Friday night I, Carrie, gave a lecture to a couple of hundred students on the history of Thanksgiving. I decided to give it in narrative form as I transformed myself into the character Sarah Brown. I pieced together a Pilgrim's outfit and headed off to my lecture. I got to tell of the pains and victories of blindly boarding a boat in hopes of a new life. It was really fun getting to tell the history of this great holiday. So much of it revolved around giving thanks to the Provider of all good things. I was able to explain how the Pilgrim's had a day set apart to give thanks to our Father and spend concentrated time with Him.
After giving the history part, Sarah went and got her friend Carrie who told of some of the modern day traditions. And afterwards I took some questions. The funniest one was "Do the animal protection people get upset because Americans are eating the turkeys?" He must have read that somewhere b/c certainly people here are not concerned with animal rights!
I left them with a challenge to thank somebody for being a good friend or parent or whomever. A lot of them have parents who have sacrificed ALOT to send them to college. Most of these students are from small farming towns and their parents give up their lives so that their kids can have a "better" life. It was an honor to get to share this holiday with them. And it's even more exciting to get to share the next holiday coming up!

Life is Life is Life

We've been in Qinhuangdao now for almost 3 months. Since we've lived in China before, some of the culture adjustments were not quite as dramatic for us. We've still had lots to get used to, but things were not as shocking as they were before. Now that we call this home, we've realized daily life is daily life no matter where you live. We sometimes get this romanticized idea that living overseas is exotic and there's this beautiful traditional music that always graces the streets and everyone is always welcoming us in these elaborate traditional costumes. But life is life here as much as it was in the states. We sometimes think that if we just had a different job or lived in a different city, that things would be better or our joy would somehow be made more complete. We've often fallen into this trap ourselves. But for as long as our joy and satisfaction are dependent on our daily circumstances, we will wake up every morning desiring more and usually finding more to complain about for that day. A man by the name of jim elliot once said "Wherever you are, be all there."
For this day we are commited to be all there and allow our satisfaction to come from our Father and not our daily activities or interactions. It makes up more balanced people and allows our Father to do things through us because our own ambitions are finally out of the way.

Some of our favorite Chinese English names

The students get English names for several reasons. One of which is so that we foreign teachers can remember who they are a little easier than attempting their Chinese names. Also, it makes it easier when they are dealing with foreigners in the business world. Some of the time the foreign teachers give them their names. But sometimes, they pick out names that they like and they just go with it. Here are a few that we enjoyed (these are all REAL names of students....names that they picked out :) :

Mount
Python
Yolanda-this one's only funny b/c it belongs to a CHINESE girl
Fight
Lagrange-us Texans should like this one.
Breeze
Himily
Echo
Red Sun
James Bond
Kingsen
Blue
Hans-this is a girl
Maple
Cutecamel

These are just a few.

Selah's 3rd birthday

Well, we've know got an official 3 year old on our hands! She turned 3 yesterday-Nov. 12th. We had two parties for her, one with her classmates at school and one with our teammates.

School Party:

About a month ago, I recruited one of our students to help me plan a party, knowing full well it would take that long with the language barrier. She invited 5 other students to help with the party. So we walk in with our Hello Kitty cake in tow. The classmates (xiaopengyou-meaning "little friends") sang a birthday song to her in both chinese and english. They gave her a picture and everyone cheered. After that we played a game where we tied balloons to their ankles and they had to pop everyone else's balloons. Selah was scared of the noise, but most of the kids had a ball. One kid in particular jumped and screamed in laughter every time he popped a balloon. Other kids ran around with their ears covered and some just turned in circles watching the others.

Next we played duck duck goose in Chinese. They'd never played before, but they caught on. We next had the cake and blew out candles. The are so disciplined, that they all just sat there and waited to everyone had cake and then ate. (could you imagine 15 three year olds in the states waiting while their cake sat before them?!) We then played with balloons and handed out party favors. It was definately a fun thing and Selah felt really special.

Our other part was last night with our teammtes. We celebrated with the other November birthday, had desserts and opened presents.

So another year down...we cannot believe we've got a 3 year old and another one that's almost 1! The joy we get from being their parents in overwhelming.

A summary of these two cultures

Selah had a little open house thing where parents could come watch the kids learn and see there normal activites. They were given sheets of paper to color bananas and apples. After all the kids finished coloring we noticed some differences. All the Chinese kids had pictures where the colors were very safely painted withing the lines. In fact, most of the picture might be left uncolored because they were making sure they stayed within the lines.
Selah, on the other hand, had her fruits entirely colored, very dark, and unmistakably in and outside the lines. Furthermore, when she finshed, she turned the page over and colored on the back.

Some cultures emphasize the need for kids to saty within the boundraries. Other cultures are less concerned with adhering to all boundaries.

some good advice

Heard some good advice recently:

Good decisions are made from good character.

It challeges us that perhaps we should not worry so much about the details of life's plans, and focus of character we are called to imitate.

Sample Writings from Students

These are some sample writings from essays written by our students:
The question was..."Should T.V.'s be allowed in dorms?"

Tina writes "As the proverb goes, All work and no play makes John a dull boy."

Julia says "Besides, sitting before t.v. screen for a long time may also hurt your skin."