Life as I know it

Well my dear friends. It has been a while since I last updated. It is mainly because life is becoming normal to me. Going to the grocery store is no longer an adventure; it is just like going to the grocery store in America, except I can’t read anything.

Two weekends ago, I went to Zhoushen (No clue if that is spelled correctly.) on an outreach trip with my small group. We went to a Presbyterian church that is there to create relationships with the church members. We had worship time and Kevin shared his testimony. We also had English teaching time where the foreigners led a small group discussion time about God and his attributes. My group was really cool, but some of the teenagers didn’t speak any English. I did have an assistant who translated for them when needed.

After the initial outreach, we went and toured the church and the surrounding area. They took us to a cool suspension bridge, which was a lot of fun. We went back to the church and ate dinner which was DELICIOUS!! I played some games with the kids that they taught me and made buddies with a little girl named Amy! She is really cool and has pretty good English.

One of the coolest things to me is how universal love and laughter are! At dinner I was sitting with some women who didn’t understand much of what I said, and I definitely couldn’t understand them! But we sat there and laughed together. I have no idea what was so funny, but their laughter was so contagious! Sometimes you just need to laugh and this was one of those days!

School continues to be good and frustrating. I really enjoy the high school. The Jr. High is touch and go. It mainly boils down to my co-teachers. My high school co-teachers are EXCELLENT! I love them. They are fun and helpful and tell me exactly what I do right and wrong. Now the Jr. High teachers are more ambivalent. When I ask what they want me to teach, I am told, “Whatever you want.” So I try to come up with a fun lesson plan that involves teaching the months of the year only to be told, “No, you need to follow the book.” But I thought I could do whatever I want. “Yes, In the book, you can do whatever you want.” “OK. Can I teach this?” “No… teach grammar.” Just a tad confusing. And then they don’t do a lot of translating so the kids are left listening to me with blank looks on their faces cause they don’t understand what I am saying. But I am learning what they want and what I have to do.

My English Conversation Club is also hard because the kids in it are so quiet. They don’t talk back at all and are VERY shy. They don’t even talk to my co-teacher when she asks questions in Chinese… Both Sunny and I are almost at a loss at what to do with this class.

Most of the kids are delightful. They are really fascinated by me and they are so nice. Today is Teacher’s Day and every class has told me Happy Teacher’s Day and has given me cards and apples and candy. In America, I wouldn’t eat the candy or apple because I would be afraid it would be poisoned. Here, it is a nice gesture.