Snow in Hunan

Minnesotans, you won't be impressed, but Hunan province got the most snow it's seen in forty years. The weight of the wet snow caused many large tree branches to break. Walking around campus, it looks like a winter hurricane, and the grounds maintenance guys are going to be chopping the downed wood 'til summer.

From our fourth-floor window, Drew made snowballs to snipe out some innocent passer-byers on the road below. Titus did go downstairs to play in the snow on a few occasions.

Speaking of heavy snowfall, a friend of mine is living and teaching here: Little Diomede island, population like 120, in the Bering Straight. Yah, see the base of the mountain, that's actually the frozen sea. The next rock over is Russia. Drew was wondering if she can walk to Russia? Looks like the land bridge theory checks out.

Visitors from India and Japan

Katie Sue, a cousin, lives in northern India. She happened to be in Shanghai and came to visit us for 24 hours last week. She's our second family visitor since we've lived in China. The first was cousin Karin who came last winter, and oddly, we took Karin and Katie Sue on the same excursion -- climbing a small mountain and sliding down the chute.

The next day Katie Sue flew back to Shanghai and we boarded an overnight sleeper train to Hong Kong. The trip was fine despite the (very nice) drunk guy on the bunk above us.

In Hong Kong we met up with Drew's older brother Paul, a marine currently working in Okinawa. Hong Kong is a special place because Paul & Drew's dad spent 10 years of his childhood here, as his father was a surgeon at Evangel Hospital. Our third and last day in Hong Kong we located the hospital, still existent today, and the address of a former residence. When dad was a kid he patronized this Star Ferry; I wonder if he found it to be as delightful as Titus did?

Hong Kong is shockingly unlike mainland China -- it's clean, rich, and very diverse. Outside our hostel, we kept wondering why there were so many Pakistanis. Then we passed the gigantic mosque. On one city block you can run into a hundred nationalities and languages. We found that, in this international community, sometimes our English was more helpful than our Mandarin Chinese. We were just dumbfounded at how Western the city feels -- cars are big and drive really fast, in their lanes, no jaywalkers, Starbucks is on every corner, clean playgrounds, people queue up; it doesn't feel like China at all. Another shocking difference: I was amazed to see special needs children in public.

Hong Kong is an advanced and beautiful city, but I found it's wealth to be repulsive. The gap between rich and poor makes me so angry. Fancy hotels, handbag and jewelry stores, exorbitant restaurants...to the natural eye these are lovely, pristine and comfortable. But in reality it's all very disgusting. There was a mother sitting on the ground in the subway, holding her baby girl and begging for a coin while upstairs billions of dollars of commerce is going on. Outrage. I've read my Father's feelings about this, and let me tell ya, He is ticked about it too.

St. Andrew's Anglican church welcomed us on Sunday, including a fantastic kids' class for Titus. He made a paper plate cotton ball sheep. I loved hearing the liturgy in British English.

Below: The local fare is sweeter and far less spicy that Changsha's chow. Guangdong residents are known for having one of the broadest palettes in the world. My first chicken foot was tasty.

February 2009

January 2011

By far the best part was three days of lovely weather and walking along the waterfront with Uncle Paul, enjoying Titus' excitement over the boats! Thank you Abba for filling our life with good times like these.

Big Step in The Journey

After months of consultation, procrastination and deliberation, we've decided Michael's Chinese name.

艾迈程

Ai Mai Cheng

I'll break it down for you.

艾 Ai: (our family surname) "fragrant grass"

迈 Mai: (given name) "a step"

程 Cheng: (given name) "journey"

Good features about this name include:

- It's definitely a boy's name

- It has a good meaning, "a step in the journey"

- Some phonetic similarity to Michael

- people like it

Here's how he fits into our family then:

艾安祝 Ai Anzhu (Drew) fragrant grass - peace - blessing

艾睿秋 Ai Ruiqiu (Rachel) fragrant grass - discernment - autumn

艾泰德 Ai Taide (Titus) fragrant grass - great - morality

艾迈程 Ai Maicheng (Michael) fragrant grass - step - journey

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.