Thanks!

Thanks so much everyone who read this blog. I know you could have found so many other things to do with your time. I really appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers. I felt like you all got to experience some of what I did. Thanks again :)

Back on American soil

It was easier to say goodbye than I thought it would be. The students all left soon after the closing ceremony. I was so proud of them! Last night we had a dinner with our team. It was a nice time to talk and reflect with each other about the great session.
I really am sad to leave. It seems like I have been gone longer than 9 weeks. I really do feel at home here. The concrete floor and board bed, have been my home for a while. I really hope I don’t fall right back into the American way. It will be hard to fight it, I know. At least I have all of these memories, because I went through 3 journals! I hope the change in me will be lasting.
This morning I slept in a little bit. When I woke up and went outside of my room, there was a present there waiting for me. It was a journal from one of the students. June, is not even one of my students, but I talked with her a little bit. It was a journal, a picture of her, and a letter to me. She is so sweet.
I went to the bakery by bus for the last time. It is interesting that I think I will miss the bus. Before, I hated the bus, because it’s so hectic and busy, but now all of those annoying things, I think I will strangely miss.
After the bakery I went to get my hair cut. It was a 2 hour process! First I had to wait for a little while. Then it took the guy a really long time to cut it just perfectly. Then he called another guy to straighten my hair. It’s nice be able to wear straight hair again. I was getting tired of the humidity and curly hair. Then they called another guy to do the final trim. At one point, all three of them were doing something different with my hair. I think they just wanted to touch it because it feels different than their hair. I could tell they were talking about the color of my hair. Then they whipped out this book with a bunch of different color hair samples. They put it up to my hair and chose the one that was closest to my hair. I started to laugh. Then they got embarrassed and said, “Good!” I kept checking my watch, because I was afraid I would miss my taxi. I had to run back to campus, but I caught the taxi!
The taxi ride was only supposed to cost 120 yuan, but the register said 146. Ok, I brought extra just in case. I gave the driver 150. Then he got angry and said that it cost 196 yuan. Shoot, I didn’t think I had this much. I started to panic, thinking, “What am I going to do? I don’t have enough!” I started desperately counting my ones and somehow I had enough. I have 2 yuan extra! Thank goodness, because the driver wasn’t the most gracious.
On the planes today I got to see two sunsets and one sunrise. I am living August 28th over again! So strange. I am home J It’s almost like China is a story now. It’s all in the past and a memory…

Party

Today we had a party in our class. The last few days, the students have been sneaking out to buy gifts. Thankfully they did not get caught :) Good news, the cake was ready for me when I went to pick it up! The students gave me a tea cup and a beautiful braclet. It was funny because yesterday, I was asked 3 times what my favorite color was. When I said blue, they said, "Are you sure it's not green...?" Hah, they had bought me a green bracelet. They wanted to sing me songs in Chinese. It was really special. Also, the thing I am most excited about is my new Chinese name! In China, everyone has a meaningful name. They created the name He Ting for me. It means holy and lovely! I was so honored that they would give me a beautiful name. They got a good laugh out of me trying to write it in Chinese characters! Tomorrow will be a tough day, the last day.
Each night me, Karissa, and Cherry (another student) sit out on the steps of our dorm and talk. We were sitting outside last night, it was sprinkling, and Karissa said, "I want to sit out here forever..." Finally we went to bed, because we must get up early. Last night, I thought, I am the luckiest girl in the world. I got to teach a high class, children, and a low class. It could not have been any better. I am so happy. Here there are no worries, no problems, just care free living. In a few days I will go back to school and get back to real life.
It's funny because I have been around the Chinese for so long that I catch my self using Chinglish, and bad grammar. To them we speak so simply and slowly. When I go home, people will look at me strange when I say, "Hhhiii. Mmmmyyyy nnnaaaammmmeee iiiiisssss Ssssaaarrrraaaa!"
One more day!

The lasts

As each day gets closer to the end, we all get more and more sad. Yesterday I had all of the students write a letter to me. Today they gave them to me, and they were beautiful. One lady came and sat next to me. She is very quiet, because her English is not good. She wanted to read her letter to me personally. She began to read. At the end, she said, "There is A LOT more I want to say to you, but I can't. It's too hard to find the vocabulary. I'm so sorry..." She cried. In general, the Chinese people don't show affection. They hardly ever say "I love you." To hear that from so many students really is special. I opened one letter, and the equivalent of a $100 bill fell out! The woman said she wanted to get me a gift, but she is not allowed off campus. She said, "This is the best that I can do for you right now." I know that is a lot of money for her! It's almost like the words "thank you" aren't good enough.
Four more days and I will be home! So close. I'm excited for the airport and the plane ride, even though it's 13 hours. I like to fly. I will go start packing :)

I ventured to a Bakery to buy a cake for our class party on Wednesday. It took me 20 minutes for the woman to guess what day I wanted it on! Then it took another 10 to tell her what time I would come to pick it up. Hopefully there really will be a cake for me when I go! I suppose if there is no cake, I will run to the store and we will celebrate with Hostess upcakes, with chopsticks of course :)

P.S. My favorite student's name this session is Dinosaur. Hah!...Dinosaur...You can hardly call his name seriously.

One more added

I am reading the journals again, and I have some that I must share. These are their exact words.

On August 20th, Alice said, “I feel like time is driving so quickly. Now I wish it would go slower. I don’t want to come to the end.”

August 18th, Betty said, “ I will have a daughter. I have a son now. If I have two children they can play together. They will share their happy and sad things…But our Chinese are allowed have only one child every family. So this is only my dream. I think it will never come true.”

August 20th, Susan said, “ We talked a lot of things in our classroom. Sara let us disguess (discuss ) some questions. I think it is hard to say befor. I have never thought these gueses (questions). From today I know so many things about myself.”

August 17th, Carolyn wrote, “Our teacher returned last week’s journal to us. She writed down, ‘You’re doing great! You can do it!’ When I saw these I’m very happy. I know my oral English is very poor, but my teacher is very friendly to me. I can hear clearly these encourage. I will remember you told me, ‘You can do it.’”

I so happy to say, last night I received a new sister in the family of God! One of the first nights of this program, I went to this room and met a girl named Kerensa, which she pronounces Karissa  She is not one of my students, but from then on, we always had some sort of connection. She is 32, and has the sweetest and funniest personality. Last night she came over and we sat outside on our dorm steps for a couple hours talking. She said, “You have such a big heart. You are the best kind of beautiful.” She asked why all of the Americans here are to kind. I told her maybe because we are Christians. She said, “When I go home, I am going to read the Bible so I can be like that too.” It’s a long story, but somehow at the end of the night, she made the decision to become a Christian. Her teacher, my roommate, came out after, and I asked KArissa to tell her teacher the good news. She smiled “I am a Ch, Chris, Christian!” She couldn’t even pronounce the word, but it was the most truly joyful moment for me. She just kept saying, “I believe. I believe.”
When I started talking to her last night, I had no idea that’s where it would end up! I was totally caught off guard. I guess that’s the difference between my timing and God’s timing. She said, “I am so full!”
At the beginning of my time here I thought I would get to share a lot about being a Christian. I realize that the opportunities are few and far between. But if she was the only one, it would be worth my time here in China. She is truly special. It makes me sad to think about her, a brand new Christian going back home. She will stuggle, I know…

My roommate left today. It was so cool to get to know her here. We don’t know everything about each other, but it didn’t matter. She was a kind of friend I’ve never had before. We went through so much together. We are the only ones who understand each other because we had the same experiences. So many memories. I will probably never see her again, but it’s ok, because we shared everything. We were much needed friends during these two months.

Almost there

Well I'm almost a week away from the end. I think I will be ready to come home. Three of my friends are leaving this week, because they have to go home early. They have all been here for 2 months also, so it will be hard to say goodbye to them. We kind of clung to each other because we were in it for the long stretch.
Things I am excited to do at home:
-Eat American food (Chinese Cafeteria food is getting kind of old)
-See my family
-Eat deserts
-Play the piano
-Get on Facebook (since it's blocked in China)
-Sleep on my bed

There are still quite a few things on my list to do here though too. I want to get my haircut here (hopefully it turns out ok!). I went shopping today. I was really excited to get "The purpose driven Life" for my Christian student. I hope she hasn't read it yet. It's funny because I just feel like buying all of my students things, but I shouldn't because it would be expensive. I almost feel like Chinese money is play money since things are so cheap. That is a bad mindset to have! :)
A new group from Oregon came a few days ago on a trip from their church. I talked to one older man for quite a while one evening. He was telling me that he had been to China 3 times. He was talking about things here. But I did not agree with a lot of what he said. He had only stayed here for 2 weeks each time. He did not realize that it takes about a month here before you hit the wall and realize that like every country, there are some problems. I do love the people here! But, honestly, I don't think that I will be back to China. I want to explore other parts of the world. It's hard to tell my students that I won't be back, because of course they all want me to come visit their hometowns. They say, "Welcome to my hometown!" This is what we call Chinglish (a mix between Chinese and English). They mean, you are welcome in my hometown. At first when they all said this I would think it was so funny, but now it seems normal and I almost forget it's chinglish!
I suppose nothing too exciting has happened in the last few days. Hopefully I will have some more good stories as the days come to an end here. I'll write back soon!

Journals

This afternoon I have the day off, so I am sitting in Starbucks reading my students journals. I feel like a real teacher! I have always wanted to grade school work in a coffee shop :) It's funny because here in Starbucks there are probably more foreigners than Chinese people. I am sitting next to two Americans who are debating politics and Obama. BORING. These journals are amazing. They have such limited vocabulary, but their words are so powerful. It's funny to read the things that they say about me. It's strange that small conversations with them have such an impact. A student that I'm not particularly close with said, "You are changing me from the inside." Woah.
It's sad to think that I only have 12 more days in China. I will be ready to go home, but I feel like I have so much work to do here before I leave. I have a feeling some of it will go unfinished. Just like the kids camp, it started badly, but now it is wonderful. It's so amazing how things can change in only 6 days. They are getting braver, and they are interacting all the time now. Each one has formed close friendships in the classroom. I feel like a proud mother, as I watch them help and encourage each other. Group work is the key. They feel so much more confident when they see that the others are putting themselves out there too.
At the end of the session each one will give a speech. I told them that I would give one too, as an example. Oh boy, what did I get myself into? I don't know what to speak about yet.
I've decided when I teach in the states I will use a microphone! I have a soar throat every day from talking so much and so loudly.

Through a window

The other night, a few of us who stayed for both session were feeling a little discouraged. I was about to go to bed, but two of them asked me if I wanted to go with them to go sing and jam out in the middle of the basketball court. So we ended up sitting out there for 2 hours justing singing praying, and enjoying the 5 Beijing stars in the sky :)(because of pollution). We were thinking, here we are sitting in China, a communist country singing worship songs and praying. We have all the freedom in the world at home, and none of us do this at home. Hmm... Then we discovered that the gates to our dorms closed at 11:00, so we had to crawl in a back window!
Yesterday I had my class cut out magazine pictures and paste them on a paper to describe themselves. Then they came to the front to tell us about their picture. One man, the lowest in our class, came to the front obviously very nervous because his english level is so low. He had glued a picture of a woman in a hospital bed, and had written the word, "HELP!" next to it. He said, "I know my english is very poor. Please help me! I need you to help!" Wow, what do you say to that!? I know he doesn't understand a lot of what I say in class, but he is the happiest guy. He is always in a good mood and always smiling. At meals he is always sitting next to an American because even though he can't understand a lot, he wants to try and listen. He thinks maybe just by listening he can get better. I have never seen students so motivated to learn. I have something (English) that they want so desperately. There is a big difference in the high and low students. I think my low students are so much more grateful and receptive to learning. Most of them this time are poor, so they are so glad for any help that they can get!

I'm back!

Now I am back at the old campus. When we arrived back from the kids camp, our rooms had changed and they had moved all of our stuff. The rooms are about the same, but the building is a little worse. There is a cat with fleas in our building, and every time it rains the bottom floor floods  Bummer.
It was so hard to leave the kids. It’s funny, because my first day with the kids I hated it, because all they could not even say the abcs and recite the numbers 123. I thought it would be impossible to teach them. The last day that we left, it was really tough. They cried, and I cried! It’s crazy that in only 2 weeks you can get so close to them. I think I get attached much more to the children than the adults. It is hard to explain, but I felt and gave a kind of love that I have never felt before. Why is it so much easier to love in China? I never really thought of myself as a hard-hearted person in America, but here, I am so open to loving them. My favorite student that I really got attached to was a little 9 year old boy named Jack. He was a troublemaker, but he also was really sweet. He would always call my name from across the room, “Helwo Saywah!!!” Man, how can you not melt at that!? He always shared his umbrella with me, and saved a seat for me. SO sweet! It really got to me when I left, because my thought on the way home was, these young children are so beautiful, but there is no one in their life to tell them about Jesus. They do not know any Christians. Who will tell them? I feel like I missed the opportunity, but it is so hard because they are so young to hear the gospel explained in a second language! It’s hard to know that I will never see them again in this life…and what about in heaven…? I don’t know. I must trust that God loves them much more than I do, and I hope he will send a Christian into their lives.
I have started teaching the next batch of adult students. I have the lowest level English speakers, so it is definitely a challenge! I miss the conversations I had with my last group of adults. I know it will be a good last couple of weeks, but it’s hard to stay positive when they can’t understand me. I will learn to love them in a different way.
My team is really not unified at all. The new team has such varying personalities that it is hard to connect with them. I know it will be good, but I’m a little discouraged about that also. Because the team is not bonded, I will try to spend all of my time with the students. I want to pour my all into these last couple weeks.
Rose came to church on Sunday! Wow. It turns out that she only lives one block from the church! I am still so surprised that she came. She didn’t understand a lot of the things that we do in church, but she said she really liked the music. She said, “It looks like the man leading worship is very excited!”  She began crying at one point, so I know God really is working on her. She is already talking about coming back next week. Yes! We got to go out to lunch with her after to ask her what she thought. It’s cool because the first session I didn’t feel like God was doing very much. I suppose it was work all behind the scenes. In the last few weeks, it is like something is visible every day! It is so cool to watch. I feel like so much has changed in me in just the last couple of weeks. I am learning to love in a whole new way.
I am starting to wonder how the move back to America will be. Will it be hard to go back? I know it will be tough, because no one will understand. They will not understand all of the experiences that I had. I can’t really explain all that has happened during my time here in China. I am so afraid that I will forget… I can’t forget! I tried to write everything down in a journal so that I can remember everything that I experienced. Alright, class time now!

Gospel

The coolest thing happened yesterday! I was sitting on a desk during one of our classes breaks, when Rose (my interpreter) came up to me and out of the clear blue said, “Sara, do you read the Bible?” I told her I did. She asked me if I brought the Bible with me. Shoot, I had left it at the other campus on accident. She said that she wanted to read the Bible. I told her I had an extra and that I would let her keep one if she wanted. I think tomorrow I will go to the Christian bookstore and get a Chinese/English Bible so that she will be able to understand it even more. She asked me if I really believed in God. As we were talking, the kids were wild, throwing paper airplanes and shouting, so I figured this probably wasn’t the place to bust out the gospel. I asked her if she wanted to talk about it in my room later. She said she would come at 8:30. Great! I still wasn’t convinced that she would come, because it seemed almost too easy. This is the first time that anyone has ever come up to me and asked me to share with them what I believe.
Sure enough, at 8:30 she came in. We started talking and she told me that for the past 3 years she has been searching for something. She said about once a month she goes out looking for something to believe in. She has been asking her friends for answers, but they don’t have any. She told me that she tries to fill her life with so much busyness that she has no time to think. It is when there is time to think that she feels empty. She told me that sometimes she just wants to sleep forever, but you can’t, so she goes to bars to drink. I asked her if that worked for her, and she said it does for a few days, but then she feels even worse.
She said she feels like there is no purpose in her life. She just gets up, goes to work, comes home, goes to sleep and does it all over again. She said that she needs some hope, something to believe in. It’s strange that she is so hungry for something, that last night she went to the store and bought a physics book to read. She said she just wants to read something, hoping that she will find the answer.
My roommate Natah was there at the beginning of the discussion, but then she was called away by one of the kids. That left me to share the gospel with Rose alone. I was a little scared. It’s scary to think that I am her first impression of Christianity. She had so many questions that I did not know how to answer. I tried my best, and hopefully God will use something that I said to impact her.
It’s frustrating because she kept saying, “Oh that’s wonderful…” but she didn’t seem to want it for herself. It’s like she was saying “oh that’s great for YOU.” It was a little bit hard for me to understand the way she feels. I think I understand what she meant, but it is hard to imagine that complete emptiness and purposelessness that she feels. If all of this came out of her so easily on the surface, just think what is beneath the surface!
Then today, Natah and I went the coffee shop on campus with one of the younger students. She was wearing a Buddah necklace, she we asked her if she was Buddist. That opened up a really cool conversation with her about what she believes, and what we believe. Her English is very poor, so it is really hard to communicate using words that she understands. She has an electronic dictionary, so at least one word in every sentence she looked up. It took a long time to talk. I left, but Natah is still there talking to her right now!
I was getting a little antsy, because I didn’t really see God at work in China until this week. I heard all of the cool stories about my teammates witnessing to people and sharing with them, but I really didn’t have any of my own. I was thinking, “Ok God, I’m ready. Am I doing something wrong here?” But apparently I wasn’t ready yet. I think my 4 day trip to Shenzhen opened my eyes to a lot of things. The 10 hours in the car gave me plenty of time to think about things. Maybe God needed me to go through all of that before I was ready for anything else. It’s amazing that within 2 days, we have been able to share with 2 people. God is at work! He was just working behind the scenes before.
Today, Rose came up to me and asked me what time church starts on Sunday. She will meet us there. She told me that last night she quit the communist party! When I asked why, she said she just didn’t think it was right anymore. So, now she is free to be a Christian, because if you are a communist you must be an atheist.

Good and bad

The next day we drove to one of my student’s hometown. When we got there, we stayed at her sister’s family’s house and ate lunch. Then we went white water rafting! It was so fun. It’s funny because they told me we were going floating, which sounds like a lazy river and really relaxing. Then it ended up being white water rafting! So cool. I was pretty much the tourist attraction, because there are no Americans in this city. They all kept saying hello, and they wanted to take my picture with them. My friends kept saying, “Sara, you’re a star!” Hah, only in China  Then later in the evening we hiked up a mountain that was lit up really cool at night.
The next day we traveled to my other student’s hometown. It was about a 2 hour drive. On the way we had some interesting conversations. They were asking me when people in America start to date. I had had this conversation with another student, so I kind of knew where it was going. I found out that it is assumed that every couple in China has sex. They were shocked to hear that some people in American wait until marriage. Then they were asking me about abortion in America. They thought it was really bad that some states don’t allow abortions. I asked in China what happens if a woman is pregnant with a second baby. The one student said matter-of-factly, “you get rid of it!” My heart sank. Wow. Man, even thinking about her saying that makes me sad. Then I got to thinking about how empty China is. Without God, they really have no purpose! It’s really quite depressing.
When we got to her hometown, we went to a tea farm. I learned how to pick tea leaves! Unfortunately I don’t like tea, but I was “forced” to drink some and say I like it  It was REALLY strong. Yuck. Then we went to a limestone cave. It was really interesting and beautiful. It made me wonder why God would make something so beautiful and hide it in a cave like that. I guess maybe for His own glory, and then he was humbly excited when someone found it one day. It was awesome. Then we went to this friend’s house in the mountains. I had a fight with the mosquitoes and they won 14 bites to 0. Bummer. As we hiked a little bit of the mountain, they showed me how to cut down baby bamboo to eat. It didn’t look so delicious to me, but whatever!
At dinner, we sat in the restaurant for hours. At 9:30, they decided we should go to a hot spring. So we went, but it was about an hour away. I had fallen asleep and was ready for bed by the time we got there at 10:30. It was really cool because we swam in the mountain pools. It was all lit really pretty at night. Then we swam in a pool in a cave! It doesn’t get much cooler than that. I was a little (ok a lot) frustrated that we didn’t get to a hotel until 1:30, knowing that I had to get up early this morning to drive to the airport.
I learned a lot about patience and trust on this trip. It was frustrated because my student was the only one who spoke English, so I was at her mercy to translate some things that were said. So most of the time I had no idea where we were going or when until we were there. I’m kind of a planner, so this was tough. Also, I knew I had to be to the airport by 2:30 today, and we were 5 hours away from the airport. So last night (at 1:30 in the morning) I asked what time we would be leaving for Shenzhen. She said, “Oh, maybe about 10:30.” I knew that we needed to leave by 9:00 to get the airport on time. Time really isn’t an issue for them. I pretty much flat out said, “We need to leave by 9:00 to get there on time. I knew that we needed to leave by 9:00 to get the airport on time. Time really isn’t an issue for them. I pretty much flat out said, “We need to leave by 9:00 to get there on time. I hated telling my hosts what to do, but that would be a lot of money if I missed my flight.
So we left this morning at 9:00 and got to the airport early! Yes! But then, they thought we were too early, so we went for a LONG lunch  I kept looking at my watch and she kept telling me “don’t worry about the time. It will be ok.” Ahh. It was a lesson on trust. We did get there on time.
A phrase that I will not miss in China is, “That is bad for your health.” Oh man. It seems like everything I do here is bad for my health! First, when we went rafting, she thought it was bad for my health that I didn’t take a shower immediately after. For the next 3 hours she kept asking me if I wanted to take a shower now. Umm, not really  I was going to wait until night. Then yesterday at the hot spring, I took a shower after to please her. But then they had dryers for you to dry your hair. Well, if I dry my hair curly, it will turn into a fro, so I just put it in a pony tail. She looked at me and said, “Your hair is still wet!” When I told her I would just go to bed with it wet, she was shocked! She said it was bad for my health. I just smiled and said, “It’ll be ok.” She brought it up three more times on the way to the hotel and said, “I don’t know how you’re going to go to fall asleep with your wet hair!” Haha. Well, I woke up this morning alive, so I guess it is ok. I don’t want to be rude, but I also want to do things my own way sometimes.
But I should not complain, because they were wonderful hosts. I pretty much tagged along on their family vacation around their province. They paid for everything, food, hotel, activities… When I tried to give money she got mad! She said that is the Chinese way. They were so generous!
I am so glad I got to see the countryside! It was pretty much what I was expecting, but still shocking to see. That is the most poverty I had ever seen. The farmers work by hand, sometimes with a cow pulling the plow. They go barefoot and pull up the rice from the rice paddies. It’s pretty amazing that people still farm like that! The living conditions are really bad. Most of the time their house is just a shack with a grass or tin roof caving in. The view is amazing! I love to see the country because it’s so simple and beautiful. I didn’t realize how much I miss the country until I saw it. I think city life is really the same anywhere you go.
Tomorrow I will go back to teach the kids!

A new city

I have had quite an incredible last few days. First of all, I am in the middle of teaching middle school students for two weeks. The first few days were terrible! They barely speak any English (some not even 1,2,3 and A,B,C) so it makes it so difficult to teach them speaking only English. I am so thankful to have an interpreter in the room to translate pretty much each sentence I say! As you can imagine, it’s hard to think of things for these 9-16 year old children to do when some of them have had only 1 year of elementary English! But, by the end of the first 4 days, I loved it! Somehow we bonded through all of it, and it was really fun. They think it is so cool that their teacher lives in the dorm with them, and that I invite them to play Uno (which is a huge hit) in my room after class time. They really are having fun.
These past four days I had off, so I made a spontaneous decision to fly to Shenzhen to visit some of my students from last session! I just had the best four days! The first day, they took me to this tourist attraction called Splendid China, which are many models of the famous places in all of China. At night, there were many shows. These were so cool! They were shows where they did all of the tribal dances, and wore outfits that the Chinese people used to wear. In one of the smaller shows, they asked audience members to participate. Because I was the only white person there (I stuck out like a soar thumb) and they made me get up on stage and learn a Chinese dance in front of everyone. Mom, you feel my pain!  Oh well, at least I provided them a lot of entertainment! There was also this water festival thing going on, where all of the companies in the area come together and dump water on each other after this big presentation. I’m not sure why they do this, but it was cool to watch anyway.
That night, I stayed in one of my student’s apartments. There was no air conditioning, and it is SO hot here. I thought Beijing’s 104 degrees what hot, but I now have a new definition of hot! You walk outside and you are dripping with sweat. She asked me if I wanted to take a shower. Perfect! Yes! Well, I went into her bathroom, and the shower was a bucket full of cold water! Hmmm. Ok, so I managed to somehow wash my hair in this bucket, but as I stuck my head down in the bucket, I saw a cockroach scurry across the floor! Oh man. Thank goodness there was a mosquito net around the bed (really just a board on the floor), so the cockroach couldn’t get me. What an experience. Well, I will have to write more later because my battery is about to run out. The next few days were even more exciting!