The week in review

This week has seemed like one of the longest weeks in a while. It has also been one of the best. I basically felt like I was on a battlefield the whole week. It was a constant fight for energy, truth, and justice in many ways. I was constantly reminded to rely on Him for strength and the right words to say.

I think the enemy knew that we would be teaching probably our most important lessons of the year this week- about the true meaning of Christmas. I was pretty prepared and ready to go. My cold still lingered (after 3 weeks of dealing with it), I was feeling a little melancholy from missing family for my second Christmas in a row, and it is back to freezing in the classrooms.

But the joy of teaching about the Son who came to earth made it all more than worth it. Where else would I rather be than being able to teach about Christmas in a communist country's classroom? I talked about the "secular" part of Christmas, but focused primarily on the "sacred" part of the holiday. My students are sophomores so they heard a lot about it last year, but I think they still learned a lot this year. Their hearts are extremely open, and despite my poor words, they are more intrigued than ever.

During a homework exercise, many of them wrote questions directed to me such as "Why should [the Son] save the world?" and millions of other similar questions. I have been carefully writing responses back to all 190 of their unique questions. It's actually pretty overwhelming, because they are so curious. Sometimes I feel like if I say the wrong thing that they will forever be turned off to the truth. But I know that's a lie! At least they are hearing the truth and He will speak to them how He will.

On Friday morning I also got to talk about Christmas with a class of sweet freshmen girls. One of the teachers on the other team was sick, so I filled in for her. It was refreshing, because I was reminded of how eager they were to soak in this news. And I basically presented the Good News to them. Maybe I could be a professional Christmas lesson-giver. That's probably one of my favorite things to do in the world... :)

Please remember my students, especially the dozens of very interested students. Lift them up so that the seeds of truth in their hearts will grow and flourish. I hope that they will come talk to me if they have more questions.

We also started final exams the last couple days of this week. Yesterday was rather dramatic in one of my classes. We have discussed cheating probably 600 times--how it is wrong and does not help them in the long run. It is a constant battle, because cheating isn't necessarily seen as wrong here. Cheating for a friend is especially seen as okay. In China you help your friends at all costs. Some people even take huge, nation-wide exams for each other. No officials ever bat an eye.

But in my class, at least, I intend to maintain some sense of fairness and justice. I have repeatedly warned them that they will receive zeros and probably fail the class if they cheat. Despite those warnings, there were two cases of blatant cheating. In each instance, they weren't sorry they had cheated, but were mostly humiliated at being caught. I ripped up their papers right then and there without flinching. At first they were in shock and in disbelief. When they realized I was serious and they had just failed they both stormed out of the classroom. After that, nobody dared to cheat--especially in my other classes where word of the exam-ripping quickly spread.

The students who studied did well, and fairness won out, at least for that day. It is frustrating, though, that the grades I give them don't actually matter in the end. The head teachers or secretaries will change the grades I give if they have favorites. Nobody is allowed to fail even if they never come to class. Sigh... Hopefully the students who actually try and have integrity will do well in life.

So it has been a long and challenging week. He gave me a lot of courage when I didn't have any. It was difficult to teach all about Christmas. What if I get in trouble? What if the Muslim girl sitting in the front row doesn't like what I'm saying? What if I say the wrong thing about Him? And it also took a lot of courage to stand my ground in trying to promote fairness in my classes. It would be easier to look the other way, like most Chinese teachers. But He gave me the confidence to look everyone in the eyes all week and to stick to justice and truth, even if they were all relatively small matters.

Well, that's the update for now from my tiny corner of China. Thanks for your continual thoughts!

Candle sticks and dynamite sticks

The past two nights have been rather interesting and "enlightening." Jodi and I wandered down one of our favorite alleys as darkness began to envelope our fair city. We went to one of our favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants where they serve pseudo Korean food. We sat at the tiny wooden tables in the concrete shell of a room, which is half blackened by the flames from the stove. The two young cooks fried the food on the woks in the corner and they served us heaping bowls of steaming hot rice with tiny pieces of chicken, cauliflower, and potatoes.

Right as we began to eat, the lights flickered and went out. Power outages happen rather frequently here, but usually we aren't eating in a restaurant during that time. Without missing a beat, the cooks picked up some little unevenly shaped candles from a nearby box, lighting them for the 15 or so people gathered inside around the 5 miniature tables. We watched as all the customers expertly dripped wax on the table and then jammed the candle stick onto the hot wax, which helped the candles stand upright. They looked like they had experience with these kinds of situations. It was actually quite cozy and exciting to eat by candlelight. The dingy restaurant looked much more serene and the usually noisy place was rather calm and quiet. The cooks just went right on cooking--apparently the two-feet tall flames from the propane stove gave off enough light.

Then on Tuesday night I was sitting at my computer near the windows working on lessons. There was suddenly a loud explosion that I felt all through out my body as the building shook. I seriously thought the windows were bending. Jodi and I immediately wondered what had happened. We leaned out the window to see nothing out of the ordinary. One of our Chinese friends just matter-of-factly stated that it was "only" dynamite being set off underground. (Maybe it is not an extremely rare event around here).

I was rubbing my head wondering why dynamite had been set off in the middle of a very densely populated area. And I could feel it four stories in the air. Apparently in the back gate they were trying to get rid of rocks in the ground to clear the way for sewer lines. Oh, okay.

I think that's all the exciting events I have to share for now. Stories about class just aren't as interesting as dynamite shaking your apartment. Have a great week!

A Day Redeemed

On Saturday I woke up feeling inexplicably tired and annoyed. How can I wake up and feel annoyed? I don't know, but I sure did. Everything was annoying--my oatmeal even annoyed me while I was cooking it.

After breakfast I realized I couldn't continue the day this way. So before my day could progress any further, I made sure to spend some quality time with the Father. I just really didn't want to spend the weekend feeling this way.

I didn't feel better immediately, but a couple girls came over for our Word study at 10 a.m. I willed myself to be attentive and interested and caring. Then I think the Father did the rest, because my irritation and dark mood eventually melted away.

After our study we went out the back gate to eat noodles together. We had a great time slurping hot soup in the freezing restaurant while sitting on little peg stools.

Then in the afternoon I diligently worked on Christmas lesson plans for two hours. After that, three of Jodi's students (my old students), Sweet, John, and Johnson came over to our apartment from new campus. Together we rode bicycles a little ways away to a deaf kindergarten.

We played games and just held the most precious little Chinese children. My Chinese is actually improving, but it didn't really matter because they couldn't hear us. So we just hugged them and played with them. There was one little boy who attached himself to me. He held me and stroked my hands with his little wind-chapped hands, coughing on me the whole time.

I think the Father has a great sense of humor. He knows that my worst nightmare in China is getting sick. I'm honestly more sick than I am healthy. I'm finally recovering from a cold I've had the past two weeks, and he sends me this sweet, but very sick and contagious little boy to crawl all over me. :)

Then at night we had another open house with Jodi's students. Twenty girls came over to play games and eat snacks. Two disabled girls who were my students last year even made the long trek to our apartment for this special occasion. They wouldn't miss it for the world.

So this weekend has been very blessed. The day was redeemed even better than I could have hoped. I'm leaving you with a few pictures of us at the little kindergarten.