Goodbyes

Well today I had to say goodbye to the first round of students. It was much harder that I thought it would be. Yesterday night, we had a closing party. The students gave speeches to me, and they gave me gifts! The whole class went together to buy me a wall hanging with a traditional painted woman, a really expensive and fancy set of chop sticks, and dried fruit from their provinces. What a blessing! We also shared some dances at our party. I taught them an American dance called the Cupid Shuffle, and they taught me some more Chinese dances.
Today, one of the students gave her 10 minute speech. Her speech was about her time here at our program. It had pictures of the 20 day journey put to music. Recently I had been kind of discouraged, because I felt like I hadn't gotten into any really deep conversations with anyone about my faith, and I felt like I hadn't really made any impact in anyone's life yet. But today when she gave her speech, she talked about how much she has changed on the inside here at TIP (the program). I know I didn't do anything myself, but God and me working for TIP made a difference in her life. She had the whole room crying! I just wish that she knew that it was God making these changes in her life, not herself.
Sometimes it's frustrating because the students see that we are different, but they just think that we're good people. They don't know that we're different because we are Christians. When I tell them I am a Christian, they just think that that's part of my culture. They don't see how it could apply to their lives also. But...I just have to believe that God will work in all of their lives, and hopefully something they learned here, could somehow lead them to God in the future.
It's amazing that God let me be part of this. I have learned more than they have, I'm sure. It's exciting to think that I have more than a month left!