Thursday, June 25, 2009

The same God!

Today I became fluent in Chinese Mandarin. Hah, yeah right! We learned 10 phrases in Chinese, although it is almost impossible to make their sounds, so I will probably never be understood. It’s funny because each phrase means something different if you use a different tone. Today I learned the word “ma” can mean 5 different things, including horse, mom, etc. I am getting so excited to teach. Today we learned about lesson planning. It turns out that all of the lesson plans are written for us, it is just up to us how we want to implement them in our classrooms. I am still not sure how the classrooms work. I think there may be two teachers to each room. They talked about how eager the Chinese students are to learn. They will be very motivated and will love Americans. Yesterday we talked about some of the misconceptions about what Chinese people think about Americans. Apparently they all think that we are white with blonde hair and blue eyes. There are a few Asian-Americans on my team that are Americans, and they will not believe that these people are actually Americans. They also think that all Americans are rich, fat, and loud. Boy, what a reputation! The food is getting much better. There is a little more than just rice and noodles now. The food is very flavorful. Tonight we had an awesome worship time! Man, it’s so cool to sing songs with some of the Chinese staff. We are half way around the world, singing to the same God! Very cool. I am having SUCH a good time. This is going to be such a good summer ?

2 comments:

Relinquishing said...

Blond hair, blue eyes...sounds about right! Rich, fat, and loud not even close. But two for five is pretty good, yes? Haha. I'm sure you will continue to blow the American stereotype out of the water.

Various time in Uganda I was blown away by the way in which Jesus was the tie that binds. The idea of the "body of Christ" becomes much bigger, much richer, much more connecting when worshipping with believers quite unlike yourself.

Praying the excitement and energy remains high!

-Anika

Vicki Aeschliman said...

Have fun Sara.