Drew's Christmas Day Duet with Fancy

I like Christmas in China. Although there is heartache from missing the company of our families, it's delightful sharing the holiday with Chinese brothers and sisters. And this year we gave small gifts to some of our neighbors who seriously have no clue who JC is. It was a natural chance to open that topic.

Christmas Eve we threw a rockin' party for our 20+ pals who have been in studies this fall. For them, Emmanuel has just become significant. Titus and Mike get loads of love from our friends! They received several gifts; my favorite was a set of bilingual storybooks about King David, with this note:

Hey Tide & Michael:

Merry Christmas!

Hope you to be faithful, brave, a peacemaker, and keep your promises Just like King David of Israel. or better than him.

Your Friend: Shijian

Christmas Day morning there was a long program with many singers, dancers and storytellers at the Chinese Three-Self Church. (If you're not sure what that is, may I suggest reading the wikipedia page.)

Since foreigners are welcome at Three-Self, Drew's been helping with their weekly English corner, which was invited to prepare an act for the Christmas Day program. Lucky Drew was asked to sing a duet with a cute Chinese girl, English name Fancy, for the song When A Child is Born. Titus, Michael and I were in the audience and, oh boy, we can tell you that it was tickling to see pops singing with Fancy!

The English choir also sang Shine JC Shine, an equally amusing show. We had such a merry time!

Good job Drew!

In the evening our fellow foreign teachers ate brunch for supper and exchanged gifts. I'll take this op to introduce you to our 2010-2011 team.

Three single ladies on the left, starting back left and moving clockwise:

Leslie (team leader, Indiana, 5th year in China)

Stephanie (California, 2nd year in China)

Lenea (Indiana, 1st year in China)

Our family in the middle.

And a new family on the right:

Jon & Jen (North Carolina)

Lydia (18 months old)

Micah (3 1/2 years old)

After Christmas we eased our heartache by talking on skype with family back in the States. It's certainly inferior to sharing their company, but I'm thankful for a clear, live picture of their familiar faces on the computer screen.