An American with a heart for the nations.
"And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me!" -- Isaiah 6:8
Email: chinaroadie-at-gmail.com
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Seen in Hong Kong on Cheung Chau Island
Beauty and the Beast. Here is a typical restroom facility on the train.
If you look carefully, you can see daylight out of that hole!
The day before the new term begins, there is just so much to do. Yet I am sitting in front of this computer surfing the web. I should be ironing my shirts for next week. First impressions are important. I just finished typing out and printing a fun activity for the first day of class.
It's a kind of interview activity where each student has to find someone different and ask them questions like if they've ever eaten pizza, seen an English movie in the past month, things like that. Should be good for an ice breaker and some follow up.
We've been doing some praying as far as our decision goes to serve another year here. I don't feel called home yet, but question our return. I am convicted that there is much powere in much prayer. I just want to feel God 's peace for coming back in spite of the difficulties. I could dwell on all the hardships that one could endure here, but that wouldn't be giving the glory to the Lord.
I just finished reading an most excellant biography on James Fraser. You can resd the reader's digest version on James O. Fraser. A fascinating life in service to God and China. His life is truly inspirational. He spent over forty years in Yunnan province among the Lisu people.
Back to ironing.
Hong Kong
Cheung Chau Back Street
The honey colored moon is just peeking over the neighboring flats. The trash just went out. Very chilly outside. I really have to time taking out the trash just right. If I take it out too early in the morning, the trash tractor usually hasn't arrived yet. This means that the trash I throw into the bin is subject to a free-for-all. There are dozens of people who come around digging through the bins looking for anything and everything.
Nothing is wasted here in China. For lunch I like eating instant ramen noodles. I found a good spicy flavored brand that's enjoyable. It happens to come in a tub that serves as its own bowl. I noticed that people dig these out of the trash cans and recycle them for the cardboard. Any glass or plastic bottle is up for grabs as well. After living in Oregon, recycling seems second nature. So I leave out all the cardboard, plastic, and glass items out of the bin. This way folks don't have to dig in there as much.
It still seems strange that people are digging trough all my debris. So I make the late night run to the trash.
Today is the last day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. The fireworks were incredible this evening. I just couldn't believe how much there was going on! The kids enjoyed watching the fireworks, but the temperature was getting too cold to stay out too long.
So, this morning in preparation for next semester's teaching I got myself sheared. I always plan on going to the barber more often, but time has that way of slipping away. I never know how it'll turn out, but just so long as it's short I don't care. For only 10Y kuai ($1.25US) you can't go too far wrong. I must have made the appropriate hand gestures, because I got it cut alot shorter this time. When the guy was done, I gave him the thumbs-up sign and a hearty hen hao, he was satisfied as well.
Afterwards, I thought I would get some exercise and decided to walk a bit up Mt. Tai. It took me about 20 minutes to get to the Stone Sutra Valley turn-off. Then I took a break and made my way back down. I answered every "hello" and was determined to speak to anyone who spoke English to me. I was met with someone who wanted to sell me some little budha statues for a kuai. I told him no thanks, I don't want it in Chinese. Then he must have thought I could speak Chinese and went on at length about something. I think he wanted to sell the statues so he could buy some beer from what I thought I understood.
I did manage to get some good shots with the digital. Hopefully the black & white shots will come out ok with the film camera as well. When I tried to take a photo of the gold budha, a guy told me photos weren't permitted. I'm satisfied with what I got.
Lets try one with tinypic.com
Ok, lets keep trying this. Apparently Photobucket works/doesn't work.
New Years Eve we had a a few things planned. Nothing major. No staying up late for me. But a few relaxing things to enjoy the holiday. Get the kids cleaned up, pop in a video, and make some popcorn we brought from the States!
This was going to be a nice evening. Except the school had different plans. These plans called for a 3 hour blackout. Normally these power outages only last for a few minutes to fifteen minutes maximum. Usually not a problem. But three hours? Not much fun.
When the power goes out, so does the water. No video, and no popcorn!
What does one do without power? What people have always done! Tell stories, and make hand shadows on the wall! I bought one of those ultra-cool hi-tech LED flashlights in Beijing that give off a blue tint. Unfortunately the batteries were dim. So thought I would experiment by taking some pictures with my digital camera, and my photo on this blog is the reult! Alivia and Asher also got into the spirit and made scary faces as well.
The power eventually came back on, but it was too late for the movie and popcorn. We planned on having it the next day. Guess what? A power outage again! but this time only for an hour and a half! We were able to see our movie at last --- a pirated copy of Polar Express that someone lent us! A very good movie, but the quality of these pirated movies is very bad.
A couple days later we went without electricity again. This time it was just our building. It only took another 1 1/2 hours to get it fixed.
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