freely. They will even attempt the dangerous, like driving a vehicle or jumping off cliffs into shallow water, crazy things that they would never even dream of doing if they were sober. Why? Because they are drunk. Drunk people do crazy things!

In Ephesians 5:18, the Apostle Paul gives this instruction to Christians: “Do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (NIV).

This word “debauchery” means to be so influenced by the effects of alcohol that one loses all inhibition, so that they do things of negative and evil consequence that they would not do if they were sober. In other words, debauchery is doing crazy things that you are really ashamed of the next morning.

Being filled with the Spirit, on the other hand, causes one to do crazy things, but the difference is that those things are things that you are proud of the next morning. Interestingly, the phrase, “be filled”, is not a one time event. In the Greek, this is a present tense verb, which has a continual sense associated with the action. So, more accurately, Paul is instructing the Church to “be continually filled with the Spirit”; to drink everyday, the “new wine” of the Spirit. Why? Because drunk people do crazy things!

On the Day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, the Church was filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 13, the crowd made fun of them and said “they have had too much wine”. Peter’s response to this accusation is found in verse 15: “These men are not drunk as you suppose...”. Notice, he does not deny the fact that they are drunk, or at the least, acting drunk. He simply lets them know that they are not drunk in the way that they think that they are drunk. The source of their drunkenness is not due to the wine of the world, but rather the new wine of the Holy Spirit. He explains all of this in verse 17, as he outlines the fulfilled prophetic promise of Joel that God would pour out His Spirit on all people.

Notice that Peter got out of the box, crazy, as he found the courage to stand up to address the crowd of onlookers. This is the same Peter that denied the Lord three times! And now he has unabashed boldness to preach the Gospel to the same angry crowd that had earlier crucified Jesus. The only thing that can explain this uninhibited behavior is the fact that he was drunk. Drunk people do crazy things. And I’m sure he was very proud of his actions the next morning, especially when he realized that 3,000 people had been saved as a result of his boldness under the influence of the Spirit!

Jesus has commanded us to do crazy things like heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons; to preach the message of the Kingdom (Matt. 10:7,8). He has commanded us to be His witnesses in the whole earth as his ambassadors (Acts 1:8; 2 Cor. 5:20). He told Ananias, through a supernatural vision, to go to Saul’s house on Straight Street and lay hands on him to receive his sight, which was a crazy proposal given the fact that Saul was arresting Christians and giving approval for their executions (Acts 9).

I used to never pray for the sick. Not because I didn’t believe in healing. I taught on healing. I just didn’t believe that I had what it took to pray for people for them to be healed. I used the excuse that I just didn’t have the “gift”. Interestingly, after learning to let the Holy Spirit influence my mind, I began to live under the influence (LUI), I began to do things that I would ordinarily never try like praying for someone to be healed. Amazingly, people started getting healed. I started to drink and drive, and when I would get to my destination, I would find supernatural boldness to step out and take crazy amounts of risk to pray for the sick at supermarkets, airports, or at family gatherings. And guess what? People started getting healed.

I have found that most people have a hard time stepping out in risk in the Kingdom because they are too intimidated by what others will think. I want to suggest that you try getting absolutely drunk on the Spirit of God until you have no inhibitions left, and just see what kind of great “crazy” things God can do through your life. Remember, drunk people do crazy things!


***

that's RIGHT! live under the influence, people!!

AAHH

i left my BIBLE on the AIRPLANE!!!!!!! well, one of them. luckily, i brought two. but.....my wonderful little new king james version bible that was small enough to fit in my purse/hand and that i could take wherever....is gone. waaaaaaaaaaaaa :'( :'( :'(

and technically it wasn't mine, it was my dad's...SORRY DAD

i just hope someone reads it instead of throwing it away.

:'(

EDIT:
actually, i think i left it in taiwan. in 爷爷奶奶's house. OOPS.

yucko christravling

i had temporarily forgotten about the bathrooms here (lulled into false sense of cleanliness by our maid-serviced rooms). i could write for a long time about how unnecessarily gross chinese public bathrooms are. but i won't.

i just REALLY don't understand why they have to be so foul! there is absolutely no call for how disgusting these bathrooms are.

on the upside, i ate dinner for the equivalent of about 80 cents tonight. notttt too shabby! of course, it's not as ridiculously cheap when you live in china and your household income amounts to about $300-500/month (this is according to shen laoshi).

rose nose (玫瑰花鼻子）

these are tissues that i bought at Wu Mei just in case we go somewhere where there's no personal bathrooms, maid service, and toilet paper--highly unlikely in china, but better safe than sorry, right?

except, they are scented. "rose"-scented. so if i want to use them to blow my nose, like i did two minutes ago, i am left feeling like i just crammed five fake flowers into my nasal cavity. i feel sort of dizzy now, actually. interesting...



so for all you chinese readers out there (so far, probably only mom and dad), did the package say they were scented?! my chinese still isn't good enough to tell...

to me, it looks like zhongguo hang tian...something yong something pin.

handkerchiefs something shou something... :]

oh well...maybe i'll just buy more. i think they cost like 5 cents.

oh, yesterday at wu mei (i know it seems like my life revolves around this convenience store but i assure you it's only for the time being. i hope.) i was buying my SIM card and i was sort of laughing at the sign for the cell phones, because it said "cellulephone, buy ertra minutes," and the guy working there saw me laughing, so he said, "把他换了" which means "change it for me," so i did.

oh this is awkward, the maid service is here...i always find it really strange to sit around while someone else cleans your house or does the gardening for you. i feel compelled to help, but i know it's their job.

well, i guess that's all for now. once life picks up around here, i'm sure i'll have more exciting things to "blog" about. hardy har (i wonder if anyone actually laughs like that. i'm going to try it with people i don't really know that well).