The Church In China

Dear Friends,

“Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?” Thankfully, we all have limitless life to look forward to where the cost has been paid.
We flew here to China and feel like we’ve been flying with the time ever since! Thankfully, the University administration gave us time to recover from jet lag and settle in before a week of meetings and planning. Then Foreign-Teacher classes (i.e. ours) started last Monday, while ---son1--- home-school began. We’re each teaching several classes of Cross-Cultural Communication again. Junior English Majors (classes of 60 students each), and 2 classes of Sophomore English (25 students each) to pilot our character-based textbook we wrote in the spring and summer. Even though our voices and bodies get tired sometimes from teaching, our minds and hearts have been invigorated and we enjoy “being back in the saddle” again. One fun thing about being a 2nd-year teacher is having friends we met last year become our students now. No favoritism, but it’s nice to have these clients, as well as a few others in our classes.
Speaking of being 2nd-year folks now-- We really feel like sophomores as compared to feeling like freshmen last year. It’s been such a delight to know what to do (mostly), where to go, and be welcomed back by friends, both Chinese and foreign. At the same time, the Boss has brought new friends into our lives to know and love as well as mentor. Last weekend we volunteered to welcome the new, incoming, freshmen—exactly one year after we arrived the same day as the freshmen(!)
Our Thursday. evening manual-study/sharing group started again. This semester, so far at least, the boss has directed us to focus on clients who need and want further development. Some are folks from last year who became new clients in our group, some are others we’ve known who were looking for a group, and a couple are friends we just met. The times we’ve met as a group have been meaningful and joyful both. As we coalesce, our hope is to develop a stronger sense of group identity and openness within the group. Or, as some wise authors have put it, experience an “environment of grace and relationships of trust”. Some folks have already been brave enough to share openly from their lives and have been affirmed in that.
As for The International Corp. here, we’ve met a few times so far and done the basic corp.-meeting-type stuff—all of which we really enjoy. --name-man-- and two other guys will rotate on the speaking, while --name-lady-- and some others will be leading honoring-music (we hope to develop a couple of different teams). These times have been meaningful as well, and, as we’ve shared, we’re still hoping to start at least one small group within that corporate structure.
Yes, we still care very much about “eating out” with non-clients, although at this point we don’t have a specific group for that. Instead we’ve spent time with them taking walks, having them over, playing basketball, swimming, etc. We do the same with our client friends, and when they mix, that’s really best, as we’ve been encouraging and training clients to share with their friends.
Something we asked many of you to ask the Boss for, and he provided: more local-Chinese and international contact-- Among the foreign teachers now there are: a new –ethnic-- couple with two small kids (strong client-recruiters); a –ethnic-- lady and her husband (not clients) 6 month-old baby, and her mother from another –location-- who doesn’t speak any English (she’s here to help take care of the baby). Add to that a –ethnic-- young lady who speaks Spanish, Chinese and only a little English (client), and a new –ethnic-- couple. Plus the –ethnic’s-- from last year. It’s getting to be a regular linguistic and cultural smorgasbord around here  --name-lady-- especially has found it fun and useful to practice and learn more Chinese and Spanish with these new folks (not attempting the other languages).
We’re also discovering more ways to get into the community, such as an invitation to play b-ball with both guys and girls (all ages) from the state corp. Yes, there’s hope for learning Chinese! Especially with the help of one new friend, a lady we met when we first returned—sent straight from the Boss; --name--, who teaches Chinese here and is teaching --name-lady-- twice a week. We found out she’s a client too and will join our group.
--son1-- received a very warm welcome from his “little brother” friends here and has found his way into the hearts of teachers as well. His favorite activities are ultimate Frisbee, basketball, ping-pong, and chess. So far he’s doing well with school too. Our main concern with him is the need for more structure, client-wise and extra-curricular.
--son2--, meanwhile, has totally taken-off as a sophomore at Cedarville—leading honoring-music, playing in the college coffeehouse, involved in the activities-committee, sports, etc. He totally loves his courses this semester too.
Joys: 1)Opportunities and times of mentoring friends from last year—mainly taking walks or taking them out to dinner—one-on-one or two/three-on-two; 2)Chinese friends of all ages around here now, as well as other internationals; 3)Good classes; 4)Improvement in Chinese.
Concerns: 1)Not-yet-clients; 2)Boss’s wisdom in teaching classes and other times; 3)For –son1-- spiritual and physical health and growth. 4)Health in general—for ex., --name-lady-- had vocal trouble again from pollution and allergies; 5)--son2---- requested better time-management (something all of us need); 6)For the workers to finish renovating our dorm-suite so we can move back in. It will be nice to “nest” and we appreciate the renovation, even though it’s been slow-going. 7)Piloting (developing, teaching and editing) the project.

As always, we look forward to hearing your joys and concerns, ups and downs, of life.
Shalom (in every sense).